Josef Sommer Filmography

The Invasion

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Jackson Bond, Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: A mysterious, mind-altering epidemic has infected mankind, and when a Washington, D.C. psychiatrist discovers that the outbreak seems to be extraterrestrial in origin, she struggles to save her son from infection in this sci-fi thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, and directed by Read More

X-Men: The Last Stand

Actors: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin

Synopsis: The explosive X-Men motion picture trilogy officially draws to a close with this release that finds Rush Hour director Brett Ratner stepping in for Bryan Singer to tell the tale of a newly discovered mutant "cure," and the polarizing effect it has on mutant/man relations. With the pressure on Read More

The Elephant King

Actors: Tate Ellington, Jonno Roberts, Florence Vanida Faivre, Ellen Burstyn, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Seth Grossman's psychological drama The Elephant King concerns two brothers who have very different outlooks on life. Jake Hunt is a scientist working in Thailand who, dissatisfied with much of his life, does little work and lives his life in a state of great excess. He invites his younger Read More

The Sum of All Fears

Actors: Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber, Alan Bates

Synopsis: The successful franchise of Paramount motion pictures based on novelist Tom Clancy's techno-thrillers featuring heroic CIA intelligence analyst Jack Ryan stages a much-publicized "do-over" with this action-adventure that recasts the character of Ryan as a rookie to the complex game of geopolitical Read More

Searching For Paradise

Actors: Susan May Pratt, Chris Noth, Jeremy Davies

Synopsis: Gilda (Susan May Pratt of Center Stage) is a confused young woman, obsessed with iconoclastic actor Michael De Santis (Chris Noth). She repeatedly watches a tape of De Santis being interviewed by an unctuous, James Lipton-type talk show host (played by legendary indie producer's rep John Pierson). Read More

Ally McBeal: The Pursuit of Unhappiness

Actors: Calista Flockhart, Peter MacNicol, Greg Germann, Lucy Liu, Portia de Rossi, Jane Krakowski, Lisa Nicole Carson, Vonda Shepard, Robert Downey, Jr., James LeGros

The Family Man

Actors: Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Piven, Saul Rubinek

Synopsis: In this whimsical romantic comedy that recalls It's a Wonderful Life, Nicolas Cage plays Jack Campbell, a workaholic bachelor who gets to see what his life might have been like had he stayed with his old sweetheart, Kate (Tea Leoni). Thirteen years before, Jack accepted a brokerage internship that Read More

Shaft

Actors: Samuel L. Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale, Busta Rhymes, Dan Hedaya

Synopsis: This action drama puts a new spin on Shaft, one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the namesake nephew of the legendary private eye (Richard Roundtree), is a street-smart police detective who with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams) has been Read More

The Next Best Thing

Actors: Rupert Everett, Madonna, Benjamin Bratt, Michael Vartan, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Best buddies Abbie (Madonna), a heterosexual yoga instructor, and Robert (Rupert Everett), a gay landscaper, cope with failed relationships, the approach of middle age, and the AIDS-related death of a mutual friend by sticking together as a "family of choice." Drunk one night, they have sex, and Read More

Law & Order: Entitled

Synopsis: In this concluding episode of a two-part "crossover" story which began on Law & Order's sister series Law & Order: SVU, the D.A.'s office endeavors to connect the murder of a salesman with the politically influential Mulroney family. Despite pressure brought to bear by powerful matriarch Regina Read More

Patch Adams

Actors: Robin Williams, Daniel London, Monica Potter, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bob Gunton

Synopsis: The fact-based story of an unconventional physician who attempted to heal patients with laughter, based on his own book and mixing equal doses of scatological humor and pathos. Robin Williams stars as Hunter Adams, a troubled young man who commits himself to a mental institution in the late 1960s. Read More

The Proposition

Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Madeleine Stowe, William Hurt, Neil Patrick Harris, Robert Loggia

Synopsis: This drama about the efforts of an upper-class couple to have a child takes place in 1935 Boston. When Father Michael McKinnon (Kenneth Branagh) arrives from England to join the St. Jude's clergy, he avoids wealthy parishioners Arthur and Eleanor Barret (William Hurt, Madeleine Stowe). Attorney Read More

Law & Order: Corruption

Synopsis: Kevin Conway guest stars as police lieutenant John Flynn who, while on a stakeout with Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt), kills a suspected drug dealer. The subsequent Internal Affairs investigation results in friction at the NYPD when Curtis refuses to testify that the dead man Read More

Moonlight and Valentino

Actors: Elizabeth Perkins, Whoopi Goldberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kathleen Turner, Jon Bon Jovi

Synopsis: A woman dealing with an unexpected death has to help her friends with their own crises in this comedy-drama. Rebecca Lott (Elizabeth Perkins) gets an unpleasant surprise while waiting for her husband to return from his daily jog -- he was hit by a car and instantly killed. A handful of Rebecca's Read More

Strange Days

Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott

Synopsis: Set in Los Angeles two days before the end of 1999, Strange Days introduces us to Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), an ex-cop turned sleazy hustler who hawks the newest underground thrill on the black market: a "squid," a headpiece that allows one to transmit digital recordings of other people's Read More

Letter to My Killer

Actors: Mare Winningham, Nick Chinlund, Rip Torn, Josef Sommer, Eddie Jones

Synopsis: In this crime thriller, an avaricious married couple get in over their heads when their attempt to extort money from murderers goes terribly awry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker

Synopsis: Bigotry and values are questioned when a Black West Point cadet is singled out and harassed by fellow cadets and senior officers. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Cultivating Charlie

Actors: David Huddleston, Vincent Schiavelli, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Though this film is billed as a comedy, it does contain some violent moments as it follows a young man's journey across the U.S. in search of himself. Our hero is vegetarian Charles Thundertrunk whose father owns the fabulously successful fast-food chain Burger World. At his father's request Read More

Nobody's Fool

Actors: Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh

Synopsis: Paul Newman earned an Oscar nomination (and won citations from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Berlin International Film Festival) for his performance in this well-drawn comedy-drama. Sully (Newman) is a 60-year-old man who emotionally seems to have never quite emerged from adolescence; Read More

The Enemy Within

Actors: Forest Whitaker, Sam Waterston, Dana Delany, Jason Robards, Jr., Josef Sommer

Synopsis: An attempt to overthrow the President of the United States is the subject of this made-for-cable conspiracy-thriller. Forest Whitaker stars as Colonel Mackenzie Casey, a loyal member of President Foster's (Sam Waterston) inner circle. When Casey discovers a plot by his superior (Jason Robards) to Read More

Don't Drink the Water

Actors: Mayim Bialik, Michael J. Fox, Edward Herrmann, Julie Kavner, Woody Allen, Dom DeLuise

Synopsis: The second film to be made from Woody Allen's successful stage comedy (following a 1969 feature starring Jackie Gleason), Don't Drink the Water is a made-for-television adaptation directed by and starring Allen himself. The fish-out-of-water premise remains the same: Allen plays Walter Hollander Read More

Malice

Actors: Joshua Malina, Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman, Bill Pullman, Bebe Neuwirth, George C. Scott

Synopsis: Alec Baldwin stars in this thriller as Dr. Jed Hill, a brilliant young trauma specialist who begins to believe he can do no wrong after he saves the life of a patient given up for dead by another doctor. Jed runs into an old classmate, Andy Safian (Bill Pullman), who is now a college dean. Andy Read More

Hostages

Actors: Kathy Bates, Colin Firth, Natasha Richardson, Jay O. Sanders, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Hostages is a made-for-cable film that chronicles the captivity of several Western hostages who were held in Lebanon for five years during the mid-'80s. Combining newsreel footage with re-enactment's, the film captures the horror of the hostages--Americans Terry Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, Frank Read More

The Mighty Ducks

Actors: Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, Lane Smith, Heidi Kling, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: This fill-in-the-blanks children's comedy from Disney was such a success that it spawned a number of fill-in-the-blanks sequels -- along with a real-life professional hockey team. The basic story -- outcast coach handles a team of outcast kids and turns them from losers into winners -- has been Read More

Shadows and Fog

Actors: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Madonna, Kathy Bates, Lily Tomlin, Donald Pleasence

Synopsis: Woody Allen's black-and-white curiosity piece is a mixture of influences -- from German silent film expressionism to Franz Kafka's nightmare worlds to the contemporary fables of Wim Wenders. Woody Allen plays the nebbish clerk Kleinman (in a throwback to his characters from Sleeper and Love and Death Read More

Citizen Cohn

Actors: James Woods, Joe Don Baker, Lee Grant, Joseph Bologna, Ed Flanders

Synopsis: Frank Pierson's made-for-cable adaptation of Nicholas VonHoffman's biography, Citizen Cohn stars James Woods as the controversial lawyer Roy Cohn. The film is structured as a series of flashbacks while Cohn lies in a New York hospital dying of AIDS. In the 1940s and early '50s, Cohn became one of Read More

An American Story

Synopsis: This fact-based drama centers on a sextet of WW II soldiers who are hailed as heroes upon their return to their hometown in Texas. Trouble follows when the vets unite to overthrow the town's corrupt politicians. They make a plan, but it is nearly derailed by the group leader's social-climbing wife Read More

Hamlet

Synopsis: Kevin Kline directed this television adaptation of the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1990 production of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, in which Kline also stars as the melancholy Danish prince. Deeply saddened by the death of his father, Hamlet (Kline) is shocked to discover his mother Read More

When Will I Be Loved?

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, three women meet each other in a divorce attorney's waiting room and soon become fast friends as they try to help each other through the pain of their crumbling marriages. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Forced March

Actors: Chris Sarandon, Renée Soutendijk, John Seitz, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: In this provocative drama, the young son of a Holocaust survivor searches for the answers to many painful questions about the great tragedy when he is cast as Hungarian-Jewish poet Miklos Radnoti for an upcoming film. The young man is a Method actor and as he researches his role he becomes so Read More

Bloodhounds of Broadway

Actors: Julie Hagerty, Randy Quaid, Madonna, Esai Morales, Jennifer Grey, Rutger Hauer, Ethan Phillips, Matt Dillon, Anita Morris

Synopsis: Produced for theatrical released by PBS' American Playhouse, Bloodhounds of Broadway is not exactly a remake of the 1952 film of the same name, though both pictures use the same Damon Runyon stories as inspiration. The scene is Broadway: the time is New Year's Eve, 1928. Madonna plays small town Read More

Chances Are

Actors: Cybill Shepherd, Robert Downey, Jr., Ryan O'Neal, Mary Stuart Masterson, Christopher McDonald

Synopsis: Handsome young Washington attorney Louie Jeffries (Chris McDonald) has it all: a promising career, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way. But after discovering a local judge is in cahoots with the Mob, Louie bites it in a car crash and finds himself in Heaven. Unsatisfied with the customer Read More

Money, Power, Murder

Synopsis: As a reporter investigates the disappearance of an anchorwoman, his important characters are being killed by an "avenging angel." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman

Actors: Richard Anderson, Sandra Bullock, Lee Majors, Lindsay Wagner, Jeff Yagher

Synopsis: Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors and Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner are reunited for the made-for-TV Bionic Showdown. Also on hand is Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, the government supervisor for both Majors and Wagner on their respective 1970s TV series. Something new has been added, however: Jeff Yagher Read More

Bridge to Silence

Actors: Marlee Matlin, Lee Remick

Synopsis: This made-for-TV film represented the first speaking role for hearing-impaired actress Marlee Matlin. A happy wife and mother, Matlin is grief-stricken when her husband is killed in a car accident. Still not fully recovered after several weeks, Matlin must rely on her mother Lee Remick to care for Read More

Dracula's Widow

Actors: Sylvia Kristel, Josef Sommer, Lenny Von Dohlen, Marc Coppola, Stefan Schnabel

Synopsis: Emmanuelle's Sylvia Kristel vamps it up as Vanessa, the widow of the legendary Count Dracula, whose coffin is transported from its resting place in modern-day Romania to a Hollywood "House of Horrors" wax museum. After her arrival, she awakens to seek both the remains of her husband and the Read More

The Rosary Murders

Actors: Donald Sutherland, Charles Durning, Josef Sommer, Belinda Bauer, James Murtaugh

Synopsis: A Detroit priest (Donald Sutherland) is trying to help solve a crime spree that has resulted in a horrible series of slayings of area priests and nuns. When he hears the murderer's admission of guilt (while giving confession) he is torn between honoring the vows of privacy and secrecy afforded Read More

Under Cover: Under Cover

Actors: Anthony John Denison, Linda Purl, John Rhys-Davies

Synopsis: The weekly, 60-minute TV adventure series Under Cover starred Anthony John Denison and Linda Purl as husband-and-wife secret agents Dylan and Kate Del'Amico. Employed by the National Intelligence Agency (read: CIA), Dylan and Kate were sent out on their various missions by head man Stuart Merriman Read More

A Special Friendship

Synopsis: In this Civil War drama, a plantation owner and her ex-slave begin working as Union spies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Betty Ford Story

Actors: Gena Rowlands, Josef Sommer, Nan Woods, Concetta Tomei, Jack Radar

Synopsis: Gena Rowlands won an Emmy for her towering portrayal of former first lady Betty Ford. After surviving breast cancer, the feisty Ford earns the love and admiration of the entire country. This makes it all the harder for her to keep private her biggest personal battle -- against alcohol and Read More

Yuri Nosenko, KGB

Synopsis: Made for British television, Yuri Nosenko, KGB stars Oleg Rudnik in the title role. Based on a true story, the film concerns Nosenko's defection to the west in 1964. To make certain that he hasn't been sent to the US as a Russian "mole", Nosenko is subject to a grueling interrogation, headed by Read More

D.A.R.Y.L.

Actors: Mary Beth Hurt, Michael McKean, Kathryn Walker, Colleen Camp, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Barret Oliver stars as robot boy Daryl (Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform). The film begins with an intense chase through hairpin mountain roads as a helicopter chases after a racing automobile and the driver of the car shoves a young boy out of the door. The child is rescued and is adopted by Read More

The Execution of Raymond Graham

Actors: Jeff Fahey, Philip Sterling, Kate Reid

Synopsis: Jeff Fahey plays Raymond Graham, who for five years has lived on Death Row, awaiting execution for the murder of a store clerk. Having given up on any further legal delays, Graham wearily awaits the fatal injection. Joining the condemned man in his death watch are Graham's family and attorney, a Read More

Target

Actors: Gene Hackman, Matt Dillon, Gayle Hunnicutt, Victoria Fyodorova, Josef Sommer

Synopsis: Arthur Penn takes a crack at subverting the espionage film genre in Target. Walter Lloyd (Gene Hackman) is a quiet and unassuming lumberyard owner in Dallas, Texas. Chris (Matt Dillon) has dropped out of college to pursue a career as a race car driver. But all mundane tasks come to an end when Read More

Witness

Actors: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Jan Rubes

Synopsis: In Peter Weir's thriller Witness, Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy, witnesses a murder in the restroom of a Philadelphia bus station. Harrison Ford stars as John Book, the police detective investigating the murder. When Book discovers that the crime was part of a conspiracy involving several Read More

Brotherly Love

Actors: Judd Hirsch, Karen Carlson, George Dzundza

Synopsis: The "brothers" in Brotherly Love are twin siblings Ben and Harry Ryder. Both are played by Judd Hirsch, in a change of pace from his Taxi duties. One of the twins is a solid citizen and family man; the other is evil incarnate. The story was adapted from a William D. Blankenship novel by the later Ernest Tidyman Read More

Iceman

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Lindsay Crouse, John Lone, Josef Sommer, David Strathairn

Synopsis: We first see Asian cave dweller John Lone as he wanders around what seems to be his natural habitat of some 10,000 years ago. Soon we learn that Lone is in a controlled environment in a scientific lab--and that his frozen body was recently discovered during an expedition to the North Pole (hence Read More

Thoughts Are Free

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Its title lifted from an old folk song, Thoughts are Free charts the postwar life of a soldier (Herbert Ludwig) wounded in battle. Upon discovering that he and his fellow convalescents are being transported to a Soviet Labor camp, Ludwig escapes to his home in the Eastern portion of Berlin. He Read More

Sparkling Cyanide

Actors: Anthony Andrews

Synopsis: Scriptwriters Robert Malcolm Young, Sue Grafton and Stephen Humphrey transposed the Agatha Christie story Sparkling Cyanide from its veddy British locale to the plush environs of Pasadena for this 1983 TV-movie adaptation. Leading character Anthony Andrews is still a Briton, mingling with the rich Read More

Silkwood

Actors: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid

Synopsis: Based on a true story, Silkwood begins and ends with Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) driving along a lonely road in 1974, heading to a meeting with a New York Times reporter to deliver evidence of negligence at the Kerr-McGee Plant in Cimarron, Oklahoma. The balance of the film flashes back to Read More

Saigon: Year of The Cat

Actors: Judi Dench, Frederic Forrest, E.G. Marshall, Josef Sommer, Wallace Shawn

Synopsis: Saigon: Year of the Cat is a low-budget drama about the fall of Saigon. The film was made for the BBC in 1983. It was one of many television projects that director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity) worked on in the early part of his career. Playwright David Hare (Plenty) wrote the script. Judi Dench Read More

Independence Day

Actors: Kathleen Quinlan, David Keith, Frances Sternhagen, Cliff De Young, Dianne Wiest

Synopsis: In this run-of-the-mill romantic drama, the title Independence Day refers to the usual Fourth of July fireworks festival in the U.S. but also to the dilemma of Mary Ann Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan) who lives in a small town but has a big ambition to go to the city and study photography for a Read More

Still of the Night

Actors: Roy Scheider, Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy, Joe Grifasi, Sara Botsford

Synopsis: In Still of the Night, a mystery thriller written and directed by Robert Benton, a psychiatrist falls in love with a woman who is suspected of the murder of one of his patients. Dr. Sam Rice (Roy Scheider) is treating a married museum curator. When the man is killed, Sam is visited by his dead Read More

Hanky Panky

Actors: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Kathleen Quinlan, Richard Widmark, Robert Prosky

Synopsis: Gene Wilder stars as Michael Jordon, an architect on the run from false murder charges, who hooks up with Kate Hellman (Gilda Radner), the sister of a recent suicide victim. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Sophie's Choice

Actors: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. Newman

Synopsis: The year is 1947. Aspiring southern author Stingo (Peter MacNichol) heads to New York to seek his fortune. Moving into a dingy Brooklyn boarding house, Stingo strikes up a friendship with research chemist Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline) and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska Read More

Absence of Malice

Actors: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Luther Adler, Wilford Brimley

Synopsis: In this legal drama from director Sydney Pollack, Sally Field stars as Megan, an ambitious newpaper reporter who, based on information from FBI investigator Rosen, played by Bob Balaban, writes a scathing article that implicates Gallagher, a reclusive business-owner played by Paul Newman, in the Read More

Reds

Actors: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on Read More

Rollover

Actors: Jane Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Hume Cronyn, Josef Sommer, Bob Gunton

Synopsis: Alan J. Pakula directs the political thriller Rollover, produced by leading lady Jane Fonda's production company, IPC Films. Featuring a racist plot and negative stereotypes about the Arab world, this film reflected the American fear of the Middle East prevalent in the early '80s. Fonda stars as Read More

The Henderson Monster

Synopsis: The made-for-television movie The Henderson Monster is about a genetic scientist who experiments with the creation of new life in a small university town. After he is discovered by the community, the town is gripped by an ethical debate. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide