Joseph CottenFilmography

Born:: May 15, 1905 in Petersburg, VA
Occupation:: Actor
Birth name:: Joseph Cheshire Cotten
Biography:: Born to a well-to-do Southern family, Joseph Cotten studied at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington D.C., and later sought out theater jobs in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1930, and seven years later joined Orson Welles' progressive Mercury Theatre company, playing leads in...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

Touch of Evil

Actors: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff

Synopsis: This baroque nightmare of a south-of-the-border mystery is considered to be one of the great movies of Orson Welles, who both directed and starred in it. On honeymoon with his new bride, Susan (Janet Leigh), Mexican-born policeman Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) agrees to investigate a bomb Read More

9/11/98
Hitchcock, II Brivido Del Genio

Actors: Patricia Hitchcock, Sylvia Sidney, Anne Baxter, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson

Synopsis: Film clips and interviews with actors and colleagues provide the material for this laudatory view of the career of Alfred Hitchcock. Among those interviewed who provide a bit of humor in the bargain are Philippe Noiret and Joan Fontaine. The "master of suspense" is shown according to stereotypes Read More

1985
The House Where Evil Dwells

Actors: Edward Albert, Susan George, Doug McClure, Amy Barrett, Mako Hattori

Synopsis: Based on a novel by James Hardiman, this routine haunted-house scenario is enhanced a bit by its lush Eastern setting. The story opens in an elaborate Kyoto abode, wherein a cuckolded samurai brutally murders his wife and her lover before committing ritual seppuku. Their restless spirits remain Read More

1982
Churchill and the Generals

Synopsis: This film is based on Winston Churchill's memoirs of his leadership of England from Dunkirk to D-Day. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

1981
Heaven's Gate

Actors: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Sam Waterston, John Hurt, Brad Dourif

Synopsis: A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism Read More

1981
The Hearse

Actors: Trish VanDevere, Joseph Cotten, David Gautreaux, Donald Hotton, Med Flory

Synopsis: The Hearse, directed by George Bowers is a clichéd, predictable horror film which, despite its interesting cast, is derivative and uninspired. Jane (Trish Van Devere) inherits a mansion from an aunt, whom she closely resembles. The townspeople believe that her aunt was possessed by Satan, and Read More

1980
Delusion

Actors: Patricia Pearcy, David Hayward, John Dukakis, Joseph Cotten, Leon Charles

Synopsis: Slow-moving and low-key, this psychological thriller about killings in a large, dark mansion has a classic setting and characters: Meredith Stone (Patricia Pearcy) is the nurse who comes to care for the invalid Ivar Langrock (Joseph Cotten), and Gabriel (John Dukakis) is his grandson who comes to Read More

1980
Guyana, Cult of the Damned

Actors: Stuart Whitman, Gene Barry, John Ireland, Joseph Cotten, Bradford Dillman

Synopsis: "Names have been changed to protect the innocent" in this infamous fictionalization of the tragic mass suicide of 914 followers of Jim Jones' "People's Temple" in Guyana in the fall of 1978. Rev. James Johnson (Stuart Whitman) is a charismatic but deeply paranoid man of the cloth who moves his Read More

1980
The Survivor

Actors: Robert Powell, Jenny Agutter, Joseph Cotten, Angela Punch McGregor, Ralph Cotterill

Synopsis: A mid-air jet disaster leaves the one survivor to avenge the deaths of the others. This supernatural thriller follows him on his search for the bomber that caused the disaster. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1980
Casino

Actors: Gary Burghoff, Joseph Cotten, Lynda Day George, Robert Loggia, Bo Hopkins

Synopsis: Nick (Mike Conners) is the owner of a luxury liner and casino which cruises its way to action and adventure for those on board. Lackluster direction by Don Chaffey is not aided by a cast including Gary Burghoff, Joseph Cotten, Lynda Day George, Bo Hopkins and Robert Loggia, who seem to all be Read More

1980
L'Isola degli Uomini Pesce

Actors: Barbara Bach, Claudio Cassinelli, Richard Johnson, Joseph Cotten, Beryl Cunningham

Synopsis: This hokey Italian monster movie -- distributed in the U.S. through Roger Corman's New World Pictures under the title Screamers -- was rescued from certain cinematic obscurity thanks to New World's hilariously misleading one-sheet campaign, which boldly declared "WARNING! You will actually see a Read More

1/18/79
Concorde Affaire '79

Synopsis: This half-baked but entertaining disaster film (not to be confused with America's The Concorde - Airport '79) deals with the attempts of an evil corporation to sabotage the Concorde before it hurts their own airline business. James Franciscus plays a reporter who teams up with Mimsy Farmer Read More

1979
The Perfect Crime

Synopsis: In this mystery, Scotland Yard sends out its best detective when several powerful business executives turn up dead. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1978
L'Ordre et la Sécurité du Monde

Actors: Bruno Cremer, Donald Pleasence, Dennis Hopper, Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: In the film, Helen (Laure Dechasnel), a married woman, leaves Paris for Zurich after breaking up with her lover. Near the border, a fellow passenger, mistakenly takes her passport. This sets up a situation which plunges her into the midst of international intrigue, a violent struggle between Read More

1978
Caravans

Actors: Anthony Quinn, Michael Sarrazin, Jennifer O'Neill, Christopher Lee, Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: This big-budget adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel stars Michael Sarrazin as Mark Miller, a low-level American diplomat given a dangerous assignment. Ellen Jasper (Jennifer O'Neill) is the daughter of a prominent U.S. politician who has married Nazrullah (Behrooz Vosoughi), an Read More

1978
The Wild Geese

Actors: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy Kruger, Stewart Granger

Synopsis: The plot of this of this adaptation of the Daniel Carney's novel, sprinkled throughout a series of extended Sam Peckinpah-inspired action sequences, deals with a collection of mercenary toughguys -- Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore), Rafer Janders (Richard Harris Read More

1978
Return to Fantasy Island

Actors: Ricardo Montalban

Synopsis: A sequel to the 1977 TV movie Fantasy Island, this film was originally titled Fantasy Island II and slated to air on November, 1977, but was instead re-christened and broadcast as the initial episode of the weekly Fantasy Island series. Once again, six people spend thousands upon thousands of Read More

1977
Aspen

Actors: Sam Elliott, Perry King, Gene Barry, Martine Beswicke, Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: Ostensibly a six-hour miniseries adaptation of Bert Hirschfield's novel Aspen, the program actually used only the title of the Hirschfield work; the plot proper was lifted from another novel by a different author, Bart Spicer's The Adversary. Set in the titular Colorado ski resort in the 1960s Read More

1977
Airport '77

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland

Synopsis: Stretching the Airport concept as far as it will go, this third film in the series sticks a jet full of old actors 50 feet underwater in the Bermuda Triangle. Oxygen (and credibility) grows short, and Jimmy Stewart plays an art collector targeted for a heist. Jack Lemmon is the unfortunate pilot Read More

1977
Twilight's Last Gleaming

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Charles Durning, Melvyn Douglas, Paul Winfield

Synopsis: Soured on America by his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, General Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) hopes that his government will someday tell the truth about the Southeast Asian debacle, thereby allowing his country to embark upon a healing process. Regarded as a dangerous embarrassment by the Read More

1977
Origins of the Mafia

Actors: Edward Albert, Lee J. Cobb, Joseph Cotten, Renato Salvatori, Claudio Volonte

Synopsis: From 16th century Sicily to the streets of contemporary New York, the Mafia has transcended its humble roots to evolve into one of the most formidable crime organizations ever. Centuries ago, the dreaded Gramignanos family took control over Sicily by launching a vicious campaign of violence and Read More

1976
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case

Actors: Anthony Hopkins

Synopsis: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, based on newspaper coverage, court testimony and eyewitness accounts, was dramatized for television by J.P. Miller. Cliff DeYoung and Sian star as Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The couple's 2-year-old son Charles Jr. is kidnapped from the Read More

1976
Syndicate Sadists

Actors: Tomas Milian, Joseph Cotten, Maria Fiore, Luciano Catenacci

Synopsis: Cult filmmaker Umberto Lenzi directed this bloody, gangster-oriented thriller starring Tomas Milian in a rare sympathetic role as Rambo, a principled biker who runs afoul of a blind crimelord (Joseph Cotten). The plot is standard Italian crime fare, but Milian's performance alone makes this gritty Read More

8/16/75
The AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Orson Welles

Synopsis: The American Film Institute Life Achievement Awards: Orson Welles gathers close to a dozen stars, including Charlton Heston, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, Ingrid Bergman, Robert Wagner, Natalie Wood, Janet Leigh, Joseph Cotten and Dennis Weaver, plus some other luminaries in the audience, to give Read More

1975
The Big Push

Synopsis: When a couple of ruthless businessmen threaten her logging camp, a defenseless widow is aided by a group of Alaskan lumberjacks. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

1975
The Rockford Files: This Case Is Closed, Part 1

Synopsis: In this rare 90-minute episode of The Rockford Files, Jim (James Garner) is hired by wealthy Warren Jameson, who wants to know something of the background of his future son-in-law Mark Chalmers (Geoffrey Land). Before long, Jim has run afoul of police lieutenant Larry Pierson (Eddie Fontaine), who Read More

1974
Soylent Green

Actors: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Brock Peters

Synopsis: Richard Fleischer directed this nightmarish science fiction vision of an over-populated world, based on the novel by Harry Harrison. In 2022, New York City is a town bursting at the seams with a 40-million-plus population. Food is in short supply, and most of the population's food source comes Read More

1973
A Delicate Balance

Actors: Betsy Blair, Joseph Cotten, Katharine Hepburn, Kate Reid, Lee Remick, Paul Scofield

Synopsis: A Delicate Balance is the 1973 film adaptation of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield play an old married couple, Agnes and Tobias, who much prefer to be alone. Each time someone visits them, their "delicate balance" is threatened. The first intruder is Read More

1973
F for Fake

Actors: Orson Welles, Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, François Reichenbach

Synopsis: The final directorial project the legendary Orson Welles completed during his lifetime, F for Fake is less a documentary than an example of cinematic free association on the topic of trickery. Much of the film is in fact drawn from other sources, most notably an unfinished documentary by Francois Reichenbach Read More

1973
The Streets of San Francisco: A Collection of Eagles

Synopsis: John Saxon and Joseph Cotten head the guest cast in this episode, wherein homicide detectives Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) investigate an elaborate scam that has gone fatally awry. Unscrupulous coin dealer Vince Hagopian Jr. (Saxon) has arranged to purchase several valuable Read More

1973
Lo Scopone Scientifico

Synopsis: In this drama, a wealthy US heiress and her partner embark upon their annual journey to Rome to play scopa, an Italian card game, with a financially struggling couple. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

8/28/72
Baron Blood

Actors: Antonio Cantafora, Massimo Girotti, Umberto Raho, Elke Sommer, Nicoletta Elmi

Synopsis: This above-average horror film concerns a young couple (Antonio Cantafora, Elke Sommer) who manage to revive a cruel sorceror-Baron (Joseph Cotten) from the 1500s. Posing as a cripple, the Baron assimilates back into society and buys back his old castle, where he begins torturing and murdering Read More

2/25/72
The Devil's Daughter

Actors: Belinda Montgomery, Shelley Winters, Robert Foxworth, Joseph Cotten, Jonathan Frid

Synopsis: Jeannot Szwarc, the director responsible for so many episodes (both good and bad) of the Night Gallery TV series, was the helmsman of The Devil's Daughter. This small-screen Rosemary's Baby clone stars Belinda Montgomery as a young woman targeted by a group of Satanists. It seems that Belinda's Read More

1972
The Screaming Woman

Actors: Olivia de Havilland

Synopsis: Olivia De Havilland plays a middle-aged woman who has recently been released from a mental institution after suffering a breakdown. She insists one evening that she can hear the muffled scream of a woman emanating from beneath the ground. Since no one else can hear these screams, De Havilland is Read More

1972
Doomsday Voyage

Synopsis: In this grim, violent crime drama, a hit man murders a politician and then boards a ship to New York. During the voyage, the assassin abducts the captain's daughter, holds her captive in his cabin and rapes her while her father agonizes over what he should do. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1972
Assault on the Wayne

Synopsis: This made-for-television feature (which premiered on the ABC Movie Of The Week) attracted slightly more interest than usual, due in part to the presence an unusually recognizable supporting cast (including several players, such as Joseph Cotten, Keenan Wynn and Dewey Martin, who'd had real film Read More

1971
The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Actors: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Virginia North, Terry-Thomas, Hugh Griffith

Synopsis: Long thought dead, the victim of a horrible accident, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) still lives, surrounded by art-deco bric-a-brac and attended by mute beauty Vulnavia (Virginia North). Outwardly normal in appearance, Phibes actually wears a rubber mask, covering his hideously deformed Read More

1971
Lady Frankenstein

Actors: Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: This lurid but entertaining Italian/Spanish twist on the Frankenstein legend begins with Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) being assisted in his research by his sultry daughter Tania (Sara Bay). The doctor's first attempt at a stitched-together creation results in a lumpy, pop-eyed monstrosity Read More

1971
City Beneath the Sea

Actors: Whit Bissell, Robert Colbert

Synopsis: Irwin Allen, praised in some circles as a science fiction genius and damned in others as a shameless schlockmeister, produced and directed this fanciful TV-movie. Set in the 21st century, the film concentrates on a group of colonists dwelling in a modernistic underwater city called Pacifica. The Read More

1970
Do You Take This Stranger?

Synopsis: Devious socialite Gene Barry stands to come into one million dollars. The catch is (and don't ask us why) that he must convince the authorities that he's dead. He arranges to switch identities with Lloyd Bridges, who is terminally ill. Diane Baker plays Barry's wife, who must needs be willing to Read More

1970
Split Second to an Epitaph

Synopsis: In this drama, the second in the "Ironside" series, the Chief becomes marked for murder after he witnesses the execution of hospital security guard. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1970
Tora! Tora! Tora!

Actors: Martin Balsam, So Yamamura, Joseph Cotten, Tatsuya Mihashi, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: This 25-million dollar epic collaboration accurately recreates the events that led to the Japanese attack on the American naval base during World War II. With Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the wheels are set in motion by Japan to plan the attack. After internal differences in Read More

1970
The King of Denmark

Synopsis: When an ancient and invaluable manuscript is found, a girl disappears increasing the mystery. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

1970
Ido Zero Daisakusen

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Cesar Romero, Masumi Okada

Synopsis: Godzilla maven Inoshiro Honda helmed this quaint, old-fashioned fantasy adventure (loosely styled after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) about the crew of a damaged deep-sea craft who are taken aboard a high-tech atomic submarine dubbed "Alpha," commanded by the Nemo-like Captain McKenzie Joseph Cotten Read More

1969
The Grasshopper

Actors: Jacqueline Bisset, Jim Brown, Joseph Cotten, Corbett Monica, Ramon Bieri

Synopsis: Christine (Jacqueline Bisset) is the young bank teller who is bored with her job and her husband. She leaves for Las Vegas where she scores a job as a chorus girl. The beautiful Christine does not have the talent to parlay the job into an upwardly mobile career. She marries an older man and Read More

1969
The Lonely Profession

Actors: Ina Balin, Harry Guardino

Synopsis: A superb throwback to the "films noir" of old, The Lonely Profession puts icing on the cake with a strong dose of 1960s realism--within reasonable TV-movie limits. Harry Guardino plays a businesslike private eye assigned to trail the mistress (Ina Balin) of a Hughes-like reclusive millionaire. Read More

1969
Cutter's Trail

Synopsis: John Gavin stars as Santa Fe marshal Ben Cutter, whose homecoming is blighted when he finds his town has been taken over by a Mexican bandit gang. Accompanied by two of the less frightened townsfolk--a small boy (Manuel Padila Jr.) and the boy's mother (Marisa Pavan)--Cutter sets out to rid the Read More

1969
Ironside: Split Second to an Epitaph, Part 1

Synopsis: Ironside departs from its usual one-hour format with this extended episode, originally telecast in a two-hour slot and later syndicated as a two-parter. While witnessing a murder committed by a drug thief, Ironside (Raymond Burr) incurs a shock to his spinal chord which may enable doctors to Read More

1968
Ironside: Split Second to an Epitaph, Part 2

Synopsis: In this second half of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single two-hour episode), Ironside (Raymond Burr) is in the hospital awaiting an operation that may cure his paralysis--or bring about his death if things go wrong. In typical fashion, the detective is able to put aside his own Read More

1968
Petulia

Actors: Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Richard Chamberlain, Arthur Hill, Shirley Knight

Synopsis: Petulia is Richard Lester's ode to the Swinging Sixties: a time of psychedelic instability when neither those who were square, nor those who were hip, really had it right. George C. Scott is Archie Bollen, a divorced San Francisco doctor in the midst of "discovering himself." Julie Christie is Read More

1968
The Hellbenders

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Norma Bengell, Julián Mateos, Gino Pernice, Angel Aranda

Synopsis: In this spaghetti Western, Joseph Cotten stars as Jonas, an ex-Confederate soldier who robs a Union freight train in order to re-ignite the Civil War. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

2/2/67
Jack of Diamonds

Actors: George Hamilton, Joseph Cotten, Marie Laforêt, Maurice Evans, Wolfgang Preiss

Synopsis: The success of several 1960s-era cat-burglar movies depended upon the suave and agreeable machinations of the film's antiheroic hero, as he stylishly worked to remove surplus wealth from the obscenely wealthy. That formula reaped a box-office bonanza, and here the producers are back with it again Read More

1967
White Comanche

Synopsis: In this film, the twin sons of a white man and an Indian woman must struggle to overcome both their sibling rivalry and their conflicting identities. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

1967
Some May Live

Synopsis: In this war drama, an Army intelligence officer stationed in Saigon labors to discover the identity of the double-agent in his department who has been sending classified information to the Soviets. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1967
Brighty of the Grand Canyon

Actors: Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: A meandering mule and an old prospector find gold and adventure in the Grand Canyon in this family programmer. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

1967
The Money Trap

Actors: Glenn Ford, Elke Sommer, Rita Hayworth, Ricardo Montalban, Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: In this well-regarded film noir thriller, Joe Barron (Glenn Ford) is a police detective whose wife Lisa (Elke Sommer) has inherited a stock portfolio from her father. Joe and Lisa go on a spending spree, but when their new holdings fail to pay dividends, Joe finds himself deep in debt. Dr. Read More

1966
In Saigon: Some May Live

Synopsis: A woman who works for American Intelligence headquarters in Saigon relates important military information to her husband, a communist agent. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

1966
The Oscar

Actors: Stephen Boyd, Elke Sommer, Milton Berle, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Cotten

Synopsis: A heartless actor scrambles to the top of show business' sleazy summit in this drama. Frank Fane (Stephen Boyd) is a Hollywood leading man who is desperate to boost his career by winning an Academy Award, and he doesn't care who he has to betray to achieve his goals -- including his former best Read More

1966
Gli Uomini dal Passo Pesante

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Gordon Scott, Ilaria Occhini, Franco Nero

Synopsis: A Civil War vet returns home to his home in the South and witnesses the outdated attitudes of his family--particularly those of his domineering father. This western drama was filmed on location in Argentina. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

12/31/65
The Great Sioux Massacre

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Darren McGavin, Philip Carey, Julie Sommars, Nancy Kovack

Synopsis: The Great Sioux Massacre is an entertaining pack of lies about Custer's Last Stand. General Custer (Philip Carey) is herein depicted as a bastion of tolerance, whose efforts to secure fair treatment for the Indians lead to several confrontations with corrupt government officials. Custer is forced Read More

1965
Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Actors: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: An unusually long pre-credits sequence establishes the roots of faded Southern belle Charlotte's (Bette Davis) insanity; she'd been witness to the dismemberment murder of her fiance (Bruce Dern) and the suicide of the murderer, her own father (Victor Buono). Years later, Charlotte remains a Read More

1965
The Search

Synopsis: In this actioner, a wanted man clears his name after he arrests the real culprit and his gang. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1964
Hollywood and the Stars: The Wild and Wonderful Thirties

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Jackie Coogan

1964
Hollywood and the Stars: The Great Directors

1964
Alexander the Great

Synopsis: One of the most famous of unsold TV pilots, Alexander the Great stars William Shatner in the title role. Nine months in the making, this lavish 60-minute drama recreates the battle between the Greeks and Persians at Issus (filmed near St. George, Utah). Hoping to attract as wide an audience as Read More

1964
Hollywood and the Stars: The Great Lovers

Actors: Joseph Cotten

1964
Hollywood and the Stars: They Went That-a Way

Actors: Joseph Cotten

1963
The Immortal Jolson

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Al Jolson

1963
Hollywood and the Stars: Funny Men

Actors: Joseph Cotten

1963
The Last Sunset

Actors: Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone, Joseph Cotten, Carol Lynley

Synopsis: Scripted by Dalton Trumbo and directed by Robert Aldrich, this off-beat, almost eclectic film could be hailed as a thinking person's western. It is the dark cat-and-mouse tale of a sherrif's hunt for a philosophy-spouting criminal in the midst of a great cattle drive. The outlaw killed the Read More

1961
The Angel Wore Red

Actors: Ava Gardner, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Cotten, Vittorio De Sica, Aldo Fabrizi

Synopsis: This is an indecisive, ultimately unconvincing wartime drama set in the 1930s when Spain was caught in a bloody civil war, a situation that is never clearly delineated in that the story supports the fascists without specifically saying so. The hero is a voluntarily defrocked priest, Arturo Carrera Read More

4/14/60
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Dead Weight

Synopsis: Philandering husband Courtney Masterson (Joseph Cotten) and his paramour, Peg Valence (Julie Adams), are attacked by a robber named Rudy (Don Gordon). Fortunately, Courtney and Peg manage to overpower their assailant and lock the man in the trunk of Masterson's car. At this point, Courtney should Read More

1959
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Together

Synopsis: During a Christmas office party, executive Tony Gould (Joseph Cotten) is confronted in his office by his secretary -- and mistress -- Shelley (Chris White). Fed up with being strung along by the married Tony, Shelley threatens to reveal their relationship if he doesn't divorce his wife Read More

1958
From the Earth to the Moon

Actors: Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget, Don Dubbins, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: The resurgence of interest in Jules Verne following the release of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) led to a brief cycle of Verne-based films. Produced in Mexico by Benedict Bogeaus, From the Earth to the Moon stars Joseph Cotten as eccentric Civil War-era scientist Victor Barbicane. Claiming Read More

1958
The Halliday Brand

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Viveca Lindfors, Betsy Blair, Ward Bond, Bill Williams

Synopsis: It's "Freud on the Frontier" time in the tension-filled western The Halliday Brand. Ward Bond plays Big Dan, the despotic head of the Halliday clan, while Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair costar as Halliday's offspring Daniel and Martha. Intensely anti-Indian, Big Dan encourages a mob to lynch Jivaro Read More

1957
The Killer Is Loose

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale, Jr., Michael Pate

Synopsis: In this thriller, "Foggy" (Wendell Corey) is a bank teller who got his nickname for the thick spectacles he must wear. Foggy is also an inside man for a gang of thieves planning to rob his bank. Unfortunately, their plan goes awry and he is arrested. During the ensuing scuffle, his wife is Read More

1956
The Bottom of the Bottle

Actors: Van Johnson, Joseph Cotten, Ruth Roman, Jack Carson, Maggie Hayes

Synopsis: Two brothers face their personal demons in this crime melodrama. Donald Martin (Van Johnson) is an alcoholic criminal who has escaped from prison and needs help crossing the Mexican border to freedom. Desperate, he arrives at the ranch of his lawyer brother Martin (Joseph Cotten). Martin has Read More

1956
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Breakdown

Synopsis: Alfred Hitchcock's second directorial effort for his popular suspense anthology is one of the series' best ever episodes. Joseph Cotten stars as William Callew, a hard-nosed and hard-hearted businessman who holds in contempt such human failings as sentiment, pity, and tears. While racing to keep Read More

1955
Vom Himmel Gefallen

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Eva Bartok, Rene Deltgen, Bruni Loebel

Synopsis: Vom Himmel Gefallen is better known by its American title, Special Delivery. Joseph Cotten plays John Adams, a functionary at the U.S. embassy in a fictional Iron Curtain country. A baby is left on the doorstep of the embassy, sparking an international incident when a high-ranking communist Read More

1955
State of the Union

1954
Egypt by Three

Actors: Ann Stanville, Jackie Craven, Paul Campbell, Charles Fawcett

Synopsis: The three stories in this anthology are all set beside the Nile River and are narrated by Joseph Cotten. The first story deals with the potentially dangerous, tumultuous love affair between a knife-thrower and his partner. The knife thrower is married and when his wife finds out about the affair Read More

1953
A Blueprint for Murder

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Gary Merrill, Catherine McLeod, Jack Kruschen

Synopsis: Joseph Cotten stars in A Blueprint for Murder as Whitney Cameron, a man who harbors a deep and abiding affection for his pretty sister-in-law Lynne Cameron (Jean Peters). When one of Lynne's stepchildren dies, the autopsy indicates that the child was poisoned. Despite his feelings for Lynne Read More

1953
Niagara

Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Casey Adams, Denis O'Dea

Synopsis: Belated honeymooners Polly (Jean Peters) and Ray Cutler (Casey Adams) arrive at their Niagara Falls cottage only to find that Rose (Marilyn Monroe) and George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) have not yet checked out. Though the Cutlers temporarily take another cabin, the lives of the two couples are bound Read More

1952
Othello

Actors: Orson Welles, Michael MacLiammoir, Michael Laurence, Suzanne Cloutier, Robert Coote

Synopsis: Anyone interested in making a low-budget movie ought to see Orson Welles' screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello, a striking example of how much can be achieved with very little money. For years, stories about this singularly troubled movie circulated more widely than the film itself; Welles Read More

1952
The Steel Trap

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Eddie Marr, Aline Towne, William Hudson

Synopsis: Joseph Cotten plays a assistant bank manager who steals $500,000 from the safe late on a Friday. He plans to fly to Brazil with his wife (Teresa Wright) and child. They get as far as New Orleans; the wife finds out about the robbery and walks out on Cotten. Stricken by guilt, Cotten must now Read More

1952
Untamed Frontier

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Shelley Winters, Scott Brady, Suzan Ball, Minor Watson

Synopsis: Reportedly, there was no love lost between the three stars of Untamed Frontier, and perhaps it was this tension that added so much depth to this otherwise formula-bound western. Joseph Cotten plays Kirk Denbow, the straight-laced son of ruthless cattle-baron Matt Denbow (Minor Watson), while Scott Brady Read More

1952
Half Angel

Actors: Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Cecil Kellaway, Basil Ruysdael, Jim Backus

Synopsis: Even at age 38, Loretta Young could successfully pull off her ingenue duties in the innocuous comedy Half Angel. Young plays Nora, a prim and proper nurse, engaged to the stuffy Tim (John Ridgely). Unbeknownst to both, Nora is a sleepwalker; during her nocturnal forays, the less-inhibited side of Read More

1951
The Man with a Cloak

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern, Leslie Caron, Joe de Santis

Synopsis: Set in 19th-century New York, this mystery begins when a Frenchwoman shows up at the home of one of Napoleon's former marshals. The alcoholic man is badly crippled and slowly dying, but this doesn't stop the forthright lady from pushing him to change his will to include his estranged grandson so Read More

1951
Peking Express

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Corinne Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Marvin Miller, Benson Fong

Synopsis: Peking Express was the second remake of Josef vonSternberg's Shanghai Express. In the original film, a group of railroad passengers escaping war-torn China are overtaken by Chinese; in the first remake, Night Plane to Chungking, a plane is forced down in a jungle surrounded by Japanese troops. Read More

1951
Walk Softly, Stranger

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Spring Byington, Paul Stewart

Synopsis: Joseph Cotten stars in Walk Softly, Stranger as Chris Hale, a fugitive criminal who decides to hide out in a small Midwestern town. Here, Hale makes the acquaintance of Elaine Corelli (Alida Valli), who has had a grudge against the world since being crippled in a skiing accident. While endeavoring Read More

1950
September Affair

Actors: Joan Fontaine, Joseph Cotten, Françoise Rosay, Jessica Tandy, Robert Arthur

Synopsis: With location scenes lensed in Italy, September Affair is consistently good to look at, even when the pacing flags and the dialogue becomes too verbose. Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten star as married couple Manina and David. Trouble is, they're not married to each other. Through a series of Read More

1950
The Wild Heart

Actors: Jennifer Jones, David Farrar, Cyril Cusack, Esmond Knight, Sybil Thorndike, Edward Chapman

Synopsis: The brooding British romantic drama Gone to Earth is better known by its American title The Wild Heart. Filmed in England and cofinanced by David O. Selznick and Alexander Korda, the film stars Jennifer Jones (Mrs. Selznick) as Hazel Woodus, a tempestuous Welsh gypsy maid who can't seem to stay Read More

1950
Two Flags West

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Jeff Chandler, Cornel Wilde, Dale Robertson

Synopsis: Two Flags West is set in the waning days of the Civil War. Colonel Clay Tucker (Joseph Cotten) is one of several Confederate prisoners who agree to fight alongside Union soldiers against the Indians in New Mexico. Tucker's Union commander Kenniston (Jeff Chandler) despises all "Johnny Rebs," Read More

1950
Beyond the Forest

Actors: Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian, Ruth Roman, Regis Toomey, Minor Watson

Synopsis: "What a dump!" That's the classic line delivered by Bette Davis at the halfway point of Beyond the Forest, her final Warner Bros. effort of the 1940s. Some Davis devotees feel as though this vituperative utterance is the high point of an otherwise turgid melodrama; others consider the line a Read More

1949
Under Capricorn

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding, Sr., Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker

Synopsis: Returning to his old Elstree Studios headquarters in England, Alfred Hitchcock did his best with Hume Cronyn's adaptation of the James Bridie novel Under Capricorn. Costume drama was never Hitchcock's forte, as proven by his disappointing Jamaica Inn (1939), but Capricorn does have its moments. Read More

1949
The Third Man

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Paul Hoerbiger

Synopsis: In this Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Upon his arrival, Martins discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that Read More

1949
Portrait of Jennie

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones, Ethel Barrymore, David Wayne, Lillian Gish, Florence Bates, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: In Portrait of Jennie, Joseph Cotten plays an artist, Eben Adams, who is unable to bring any true feeling to his work. While painting in Central Park one morning, Eben makes the acquaintance of a schoolgirl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who prattles on about things that happened years ago. Read More

1948
The Farmer's Daughter

Actors: Loretta Young, Keith Andes, James Arness, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Art Baker, Charles Bickford, Harry Davenport, Lex Barker

Synopsis: When Loretta Young stepped up to accept her Academy Award for The Farmer's Daughter, the ever-youthful leading lady, who'd been in films since 1928, sighed "At long last!" Young is cast as Katie Holstrum, an independently-minded Swedish girl who leaves her family's Minnesota farm to take a Read More

1947
Duel in the Sun

Actors: Griff Barnett, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Charles Bickford, Joseph Cotten, Sidney Blackmer, Lionel Barrymore, Harry Carey, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: In David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, Jennifer Jones stars as Pearl Chavez, whom everyone has tagged as a "bad girl" foredoomed to an unhappy end. She is taken into the home of wealthy, greedy rancher McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) and his kindly wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), who'd once been the Read More

1946
Love Letters

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ann Richards, Gladys Cooper, Cecil Kellaway, Anita Louise

Synopsis: Ayn Rand wrote this adaptation of Chris Massie's book Pity Mr. Simplicity, about a soldier who falls in love with a former comrade's wife -- an amnesiac who may have murdered her husband. The story begins in Italy when two soldiers, Allen Quinton (Joseph Cotten) and Roger Morland (Robert Sully) Read More

1945
I'll Be Seeing You

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Tom Tully

Synopsis: Ginger Rogers gives a dramatic performance in this moving romantic drama in which a woman named Mary Marshall, who was convicted of manslaughter (she defended herself when her lecherous boss attempted to rape her and she accidentally killed him), is granted a ten-day furlough for Christmas to Read More

1944
Since You Went Away

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: David O. Selznick's first production since 1940's Rebecca, Since You Went Away, based on Margaret Buell Wilder's bestselling novel, is a long but rewarding paean to the World War 2 "home front". Claudette Colbert plays the wife of a businessman who, though well past draft age, volunteered to serve Read More

1944
Gaslight

Actors: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman won her first of three Oscars for this suspense thriller, crafted with surprising tautness by normally genteel "women's picture" director George Cukor. Bergman stars as Paula Alquist, a late 19th century English singer studying music in Italy. However, Paula abandons her studies Read More

1944
Shadow of a Doubt

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, MacDonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge

Synopsis: Teresa Wright plays Charlie, a small-town high-schooler who enjoys a symbiotic relationship with her favorite uncle, also named Charlie (Joseph Cotten). When young Charlie "wills" that old Charlie pay a visit to her family, her wish comes true. Uncle Charlie is his usual charming self, but he Read More

1943
Hers to Hold

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Joseph Cotten, Charles Winninger, Evelyn Ankers, Gus Schilling

Synopsis: Deanna Durbin is all grown up in Hers to Hold, the unofficial sequel to her "Three Smart Girls" films of the 1930s. Durbin plays Penelope Craig, the starry-eyed daughter of wealthy Judson and Dorothy Craig (Charles Winninger, Nella Walker). Developing a crush on much-older playboy Bill Morley Read More

1943
The Magnificent Ambersons

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Orson Welles' followup to Citizen Kane (1941) was utterly different from Kane in style and texture, but just as brilliant in its own way. Writer/director Welles does not appear on camera, but his voiceover narration superbly sets the stage for the movie's action, which fades in valentine Read More

1942
Journey into Fear

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Orson Welles, Jack Durant, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Orson Welles had planned to produce, direct and star in RKO's Journey Into Fear, but prior commitments compelled him to vacate the director's chair in favor of Norman Foster. Joseph Cotten, who starred as an American gunnery engineer up to his armpits in international intrigue, adapted the Read More

1942
Citizen Kane

Actors: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Dorothy Comingore, Ray Collins, Ruth Warrick, George Coulouris

Synopsis: Orson Welles first feature film -- which he directed, produced, and co-wrote, as well as playing the title role -- proved to be his most important and influential work, a ground-breaking drama loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst which is frequently cited as the finest American Read More

1941
Lydia

Actors: Merle Oberon, Edna May Oliver, Alan Marshal, Joseph Cotten, Hans Yaray

Synopsis: Adapted from a French movie entitled Un Carnet de Bal, this is a story of love unrequited. In one of her best performances, Merle Oberon portrays an elderly woman who has spent her life waiting for a man whom she had a brief liaison with but who never returned for her as he had promised. Casting Read More

1941
Too Much Johnson

1938

Movie data provided by

Add this Person to Favorites

Need Help?

E-mail