Joe Johnston Filmography

Occupation:: Art Director, Director, Production Designer
Biography:: Getting his start in film as an effects technician on the original Star Wars (1977), it should come as no surprise that director Joe Johnston is generally drawn toward movies that lay it on pretty thick in the special effects and fantasy department. After all, Johnston would move on to work on...Read More

Current News:: `Jumanji' director Johnston does `Captain America'
Nov. 10, 2008 2:58 PM ET (AP)

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The First Avenger: Captain America

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Marvel Studios brings their prodigious patriot to the big screen with this WWII-set adventure regarding a once-meek U.S. soldier-turned-hero thanks to an experimental super serum, granting strength and agility far beyond a normal human being. The Wolfman's Joe Johnston directs from a script by Read More

5/6/11
The Wolfman

Crew: Director

Actors: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving

Synopsis: Universal Studios resurrects the classic lycanthrope with this tale of an American who experiences an unsettling transformation after returning to his ancestral home in Victorian-era Great Britain and being attacked by a rampaging werewolf. His brother having recently vanished without a trace Read More

4/3/09
Hidalgo

Crew: Director

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, Louise Lombard, Saïd Taghmaoui, Peter Mensah

Synopsis: Actor Viggo Mortensen made his first starring appearance in a film after his breakthrough performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with this period adventure. Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen) is a U.S. Cavalry officer who earned a reputation as one of the fastest and most daring riders in the Read More

3/5/04
Jurassic Park III

Crew: Director

Actors: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan

Synopsis: Director Joe Johnston takes over the creative reins from Steven Spielberg for this third installment in the thriller franchise. Sam Neill returns as Dr. Alan Grant, a scientist who's tricked by wealthy couple Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) into a fly-over of Isla Sorna. The Read More

7/18/01
October Sky

Crew: Director

Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dern, Chris Owen, William Lee Scott

Synopsis: NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam, Jr.'s autobiography provided the basis for this drama about a teenager coming of age at the dawn of the space race. In 1957, Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a high school student in Coalwood, West Virginia when the Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first man-made Read More

2/19/99
Jumanji

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: David Alan Grier, Adam Hann-Byrd, Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Jonathan Hyde

Synopsis: Jumanji is a visually elaborate fantasy about an enchanted board game that opens a magical portal to a jungle universe. Two young children, Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce), discover the game in an abandoned home and suddenly are greeted by Alan (Robin Williams), an adult who has Read More

12/15/95
The Pagemaster

Crew: Director

Actors: Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Ed Begley, Jr., Mel Harris, Patrick Stewart

Synopsis: A young boy overcomes his obsessive fears by discovering a love for books in this animated fantasy adventure. In a live action wraparound, Macaulay Culkin stars as Richard Tyler, an easily bullied, nervous wreck of a kid who's an expert on safety statistics. His mother and father (Mel Harris and Ed Begley, Jr. Read More

1994
The Rocketeer

Crew: Director

Actors: Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino

Synopsis: After getting his start as a visual effects artist on the original Star Wars trilogy, Spielberg protege Joe Johnston found success as a director with his debut film, the blockbuster family adventure Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. For his sophomore outing, Johnston helmed this action-adventurer, set in Read More

6/21/91
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Crew: Director

Actors: Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, Marcia Strassman, Kristine Sutherland

Synopsis: Erstwhile inventor Rick Moranis has been experimenting with an electro-magnetic shrinking machine. He leaves the device unattended in his attic; shortly afterward, it is accidentally activated. Alas, the demon machine is aimed at Moranis' children, as well as the son of neighbor Matt Frewer. The Read More

6/23/89
Willow

Crew: First Assistant Director

Actors: Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Patricia Hayes, Jean Marsh

Synopsis: Though Willow was one of director Ron Howard's few box-office disappointments, it definitely deserves a second look. At once an epic celebration and a gentle spoof of the sword-and-sorcery genre, the film concerns the efforts by little person Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) to protect a sacred Read More

5/20/88
*batteries not included

Crew: Second Unit Director

Actors: Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Frank McRae, Elizabeth Peña, Michael Carmine

Synopsis: Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are among the impoverished residents of a slum tenement threatened with demolition by evil land developers. Only a miracle can save Cronyn, Tandy, and their friends -- and that miracle manifests itself in the form of a "family" of extraterrestrial flying saucers, who Read More

12/18/87
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor

Crew: Production Designer

Actors: Aubree Miller, Sian Phillips

Synopsis: This expensively wrought TV movie was the sequel to the 1984 offering Ewok Adventure, which in turn was inspired by those furry little extraterrestrials introduced in the 1983 theatrical feature Return of the Jedi. On the forest moon of Endor, a little girl (Aubree Miller) is protected by the Read More

1985
The Ewok Adventure

Crew: Production Designer

Actors: Warwick Davis

Synopsis: At this late date, it should hardly be necessary to inform viewers that The Ewok Adventure was inspired by those fuzzy little space muppets seen in the 1983 Star Wars sequel Return of the Jedi. This costly made-for-TV film was executive-produced by George Lucas, with special effects provided by Read More

1984
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Crew: Art Director

Actors: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth

Synopsis: The second of the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones epics is set a year or so before the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1984). After a brief brouhaha involving a precious vial and a wild ride down a raging Himalyan river, Indy (Harrison Ford) gets down to the problem at hand Read More

1984
Return of the Jedi

Crew: Art Director

Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels

Synopsis: In the final episode of the Star Wars saga, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) emerges intact from the carbonite casing in which he'd been sealed in The Empire Strikes Back. The bad news is that Solo, together with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), is prisoner to the grotesque Read More

1983
The Empire Strikes Back

Crew: Art Director, Special Effects

Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Frank Oz, Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker

Synopsis: The second entry in George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy finds Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the green-as-grass hero from the first film, now a seasoned space warrior. Luke's Star Wars cohorts Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) are likewise more experienced in the ways and means Read More

1980