Norman Mailer Filmography

Oswald's Ghost

Actors: Norman Mailer, Gary Hart, Dan Rather, Mark Lane, Edward J. Epstein

Synopsis: For the Baby Boomers, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy took on the same since of tragedy as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did for Generation Y - not only for the effect that it had on a nation's morale but for the conspiracy theories that would follow in it's aftermath as Read More

The Outsider

Actors: James Toback

Synopsis: Filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki offers a celluloid portrait of a cinematic mastermind at work in this documentary shot over an eight month period and following director James Toback through each phase of production of his 2004 thriller When Will I be Loved. From pre-production to final cut, Jarecki Read More

The Ballad of Greenwich Village

Synopsis: Ever since the 1850s, Greenwich Village has been the center of New York City's (and perhaps America's) creative and bohemian community; long a bastion of artists, authors, radicals and free-thinkers, Greenwich Village was a community where outsiders of various stripes would be welcomed with open Read More

Inside Deep Throat

Synopsis: Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato follow up Party Monster by returning to the documentary form of their most popular film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Rather than examining evangelists-cum-gay icons, this time the duo takes aim at the cultural phenomenon that is and was Deep Throat, the Read More

Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire

Actors: Julian Bond

Synopsis: Did the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, allow certain Republican leaders to put policies and legislation into effect that they knew would be rejected by their colleagues and constituents at nearly any other time? That's the question posed by this documentary, which offers a detailed look Read More

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg

Actors: Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, Dr. Timothy Leary

Synopsis: In 1955, poet Allen Ginsberg summed up the greatest fears of his generation in a landmark poem appropriately titled "Howl." As a result of that defining piece of prose, Ginsberg would become an icon of the Beat Generation. Inspired by Ginsberg's powerful personality and captivating charisma as a Read More

Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story

Synopsis: Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story documents one of the most shocking and brutal events in the history of boxing. During a bout against Benny Paret in 1962, Griffith beat the man so badly that Paret died from the injuries sustained in the ring. This tragic incident becomes more complex when Read More

Gilmore Girls: Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant!

Synopsis: Author Norman Mailer shows up at the Dragonfly Inn accompanied by an interviewer (played by Mailer's son Stephen Mailer), throwing Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) into a tizzy when he seems to reject her cooking. But Sookie would have been hard to deal with under any circumstances; she's just found out Read More

Le monde selon Bush

Actors: Norman Mailer, Robert Steele, Michael Leeden, James Robinson, Robert Baer

Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story

Crew: Teleplay By

Actors: William Hurt, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Ron Silver, Peter Boyle

Synopsis: Originally presented in two parts by the CBS network, Master Spy is the true story of Robert Hanssen, a disgruntled FBI agent who, for 20 years, systematically sold out his country to the former Soviet Union. The film depicts Hanssen (played by William Hurt) as hyper-intelligent and Read More

Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale

Actors: Tobias Schneebaum, Norman Mailer, Charlie Rose, Mike Douglas

Synopsis: In 1955, artist, author, and anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum fulfilled a life-long dream by visiting the jungles of Peru. Seven months later, the New York native returned with remarkable tales of living with a tribe of cannibals, watching their murderous raids on other tribes, and even eating Read More

American Tragedy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ving Rhames, Ron Silver, Bruno Kirby, Darryl Alan Reed, Nicholas Pryor

Synopsis: The real-life drama of the 1994 O.J. Simpson trial is given quasi-fictional treatment in this two-part CBS miniseries, which aired in November 2000. Much of the miniseries' plot focuses on the battle of egos between defense lawyers Johnnie Cochran (Ving Rhames) and Robert Shapiro (Ron Silver) and Read More

Biography: Pablo Picasso - A Primitive Soul

Synopsis: Part of the Biography television series from A&E, this documentary reviews the career and personal life of artist Pablo Picasso. He studied art in Barcelona and Madrid, and in 1901 set up a studio in Montmartre, Paris. His "blue period", a series of striking studies of the poor in haunting Read More

The Source

Actors: Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper, John Turturro

Synopsis: Director Chuck Workman, who documented the life of pop culture icon Andy Warhol in his 1990 film Superstar, here explores the lives, works and influence of four leading lights of the "Beat Generation" of the 1950s: William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Cutting back Read More

Cremaster 2

Actors: Norman Mailer, Matthew Barney, Anonymous, Lauren Pine, Scot Ewalt

Synopsis: Renowned experimental artist Matthew Barney directs this lyrical, challenging work about America, mythology, and death. Believing that his grandmother had an affair with Harry Houdini (Norman Mailer), noted murderer Gary Gilmore (Barney) wanders through the afterlife -- depicted here as a Read More

When We Were Kings

Actors: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. King, Norman Mailer

Synopsis: In 1974, boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman came to the still-emerging and politically unstable African nation of Zaire for what Ali called the "Rumble in the Jungle," a highly publicized world heavyweight championship fight. Documentarian Leon Gast flew to Zaire to film both the fight and a Read More

Marilyn Monroe: Life After Death

Actors: Joyce Brothers, David Brown, Amy Greene, Hugh Hefner

Synopsis: This documentary is an homage to Marilyn Monroe, arguably the most famous sex-symbol of the 20th century. The film offers a loving examination of her enduring charm and chronicles the continued devotion of her fans. Rather than present the traditional chronological biography, the filmmakers have Read More

King Lear

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Peter Sellars, Molly Ringwald, Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen

Synopsis: Two highly talented and innovative directors -- filmdom's Jean-Luc Godard and the theatre world's Peter Sellars -- join forces in this unusual (to say the least) slant on Shakespeare's King Lear. This offbeat adaptation gives the viewer a postmodern taste of Shakespeare through the eyes of a Read More

Tough Guys Don't Dance

Crew: Book Author, Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Isabella Rossellini, Debra Sandlund, Wings Hauser, John Bedford Lloyd

Synopsis: Norman Mailer wrote and directed this demented film noir, which takes place in a Provincetown of perpetual twilight. Most of the tale, based on his best-selling novel, is told in flashback as Dougy Madden (Lawrence Tierney) pays a visit to his son Tim (Ryan O'Neal). Dougy, a tough ex-bartender, is Read More

The Executioner's Song

Crew: Book Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Rosanna Arquette, Eli Wallach, Christine Lahti, Steven Keats

Synopsis: Tommy Lee Jones won an Emmy for his searing performance as wanton killer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song. The film covers the last nine months of Gilmore's life, beginning with his release from prison in 1976. Linking up with teen-age divorcee Nicole Baker (Rosanna Arquette), Gilmore makes Read More

Ragtime

Actors: James Cagney, Brad Dourif, Moses Gunn, Elizabeth McGovern, Kenneth McMillan, Pat O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, James Olson, Mandy Patinkin, Howard E. Rollins, Jr.

Synopsis: E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional characters in the novel were escape artist Harry Houdini and radical Emma Goldman. Both characters are all but Read More

Town Bloody Hall

Actors: Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer

Synopsis: This routine documentary by Chris Hegedus records the much ballyhooed Town Hall Meeting between Norman Mailer defending his views in The Prisoner of Sex, and four independent-minded women, Germaine Greer among them. The intended debate was set up for raucous and raunchy goings-on well before its Read More

Marilyn: The Untold Story

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Richard Basehart, Catherine Hicks

Synopsis: The title of this made-for-TV biopic is faintly risible: is there anything about Marilyn Monroe that we don't know by now? Pleasingly enough, the story is told in a straightforward, nonexploitive manner (the affair with JFK warrants no more than a throwaway line). Emmy-nominated Catherine Hicks Read More

Profile of a Writer: Norman Mailer

Synopsis: Norman Mailer -- novelist, essayist, actor, filmmaker, would-be politician, social activist, and public figure extraordinaire -- belonged to an unusual generation of writers and Renaissance men, whose formidable intellects and wealth of experience earned them the ear of the nation. By taking an Read More

Year of the Woman

Synopsis: This is a very personal documentary about women's liberation by the poet and novelist Sandra Hochman. Against the backdrop of the 1972 Republican and Democratic Presidential conventions, she reminisces about her own life, interviews many notable figures in political life and in the women's Read More

Maidstone

Crew: Conception, Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Norman Mailer

Synopsis: The third (and last) of author Norman Mailer's experiments in cinéma vérité filmmaking created between 1968 and 1970, Maidstone stars Mailer as Norman T. Kingsley, a celebrated filmmaker who is often described as "the American Buñuel." Kingsley and a large retinue of friends, actors, and Read More

Diaries, Notes and Sketches

Actors: Dr. Timothy Leary, Jack Smith, Mario Montez

Synopsis: Underground filmmaker Jonas Mekas presents a collection of home movies, outtakes and unfinished projects. A picnic in Central Park with friends is shown, as are Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer in an anti-war protest march. John Lennon and Yoko Ono are shown in their celebrated honeymoon where Read More

Beyond the Law

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Rip Torn, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Mickey Knox

Synopsis: Author Norman Mailer's sporadic ventures into filmmaking are usually pretty bad, but never without interest. Beyond the Law co-stars Mailer and several of his cronies, including fellow-author George Plimpton and actor Rip Torn. Also in the cast is Beverly Bentley, the onetime Mrs. Mailer. Set in a Read More

Wild 90

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer

Actors: Buzz Farbar, Mickey Knox, Norman Mailer

Synopsis: This improvisational film is the first effort by author Norman Mailer. Wild 90 refers to the length of this talkative exposé wherein three mobsters are the only remnants of a once-powerful gang of crooks. The Prince (Mailer) and his two cohorts Cameo (Buzz Farber) and 20 Years (Mickey Knox) are Read More

An American Dream

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan

Synopsis: An American Dream is adapted from the Norman Mailer novel of the same name. Stuart Whitman plays an acerbic TV talk show host who kills his wife Eleanor Parker during an argument. Whitman exerts his influence to cover up his crime, and the official verdict is suicide. But Whitman has not reckoned Read More

The Naked and the Dead

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson, Raymond Massey, Barbara Nichols

Synopsis: Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its "guts", this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer's bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter words). Aldo Ray heads the cast as sadistic Read More