John WoodFilmography

Imagining Argentina

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson, Rubén Blades, Maria Canals, Leticia Dolera

Synopsis: Accomplished British screenwriter Christopher Hampton directs the political drama Imagining Argentina, based on the novel by Lawrence Thornton. Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda (Antonio Banderas Read More

A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake

Actors: Gabrielle Drake, Joe Boyd, Brian Thomas Wells, John Wood, Robert Kirby

Synopsis: Directed by Jeroen Berkvens, this documentary traces the life of British rocker Nick Drake, who, after a successful musical career during the late '60s and early '70s, died of a possibly accidental overdose of prescription antidepressants in his parents' home in 1974. Berkvens takes a Read More

Napoleon

Actors: Christian Clavier, Isabella Rossellini, Gérard Depardieu, John Malkovich

Synopsis: Filmed in France, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Morocco, and Canada, this ambitious biographical TV miniseries chronicles the life and times of the "Little Corporal" from Corsica who managed to conquer nearly all of Europe within a period of a dozen years. The narrative begins in the Read More

The Body

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Olivia Williams, John Shrapnel, Derek Jacobi, Jason Flemyng

Synopsis: In this religious drama concerning the struggle between science and faith, Olivia Williams plays Sharon Golban, an Israeli archeologist who discovers a skeleton within a tomb in Jerusalem. After an intensive study and the accumulation of more information, the bones begin to resemble the remains of Read More

Chocolat

Actors: Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina

Synopsis: The most tempting of all sweets becomes the key weapon in a battle of sensual pleasure versus disciplined self-denial in this comedy. In 1959, a mysterious woman named Vianne (Juliette Binoche) moves with her young daughter into a small French village, where much of the community's activities are Read More

The Little Vampire

Actors: Jonathan Lipnicki, Richard E. Grant, Jim Carter, Alice Krige

Synopsis: Nine-year-old Tony (Jerry Maguire's Jonathan Lipnicki) has just moved with his parents (Tommy Hinkley and Pamela Gidley) to a small town in the Scottish Highlands, where his father is overseeing the building of a golf course for old squire Lord McAshton (John Wood). Tony is picked on by his new Read More

An Ideal Husband

Actors: Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Northam, Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver

Synopsis: A romantic and sentimental comedy set at the turn of the 19th century, An Ideal Husband delves into themes of love, passion, and betrayal among the aristocracy. Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam), a brilliant politician and a perfect gentleman, is the ideal husband for the charming Lady Chiltern Read More

The Venice Project

Actors: Lauren Bacall, Dennis Hopper, Linus Roache, Ben Cross, Stuart Townsend

Synopsis: In this witty drama, the future of art is examined from two vantage points: the years 1699 and 1999. Roland (Dennis Hopper) is an avant-garde artist in Venice, California whose sister, Countess Camilla Volta (Lauren Bacall), lives on their family's estate in Venice, Italy. Their father, The Read More

The Avengers

Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, Patrick Macnee, Jim Broadbent

Synopsis: Jeremiah Chechick directed this $60 million adaptation of the whimsical 1961 British TV spy series, imported to the United States five years later for ABC airing (beginning 3/28/66), followed by The New Avengers (CBS, 1978-79). In the feature-length version, secret agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) Read More

Sweet Revenge

Actors: Sam Neill, Helena Bonham Carter, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rupert Graves, Martin Clunes

Synopsis: Telecast on American cable television as Sweet Revenge, this wickedly black comedy was produced for British TV under the title The Revengers' Comedies, which was also the name of the Alan Ayckbourn play collection upon which it was based. Late one night on London Bridge, two potential suicides Read More

The Gambler

Actors: Michael Gambon, Jodhi May, Polly Walker, Dominic West, Luise Rainer

Synopsis: This British-Dutch-Hungarian biographical drama combines incidents from the life of novelist Feodor Dostoyevsky with a dramatization of his short novel The Gambler. The character of Polina in the novel was based by Dostoyevsky on Polina Suslova, his 1862-63 lover. In the tradition of Dennis Read More

Jane Eyre

Actors: William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joan Plowright, Anna Paquin, Geraldine Chaplin

Synopsis: Director Franco Zeffirelli stresses emotional realism over gothic chills in this restrained adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic. The screenplay, by Zeffirelli and Hugh Whitmore, remains relatively faithful to the original story, beginning with a condensed look at the troubled childhood of Read More

Rasputin

Actors: Alan Rickman, Greta Scacchi, Ian McKellen

Synopsis: Rasputin is a dramatization of the life story of one of the most intriguing figures in all history. A crude peasant from Siberia, Rasputin (Alan Rickman) was a self-styled charismatic holy man who traveled widely, openly engaging in drunkenness, sexual indulgences, and general debauchery. In the Read More

Sabrina

Actors: Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear, John Wood, Nancy Marchand

Synopsis: A remake of a 1954 Billy Wilder romance, this updated version of the play Sabrina Fair was directed by Sydney Pollack. Julia Ormond stars as Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of a kindly chauffeur (John Wood) at the Long Island estate of the upper-crust Larrabee family. Sabrina has grown up Read More

Richard III

Actors: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey, Jr., Nigel Hawthorne

Synopsis: Richard Loncraine takes Shakespeare's classic tale of treachery, Richard III, and transplants it to the 1930s. Ian McKellen is Richard who, as the film opens, begins plotting against his brother Edward, who has just ascended to the throne after a bloody civil war. Richard begins by seducing and Read More

Citizen X

Actors: Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland

Synopsis: Stephen Rea stars as a relentless Russian investigator in this made-for-cable thriller. Based on an actual case, this taut film tells the story of Burakov (Rea), a Russian forensic pathologist assigned to track down a brutal serial killer who is targeting young drifters. The nature of the Read More

The Madness of King George

Actors: Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, Rupert Everett, Rupert Graves

Synopsis: Based on Alan Bennett's acclaimed play The Madness of George III, The Madness of King George takes a dark-humored look at the mental decline of King George III of England. The film's story begins nearly three decades into George's reign, in 1788, as the unstable king (Nigel Hawthorne, reprising Read More

Uncovered

Actors: Kate Beckinsale, John Wood, Sinéad Cusack, Paudge Behan, Art Malik

Synopsis: Julia (Kate Beckinsale) has been busy about her job, doing painstaking restoration work on a fifteenth-century painting. As good restoration work is at least as much about doing good research and detective work as it is about the physical process of restoration, when her cleanup of the Flemish Read More

The Summer House

Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Joan Plowright, Julie Walters, Lena Headey, David Threlfall

Synopsis: Martin Sherman adapted Alice Thomas Ellis' novel for this comedy about a suburban Englishwoman who's about to settle on marriage with her mother-dominated next door neighbor until everyone's comfortable life is disrupted by a visit from her exotic and flamboyant friend Lili (Jeanne Moreau, in a Read More

Shadowlands

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Edward Hardwicke, Michael Denison, John Wood

Synopsis: This lavishly mounted adaptation of the play by William Nicholson tells the true story of the doomed love affair between novelist and noted Christian scholar C.S. Lewis and a Jewish-American poet. Anthony Hopkins stars as C.S. "Jack" Lewis, an Oxford professor and successful author of the Read More

The Young Americans

Actors: Harvey Keitel, Viggo Mortensen, Iain Glen, Geoffrey McGivern, John Wood, Dave Duffy, Terence Rigby, Keith Allen

Synopsis: Harvey Keitel plays John Harris, an American drug enforcement officer who is asked by London police to help them in cracking an organized drug ring. The syndicate is run by a ruthless young American who turns disaffected young Britons into hardened criminals. The gang has gunned down a well-known Read More

Orlando

Actors: Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Lothaire Bluteau, John Wood, Charlotte Valandrey

Synopsis: Independent filmmaker Sally Potter's gender-bending epic, which views four centuries of sexual politics through the eyes of a sex-switching main character, is based on the 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf. The androgynous title character is played with delicate quietude by Tilda Swinton. The story Read More

Memento Mori

Actors: Stephanie Cole, Renée Ashershon, Michael Hordern, Thora Hird, Maggie Smith, Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Muriel Spark (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), the British TV drama Memento Mori boasts an impressive cast of veterans, including Maurice Denham, Cyril Cusack, Sir Michael Hordern, Renee Ashershon, and Maggie Smith. The story concerns an eccentric group of senior citizens who Read More

Bullseye

Actors: Paul Goddard, Kathryn Walker, John Wood, Paul Chubb, Lynette Curran

Synopsis: Based loosely on a true story, Bullseye takes place in the Australia of the mid-19th century. Disgruntled ranch hand Paul Goddard finds a ray of happiness in his relationship with maidservant Kathryn Walker. But when the maid comes into an inheritance, she takes on highfalutin' airs and breaks off Read More

At Mother's Request

Actors: E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: There were two rival TV dramatizations of the sensational murder case involving "monster Mom" Frances Schreuder. Stephanie Powers was the star of the two-part 1987 TV movie At Mother's Request. Part One details the events leading to the murder of Frances' multimillionaire father Franklin Bradshaw (E.G. Marshall Read More

The Bit Part

Actors: Chris Haywood, Nicole Kidman, Katrina Foster, John Wood, Maurie Fields

Synopsis: Career counsellor Michael Thornton (Chris Haywood) decides to change his career and become an actor in this low-budget comedy. He dreams of performing Shakespeare but ends up in a television ad where only his hands appear on camera. He finds a friend in actress Mary McAllister (Nicole Kidman) Read More

Jumpin' Jack Flash

Actors: Whoopi Goldberg, Stephen Collins, Jonathan Pryce, James Belushi, John Wood, Carol Kane, Annie Potts

Synopsis: Penny Marshall in her feature film directing debut, four screenwriters, and a ebullient Whoopi Goldberg join forces to make Jumpin' Jack Flash, a modern espionage comedy. Goldberg plays Terry Doolittle, a computer operator in a large New York City bank who picks up a cry of help on her computer. Read More

Heartburn

Actors: Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Maureen Stapleton, Stockard Channing

Synopsis: Though she always played coy about the fact in interviews, Nora Ephron's novel Heartburn is a thinly disguised "a clef" rehash of her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Meryl Streep plays Rachel, an influential food critic who marries charismatic columnist Mark (Jack Nicholson) Read More

Lady Jane

Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood, Michael Hordern, Jill Bennett

Synopsis: Lady Jane Grey, the 16-year-old girl who for nine days in the 16th century was Queen of England, is here portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. Lady Jane Grey's sickly cousin, who becomes Edward VI upon the death of Henry VIII, is on the threshold of death himself. The Protestant powers-that-be Read More

The Challenge

Twelfth Night

Actors: Gillian Jones, Jacqy Phillips, Peter Cummins, Kerry Walker

Synopsis: This production of the Bard of Avalon's famous stage comedy is based on a successful Australian stage production from the mid-1980s. It is a story of love, shipwreck, disguises and mistaken identities, and relies for much of its wit (and believability) on the willing suspension of disbelief. This Read More

Ladyhawke

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Leo McKern, John Wood

Synopsis: In medieval France, knight Rutger Hauer and lady fair Michelle Pfeiffer both run afoul of evil-bishop John Wood. Through the auspices of bishop's confessor Leo McKern, Hauer and Pfeiffer are placed under a curse. During the night, Hauer takes the form of a wolf, while Pfeiffer assumes the form of Read More

The Empty Beach

Actors: Bryan Brown, Anna Maria Monticelli, Ray Barrett, John Wood, Nick Tate

Synopsis: Empty Beach brings Australian novelist Peter Corris' detective hero Cliff Hardy to the big screen. F/X star Bryan Brown plays Hardy, who this time around is hired to confirm or disprove the reported death of a millionaire. Hardy confers with journalist Brian Henneberry (Clifford Tate), who has Read More

Displaced Persons

Synopsis: Refugees fleeing post-WWII Europe to Australia are discovered to carry with them a deadly disease and are quarantined. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

The Purple Rose of Cairo

Actors: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Dianne Wiest, Van Johnson

Synopsis: Woody Allen blurs the the boundaries between the real and unreal in this unique comic fantasy. The scene is a small town in the mid-1930s. Trapped in a dead-end job and an abusive marriage, Cecelia (Mia Farrow) regularly seeks refuge in the local movie house. She becomes so enraptured by the Read More

The Last Bastion

Synopsis: The political battles waged by Australian Prime Minister John Curtin against Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others during the Second World War are the subject of this docudrama. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

WarGames

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin

Synopsis: Once more, a wise-guy teenager tries to prove he's smarter than any adult-and nearly destroys the whole world in the process-in WarGames. Computer-game aficionado Matthew Broderick inadverently taps into a hush-hush Pentagon computer, then proceeds to inaugurate his favorite game, "Global Read More

Ginger Meggs

Actors: Garry McDonald, Paul Daniel, Mark Spain

Synopsis: Ginger Meggs (Paul Daniel) is a young "Dennis the Menace" who first appeared in Australian comic strips in 1921. In this film meant for the pre-teen set, Ginger is constantly getting himself in trouble in spite of his good intentions -- at the same time, he prevaricates, he disobeys his teachers Read More

Somebody Killed Her Husband

Actors: Jeff Bridges, John Wood, Tammy Grimes, John Glover

Synopsis: In this comic mystery, a department store clerk dreams of becoming a famous writer of children's books. He is also having an affair with a lovely patron of the store. The trouble begins when the lovers find that her husband, a pair of neighbors and a bogus detective have been murdered. The lovers Read More

Blue Fire Lady

Actors: Cathryn Harrison, Mark Holden, Peter Cummins, Marion Edward

Synopsis: Although it makes her father unhappy, Jenny does not want a certain horse sold to the owners of a farm. She sets out to save her favorite animal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Office Picnic

Actors: Phillip Deamer, Gay Steele

Synopsis: In this Australian comedy-drama, ennui stricken employees of the Public Service Department go to their annual picnic and let it all hang out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Slaughterhouse-Five

Actors: Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Valerie Perrine

Synopsis: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." These opening words of Kurt Vonnegut's famous novel make an effective and short summary of a haunting, funny film. For the screen, director George Roy Hill faithfully renders Vonnegut's black anti-war comedy about Pilgrim (well played in a low key by Michael Sacks Read More

Nicholas and Alexandra

Actors: Curd Jürgens, Alexander Knox, Michael Redgrave, Alan Dalton, Ralph Neville, Michael Jayston, Janet Suzman, Harry Andrews, Irene Worth, Jack Hawkins, Laurence Olivier

Synopsis: Nicholas and Alexandra covers the rise and fall of the last of the Russian Romanovs. We first meet Czar Nicholas (Michael Jayston) and his German bride Alexandra (Janet Suzman) at their 1894 wedding. Though Nicholas is devoted to Alexandra, the Russian populace is less politely inclined to having Read More

One More Time

Actors: Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Esther Anderson, Maggie Wright, Leslie Sands

Synopsis: Rat-pack pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford reprise their roles of Charlie Salt and Chris Pepper, respectively, in this film that marks the directorial debut of comedian/writer Jerry Lewis. Lawford also plays Lord Sydney Pepper, the twin brother of Charlie who is a murder victim. Salt and Read More

Which Way to the Front?

Actors: Jerry Lewis, John Wood, Jan Murray, Steve Franken, Dack Rambo

Synopsis: Brendan (Jerry Lewis) is an eccentric multimillionaire who is rejected for military service in this misfired comedy. Eager to help the Allies, he gathers a quartet of offbeat irregulars and sails to Italy to join the conflict. Brendan captures a Nazi general and masquerades as the enemy. When Read More

Just Like a Woman

Actors: Wendy Craig, Francis Matthews, John Wood, Dennis Price, Miriam Karlin

Synopsis: In this drama, a singer on her husband's weekly television show suddenly decides to begin a new life without him. She then quits her job and moves into the house of another man, a good friend, not a lover. When she learns that her husband is looking for a replacement singer, she does her best to Read More

Avengers: The Bird Who Knew Too Much

Actors: Diana Rigg, Ron Moody

Synopsis: Future Oliver! costar Ron Moody adds most of the spice to this above-average fifth-season Avengers episode. Moody plays Jordan, one of several people involved in a plot to smuggle military secrets to the Enemy by way of a parrot named Captain Crusoe. In the course of the Avengers' investigation Read More

The Mouse on the Moon

Actors: Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Cribbins, Ron Moody, David Kossoff, Terry-Thomas

Synopsis: From Richard Lester, the director of 1980's Superman II and the 1964 A Hard Day's Night, comes this less-successful sequel to the The Mouse that Roared. The Prime Minister of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick (Ron Moody) is in a bind because he has no money to renovate his castle and there is a serious Read More

Just for Fun

Actors: Mark Wynter, Bobby Vee, Freddy Cannon

Synopsis: British teens struggle to win the right to vote in this swinging musical from England. When the established political parties pay no mind to the young campaigners and so the youths decide to start their own party and use some of England's most popular singers to help them campaign. Among the Read More

The Victorians [TV Series]

Actors: Geoffrey Bayldon, Patricia Garwood, Charles Kay, John Wood, Michael Barrington

Synopsis: Debuting in 1963, the British TV anthology The Victorians offered hour-long adaptations of eight famous 19th century plays. Episode titles included "The Rent Day," "London Assurance," "Society," "The Ticket of Leave Man," "Two Roses," "The Silver King," and "Still Waters Run Deep." In general, the Read More

That Kind of Girl

Synopsis: Purporting to warn young people of premarital sex, this British drama is exploitation with a capital 'E.' Set in a conservative peaceful village, the drama begins with the arrival of a sexy Austrian girl who proceeds to seduce every man in sight. One of her victims is engaged. When his fiancee Read More

Postman's Knock

Actors: Spike Milligan, Barbara Shelley, John Wood, Archie Duncan, Wilfred Lawson

Synopsis: In this routine, slapstick, frenetic tale, British comic Spike Milligan stars as Harold Petts, a rural mailman with a sudden promotion that ends up getting him into a lot of trouble. Harold is supposed to be trained behind the scenes at London's busiest post office but even after his first day in Read More

Live Now Pay Later

Actors: Ian Hendry, June Ritchie, John Gregson, Liz Fraser, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: One of the minor comedy-dramas to come out of Britain, this story by director Jay Lewis and scripter Jack Trevor Story is about an unscrupulous salesman, Albert (Ian Hendry), who is beset by a whole series of problems, all of his own making. In order to advance his career, Albert makes a habit of Read More

The Rebel

Actors: Tony Hancock, George Sanders, Paul Massie, Margit Saad, Gregoire Aslan

Synopsis: Zany British comedian Tony Hancock was briefly a major draw in the 1960s, with several popular TV series, sellout personal appearances, and a string of theatrical films to his credit. In The Rebel (released in the US as Call Me Genius), Hancock plays a middle-class businessman who decides to chuck Read More

Invasion Quartet

Actors: Bill Travers, Spike Milligan, John Le Mesurier, Gregoire Aslan, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: It's probably no surprise that Invasion Quartet has four leading actors; what might be surprising, especially to the unwary war-film fan, is that film is a comedy. British funster Spike Milligan joins the sobersided Bill Travers, John LeMesurier and Gregoire Aslan; the foursome are undercover Read More

Two-Way Stretch

Actors: Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge, Bernard Cribbins, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: Peter Sellers stars as an inmate in a "model prison" run by Maurice Denham. Though Sellers is disinclined to escape (he's never been as comfortable in his life), he is convinced to do so by phony vicar Wilfred Hyde-White, who breaks into jail to outline a robbery scheme. Hyde-White's plan is to Read More

It Takes a Thief

Actors: Jayne Mansfield, Anthony Quayle, Carl Möhner, Peter Reynolds, John Bennett

Synopsis: Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe's blond competition in the late '50s and early '60s, stars in this crime melodrama as Billy, the leader of a gang of thieves. She charms Jim (Anthony Quayle), a widower with a young daughter, into joining the group effort on a particular robbery. After the heist Read More

Idle on Parade

Actors: William Bendix, Anthony Newley, Anne Aubrey, Lionel Jeffries, Sidney James

Synopsis: The otherwise routine story and themes of this comedy are greatly balanced by talents of Anthony Newley as Jeep Jackson, a singing idol called up to serve in the British army and Lionel Jeffries as Bertie, a fussbudget adjutant. One of Jackson's superior officers is the brash Sgt. Lush (William Bendix Read More

Sea Wife

Actors: Joan Collins, Richard Burton, Basil Sydney, Cy Grant, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: In this melodramatic adventure set after the British evacuated Singapore in 1942, a ship is torpedoed and only four people survive. They are a nun, an RAF officer, a godless bigoted business magnate, and a black purser. The four drift for days before getting themselves washed up on a small desert Read More

A Stolen Face

Actors: Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott, Andre Morell, Mary Mackenzie, John Wood

Synopsis: Brilliant plastic surgeon Philip Ritter (Paul Henreid) loses the love of his life, concert pianist Alice Brent (Lizabeth Scott), to her manager, David (Andre Morell). As a balm to his wounded pride, Dr. Ritter Henreid makes over a hideously scarred female criminal into the spitting image of the Read More