Karen Allen Filmography

Poster Boy

Actors: Matt Newton, Karen Allen, Michael Lerner, Jack Noseworthy, Valerie Geffner

Synopsis: A conservative politician who believes he can count on his family for support discovers his son is not the man he thought he was in this drama. Jack Kray (Michael Lerner) is a United States senator from the South whose right-wing views have earned him the nickname "the Nazi from North Carolina." Read More

When Will I Be Loved

Actors: Neve Campbell, Dominic Chianese, Frederick Weller, Karen Allen, Barry Primus

Synopsis: Directed by James Toback, the erotic drama When Will I Be Loved? revolves around Vera, the debutante girlfriend (Neve Campbell) of a fast-talking hustler (Frederick Weller) who is on the verge of making millions through a big-money gambling venture. Feeling undervalued, Vera explores her sexuality Read More

Unseen + Untold: Animal House

Actors: Tim Matheson, Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, Bruce McGill, John Landis

Synopsis: On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the release of the classic "raunch comedy" National Lampoon's Animal House, the Spike TV cable channel offered this behind-the-scenes special on the making of the film. Amidst a sea of anecdotes concerning the mercurial behavior of the film's star, John Belushi Read More

Plain Dirty

Actors: Dominique Swain, Henry Thomas, Arie Verveen, James Urbaniak, Karen Allen

Synopsis: Zev Berman's thriller Killing Edgar stars Dominique Swain as Inez Macbeth, a woman married to the volatile criminal Edgar (Henry Thomas). She has grown tired of their marriage and strays outside of her vows. Edgar finds out and proceeds to hold her prisoner in her own house with the help of his Read More

World Traveler

Actors: Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Cleavant Derricks, David Keith, James LeGros, Karen Allen, Mary McCormack

Synopsis: Following up on his acclaimed debut The Myth of Fingerprints, Bart Freundlich spins this drama that poses the question "what would it be like to run away from your life?" The film centers on a restless thirtysomething New Yorker named Cal (Billy Crudup) who one day drives off into the open road Read More

In the Bedroom

Actors: Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Nick Stahl, Marisa Tomei, William Mapother

Synopsis: Character actor and noted photographer Todd Field made his directorial debut with this emotionally powerful drama, which earned enthusiastic reviews at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl) is a handsome and amiable young man who has recently graduated from high school and is Read More

My Horrible Year!

Actors: Allison Mack, Karen Allen, Mimi Rogers, Eric Stoltz, Bret Hart

Synopsis: Produced by actress Mimi Rogers (who shows up on screen in the role of Aunt Marion) and directed by actor Eric Stoltz, the made-for-cable movie My Horrible Year! is the story of Nik Faulkner (Allison Mack), a 16-year-old girl about to undergo a crucial rite of passage: the removal of her braces. Read More

Shaka Zulu: The Citadel

Actors: David Hasselhoff, Karen Allen, Henry Cele, James Fox

The Perfect Storm

Actors: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, William Fichtner, John Hawkes

Synopsis: In October 1991, a dying tropical hurricane from Bermuda collided with a cold front from the Great Lakes, resulting in a "perfect storm" of previously unknown destructive impact that resulted in 100-foot waves; tragically, the crew of a fishing boat was lost in the midst of the fearsome storm. Read More

The Basket

Actors: Peter Coyote, Karen Allen, Robert Karl Burke, Amber Willenborg, Jock MacDonald

Synopsis: In this drama about intolerance and acceptance that takes place during World War I, a pair of German orphans, Helmut and Brigitta, are sent to a farming community in the Pacific Northwest after a stay in an internment camp. While they are welcomed by some in the town, many resent their presence Read More

Wind River

Synopsis: In 1854 Utah, 13-year old Nick Wilson (Blake Heron), bored by life on the family farm with his widowed mother (Karen Allen), accepts an invitation to join a local Shoshone tribe. The Indians are anxious to have the boy among them because he fulfills the prescient dreams of one of the elders, Anuba Read More

Falling Sky

Synopsis: A mother and daughter attempt to conquer Las Vegas in this domestic drama co-directed by Brian J. De Palma and Russ Brandt. Emily (Brittany Murphy) and Reese Nicholson (Karen Allen) moved to Las Vegas with the intention of fulfilling Reese's dream of becoming a singer. However, their financial Read More

'Til There Was You

Actors: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Dylan McDermott, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olin

Synopsis: This romantic comedy is the first film from two television veterans, writer Winnie Holzman and director Scott Winant. Gwen Moss (Jeanne Tripplehorn) is a writer working on the life story of former child actress Francesca Lanfield (Sarah Jessica Parker), who is recovering from drug addiction. Nick Read More

All the Winters That Have Been

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Karen Allen, Ben Cardinal, Sheila Tousey, Chris Martin

Synopsis: It has been 20 years since Federal agent Dane Corvin (Richard Chamberlain) left his home town of Raven Island -- and also 20 years since Dane's fiancée Helen (Karen Allen), a talented sculptor, bitterly broke off their engagement when he was forced to arrest her brother for poaching. Now Corvin Read More

Law & Order: Survivor

Synopsis: The murder of a rare coin dealer puts the spotlight of suspicion on the dealer's millionaire friend Richard Peterson (Michael Wilson). The wheels of justice move slowly as the D.A.'s office tries to establish provenance for the dead man's missing coin collection. A pivotal player in the Read More

Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story

Synopsis: Working in a branch office of the Internal Revenue Service, Kerry Ellison (Rena Sofer) must suffer the unwanted advances of co-worker Jack Gilcrest (Victor Garber), who among his other "eccentricities" carries a live grenade in his car. Even when Kerry is transferred to another division, Jack's Read More

Ghost in the Machine

Actors: Karen Allen, Chris Mulkey, Ted Marcoux, Wil Horneff, Jessica Walter

Synopsis: A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can Read More

The Rapture

Actors: Grant Aljanak, Karen Allen, Gemma Barry, Don Dickinson, John Friesen, David McIlwraith, Michael Ontkean, Hrant Alianak

The Sandlot

Actors: Daniel Zacapa, Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Chauncey Leopardi, Karen Allen, Marty York

Synopsis: The Sandlot is sparsely narrated by the main character (now an adult) who occasionally drops in on the action to comment on events or help move the story along. Tom Guiry plays Scotty Smalls, the shy new kid on the block who wants to join the rowdy pickup baseball team that plays every day in the Read More

King of the Hill

Actors: Jesse Bradford, Jeroen Krabbé, Lisa Eichhorn, Karen Allen, Spalding Gray

Synopsis: Steven Soderbergh, after the success of sex, lies, and videotape and the commercial failure of Kafka, pulls a rabbit out of his hat with this quiet and evocative recollection of a childhood lived in the Depression, based on A. E. Hotchner's memoir. Twelve-year-old Aaron Kurlander (Jesse Bradford) Read More

Voyage

Actors: Karen Allen, Rutger Hauer, Connie Nielsen, Eric Roberts

Synopsis: If you've seen the theatrical feature Dead Calm or the made-for-TV Adrift, you should have a pretty good idea of what the USA Network TV movie Voyage has in store for you. "Nothing outside but the sea...Nothing inside but the terror" promised the print ads. Eric Roberts, Connie Nielsen, Rutger Hauer Read More

Malcolm X

Actors: Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Angela Bassett, Al Freeman, Jr., Delroy Lindo, Albert Hall

Synopsis: Writer-director Spike Lee's epic portrayal of the life and times of the slain civil rights leader Malcolm X begins with the cross-cut imagery of the police beating of black motorist Rodney King juxtaposed with an American flag burning into the shape of the letter X. When the film's narrative Read More

The Turning

Actors: Gillian Anderson, Karen Allen, Raymond J. Barry, Michael Dolan, Tess Harper

Synopsis: With his All-American good looks, Cliff (Michael Dolan) has had easy access to the sorts of groups that appealed to him as he traveled around the U.S., mostly Klan and neo-Nazi organizations. He is bitter about his childhood, during which his parents bickered constantly. Now, at 22, he has come Read More

Sweet Talker

Actors: Bryan Brown, Karen Allen, Justin Rosniak, Chris Haywood, Bill Kerr

Synopsis: In Sweet Talker, an amiable, charming ex-convict (Bryan Brown) arrives in a small Australian costal city with the intent of duping the populace into investing money in a phony excavation of a sunken ship, which is allegedly filled with gold. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with a young widow (Karen Allen Read More

Secret Weapon

Actors: Karen Allen, Griffin Dunne

Synopsis: This film is based upon the true story of Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli lab technician who left his job and country in protest of the nuclear arms project to which he'd been assigned. Going public, he hoped to deter the hellish mission and sway world opinion against those within his country Read More

Challenger

Actors: Karen Allen, Barry Bostwick, Julie Fulton, Richard Jenkins, Brian Kerwin

Synopsis: Made for television, The Challenger is at once a tribute and a eulogy to the seven courageous souls who perished when the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986. Though all of the crew members are given three-dimensional, balanced treatment, the one we all Read More

Animal Behavior

Actors: Karen Allen, Armand Assante, Holly Hunter, Richard Libertini, Josh Mostel

Synopsis: In this enjoyable, lighthearted "he's fallen for her" situational, a music professor finds a science department faculty member too deeply engrossed in her inter-species communication studies (she talks to chimps) to even notice him. Since he can't get her mind off her studies, he decides to work Read More

Scrooged

Actors: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane

Synopsis: A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard Read More

Terminus

Actors: Johnny Hallyday, Karen Allen, Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Damon, Julie Glenn

Synopsis: This uneven science fiction road race combines European motorcross with football. Gus (Karen Allen) is the driver of a behemoth vehicle named Monster. The computer-controlled car runs off course, with Gus being captured and tortured. Before she dies, she turns the driving gloves over to fellow Read More

The Glass Menagerie

Actors: Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich, Karen Allen, James Naughton

Synopsis: Paul Newman directed this moving adaptation of Tennessee Williams' classic play The Glass Menagerie. Joanne Woodward stars as aging Southern belle Amanda Wingfield, whose domineering parenting has driven her shy, timid daughter Laura (Karen Allen) inward and has made her adventure-hungry son Tom Read More

Backfire

Actors: Karen Allen, Keith Carradine, Jeff Fahey, Bernie Casey, Dean Paul Martin

Synopsis: Wealthy-but-troubled Vietnam vet Jeff Fahey, his trailer-trash wife Karen Allen, and drifter Keith Carradine are the characters essential to the action in Backfire. Fahey's horrific flashbacks to his days in Nam plunge him into a catatonic state. Though he has previously drawn up a document Read More

Until September

Actors: Karen Allen, Thierry Lhermitte, Christopher Cazenove, Hutton Cobb

Synopsis: Mo Alexander (Karen Allen) is a young American woman on vacation in France who is stranded in Paris after missing her plane back to the U.S. In the hotel where she is staying to await her next flight, she meets Xavier de la Perouse (Thierry Lhermitte), a wealthy French banker. Xavier is married Read More

Starman

Actors: Ted White, Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith, Richard Jaeckel, Robert Phalen

Synopsis: Having crashed to Earth, an extraterrestrial space traveller must assume a human identity lest he be captured by the authorities. The alien (Jeff Bridges) chooses the likeness of the recently deceased husband of Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). At first dumbstruck, Jenny becomes both hostile toward Read More

Shoot the Moon

Actors: Albert Finney, Diane Keaton, Karen Allen, Peter Weller, Dana Hill

Synopsis: Director Alan Parker and writer Bo Goldman chronicle the emotional disintegration of an unhappy marriage. Albert Finney and Diane Keaton play George and Faith Dunlap, a seemingly happily married couple living with their four daughters in a converted farmhouse in Marin County, California. George is Read More

Split Image

Actors: Michael O'Keefe, Karen Allen, Peter Fonda, James Woods, Elizabeth Ashley

Synopsis: Sure to generate conversation, this provocative drama tells the story of how a middle-class family is torn apart when their clean-cut high-achieving son, who has the potential of making it on the Olympic gymnast team, suddenly joins a religious cult. The parents become deeply worried and try to Read More

East of Eden

Synopsis: The 1955 film version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden will always be popular because of the presence in the cast of James Dean. Even so, the film covered only a small portion of the original novel. For those Steinbeck completists who prefer a more thorough treatment, we submit for your approval Read More

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Actors: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Denholm Elliott, Paul Freeman, Wolf Kahler

Synopsis: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French Read More

A Small Circle of Friends

Actors: Brad Davis, Karen Allen, Jameson Parker, Shelley Long, John Friedrich

Synopsis: Pumped up with energy to spare in its first half, this is an otherwise routine drama about a love triangle set in the turbulent late '60s on the Harvard campus. Harvard takes a remote backseat though, as Leo (Brad Davis) chases after Jessica (Karen Allen) while buddy Nick (Jameson Parker) also Read More

Cruising

Actors: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino

Synopsis: New York City detective Steve Burns Al Pacino receives orders from Captain Edelson Paul Sorvino to solve a series of brutal murders in the gay community. Steve scours the gay bars that caters to same-sex sadomasochism in a desperate attempt to solve the crime. As he infiltrates the scene, he Read More

The Wanderers

Actors: Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Karen Allen, Linda Manz, Toni Kalem

Synopsis: The year 1979 saw an epidemic of American street-gang films, including Phil Kaufman's hit period drama The Wanderers. Set in the Bronx in 1963, the film concerns the titular gang of Italian-American teens and their ongoing power struggle with the rival "Fordham Baldies." Richard Price, upon whose Read More

Manhattan

Actors: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep

Synopsis: On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American filmmakers, Manhattan continued Allen's romantic obsessions in a slightly darker, more pessimistic vein. Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV comedy writer sick of the pap he is Read More

National Lampoon's Animal House

Actors: John Belushi, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst

Synopsis: Director John Landis put himself on the map with this low-budget, fabulously successful comedy, which made a then-astounding 62 million dollars and started a slew of careers for its cast in the process. National Lampoon's Animal House is set in 1962 on the campus of Faber College in Faber, PA. The Read More

Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part Two

Synopsis: Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part Two is that TV movie rarity: a sequel that is every bit as terrific as the original. Jane Alexander repeats her role from 1977's A Circle of Children as a volunteer teacher specializing in autistic and emotionally disturbed children. Hannah (Kris McKeon) is an 11 Read More