Rachel Portman Filmography

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Rachel Nichols

Synopsis: The 2008 sequel to the female buddy film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants constitutes an adaptation of Ann Brashares' novel Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood. Like the premier installment, this picture explores the seriocomic events that unfold one summer in the lives of Read More

Lights! Action! Music!

Synopsis: The documentary Lights! Action! Music! consists primarily of interviews with composers, directors, and actors who explain the many challenges involved in writing original music for motion pictures. Among the many famous names who appear on camera or whose work is used during the film are Francis Read More

Miss Potter

Crew: Additional Music

Actors: Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson

Synopsis: The true story of the woman who created some of the most beloved characters in children's literature comes to the screen in this drama leavened with elements of comedy and romance. Beatrix Potter (Renée Zellweger) is a imaginative but gently eccentric woman living in the socially and Read More

Infamous

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Daniels

Synopsis: Douglas McGrath's Infamous represents the second major biopic about the avant-garde belletrist Truman Capote to be released within a year. It thus tells roughly the same story as Bennett Miller's earlier Capote, recounting the events that belied the writer's six-year authorship of the seminal Read More

The Lake House

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dylan Walsh, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer

Synopsis: Two people develop an unusual relationship that bends the boundaries of time and place in this romantic fantasy. Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) is a doctor who lives in a beautiful home by a lake. Forced to move elsewhere, she requests that any correspondence that arrives at the lake house be Read More

Oliver Twist

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Barney Clark, Jamie Foreman, Harry Eden, Leanne Rowe

Synopsis: Director Roman Polanski gives one of Charles Dickens' best-loved stories a new and dynamic interpretation in this period drama. Oliver Twist (Barney Clark) is a young orphan in Victorian England who has been sent to a dank workhouse run by the miserly Mr. Bumble (Jeremy Swift) when it is learned Read More

Because of Winn-Dixie

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: AnnaSophia Robb, Jeff Daniels, Cicely Tyson, Eva Marie Saint, Dave Matthews

Synopsis: It's not finishing school or a traditional upbringing that causes ten-year-old Opal to learn about the world outside of her own backyard, but rather a particularly awkward-looking mutt named Winn-Dixie. Based on a novel by Kate DiCamillo, Winn-Dixie and Opal not only become privy to the eventful Read More

The Manchurian Candidate

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight

Synopsis: Jonathan Demme directed this updated remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) are two soldiers Read More

The Little Prince

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Synopsis: Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman and librettist Nicholas Wright have transformed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's enchanting fable into an opera, which is captured on this DVD release. In The Little Prince, a military pilot crash lands in Northern Africa and is rescued by a young boy who Read More

Mona Lisa Smile

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Juliet Stevenson, Dominic West, Marcia Gay Harden

Synopsis: Set in 1953, Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), a new young art history professor at Wellesley College, an all-female campus with a prestigious reputation for academic excellence. Unfortunately for free-minded Berkeley grad Watson, her East Coast teaching stint Read More

The Human Stain

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Wentworth Miller

Synopsis: For his first film since 1998's Twilight, acclaimed director Robert Benton helmed this tense drama written by Fatal Attraction co-scribe Nicholas Meyer and based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. Set in the late '90s at the height of the Clinton sex-scandal, The Human Stain stars Anthony Hopkins Read More

Nicholas Nickleby

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Alan Cumming, Edward Fox, Anne Hathaway, Charlie Hunnam, Christopher Plummer, Juliet Stevenson

Synopsis: One of Charles Dickens' best-loved (and most complex) stories receives its fourth feature film adaptation in this lively historical comedy-drama. Nicholas Nickleby (Charlie Hunnam) is a 19-year-old who becomes the head of the family when his father dies unexpectedly. Keeping watch over his mother (Stella Gonet Read More

The Truth About Charlie

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins, Park Joong-Hoon

Synopsis: Director Jonathan Demme filters the classic Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant vehicle Charade through the influence of the French New Wave in this stylish romantic thriller. Regina Lambert (Thandie Newton) has been having second thoughts about her marriage to the often enigmatic art dealer Charlie (Stephen Dillane Read More

The Emperor's New Clothes

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Ian Holm, Iben Hjejle, Tim McInnerny, Tom Watson, Nigel Terry

Synopsis: A fanciful retelling of the story of Napoleon Bonaparte (played by heralded actor Ian Holm, this British costume comedy suggests that it was Napoleon's double, not the man himself, who died on St. Helena Island. The film begins by presenting Napoleon after his defeat at Waterloo, at the home of a Read More

Hart's War

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Marcel Iures

Synopsis: Based on the novel by John Katzenbach, author of Just Cause (1995), this prison camp drama combines elements of A Soldier's Story (1984) and the classic Stalag 17 (1953). Colin Farrell stars as Lt. Tommy Hart, a second-year Harvard Law School student who enlists to fight in World War II but ends Read More

Chocolat

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

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

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

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Will Smith, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Bruce McGill, Joel Gretsch

Synopsis: Robert Redford directed this adaptation of a novel by Steven Pressfield that uses golf as a metaphor for one man's spiritual and philosophical journeys. Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) was a gifted amateur golfer from Savannah, GA, until traumatic experiences during World War I shattered his Read More

Ratcatcher

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: William Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews, Michelle Stewart, Lynne Ramsay Jr.

Synopsis: Lynne Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher is a gritty but often lyrical portrait of a boy growing up on the wrong side of the Scottish tracks. James (William Eadie) is a 12-year-old coming of age in a rough working-class section of Glasgow. Something of a misfit, James has only two close friends Read More

The Closer You Get

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Ian Hart, Sean McGinley, Niamh Cusack, Ruth McCabe, Ewan Stewart

Synopsis: In a small Irish village where herding sheep is still one of the major industries, the largely male, unmarried population has grown dissatisfied with their lot in life; when a shipping error sends the wrong film to the local movie house, the citizens are treated to a racy item from the United Read More

The Cider House Rules

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Delroy Lindo, Paul Rudd, Michael Caine

Synopsis: John Irving scripted this screen adaptation of his 1985 novel. Set during World War II, The Cider House Rules concerns Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire), an orphan who spent most of his childhood at the St. Cloud Orphanage in rural Maine, where he grew up under the strong but affectionate care of Dr. Read More

The Other Sister

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Juliette Lewis, Diane Keaton, Tom Skerritt, Giovanni Ribisi, Poppy Montgomery

Synopsis: Twenty-two year old Carla Tate (Juliette Lewis) is a slightly mentally challenged young woman who has spent several years at a sheltered private boarding school. Now she's coming home to her wealthy parents in northern California who are emotionally ill-equipped to deal with her and are guilt Read More

Home Fries

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, Catherine O'Hara, Jake Busey, Shelley Duvall

Synopsis: Dean Parisot, who won a live-action short Oscar, made his feature directorial debut with this black comedy from a producer team that included Barry Levinson and Lawrence Kasdan. A philandering stepdad is the victim of vengeful Mrs. Lever (Catherine O'Hara), who sends her sons out to scare him to Read More

Beloved

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards

Synopsis: Jonathan Demme directed this adaptation of Toni Morrison's fact-based fifth novel (winner of a 1988 Pulitzer Prize), written in an experimental stream-of-consciousness flow and capturing the impact and aftermath of slavery on the human soul. In 1873, middle-aged Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives near Read More

Addicted to Love

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston, Tchéky Karyo, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: In this slightly dark comedy about romantic obsession, Sam (Matthew Broderick) is an astronomer who likes his life in the small New England town he calls home and loves his fiancée, Linda (Kelly Preston). But one day, Linda tells Sam that she's moving to New York because she has found a new job Read More

The Adventures of Pinocchio

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Martin Landau, Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Synopsis: Unlike the more familiar animated Pinocchio by Disney, there are no song interludes here, and characters added to the story by Disney (such as Jiminy Cricket) are not included. Producer Francis Ford Coppola and director Steve Barron, (known for the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film) closely Read More

Marvin's Room

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Hume Cronyn

Synopsis: Two sisters try to set their familial differences aside -- one in hopes of saving her own life -- in this drama with comic accents. Bessie (Diane Keaton) has lived in Florida for the past 20 years, where she's been caring for her chronically ill father Marvin (Hume Cronyn) and her Aunt Ruth (Gwen Read More

Emma

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeremy Northam, Toni Collette, Greta Scacchi, Alan Cumming

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Jane Austen (who in the '90s seemed to be in the running alongside William Shakespeare and Stephen King for the honors of most adapted author in Hollywood), this period romantic comedy stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who imagines herself an authority on Read More

A Pyromaniac's Love Story

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: William Baldwin, John Leguizamo, Sadie Frost, Erika Eleniak, Michael Lerner

Synopsis: This is an offbeat romantic comedy that's the directorial debut of TV producer Joshua Brand, co-creator of St. Elsewhere (1982-88) and Northern Exposure (1990-95). John Leguizamo stars as Sergio, a Toronto pastry shop worker who faints whenever he sees Hattie (Sadie Frost), a neighborhood girl Read More

Smoke

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: William Hurt, Harvey Keitel, Forest Whitaker, Harold Perrineau, Jr., Victor Argo

Synopsis: A Brooklyn cigar shop is the setting for this drama from director Wayne Wang that interweaves the stories of several characters that have fractured family relationships in common. Harvey Keitel is Auggie Wren, poetic owner of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a store that he considers the center of the Read More

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Songwriter

Actors: Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner

Synopsis: Patrick Swayze plays Vida Boheme, a classy and long-reigning drag queen. With his understudy Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes), Vida wins a New York drag stage contest and an all-expenses-paid trip to Hollywood. But when Miss Chi Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo) cries at having lost the contest Read More

Palookaville

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo, Adam Trese, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Frances McDormand

Synopsis: Three likable losers attempt "a momentary shift in lifestyle" by becoming part-time thieves in this comedy. Russ (Vincent Gallo) is living with his family, who don't get along especially well, and he fools around with the teenage girl who lives next door. Jerry (Adam Trese) is married to Betty (Linda Gay Hamilton Read More

Only You

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey, Jr., Bonnie Hunt, Joaquim de Almeida, Fisher Stevens

Synopsis: A woman throws caution to the wind in the pursuit of the man of her dreams -- whom she's never met -- in this romantic comedy. Eleven-year-old Faith (Tammy Minoff) and her cousin Kate (Jessica Hertel) are playing with a Ouiji Board when Faith asks who she will marry -- the magic oracle answers Read More

Shades of Fear

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Vanessa Redgrave, John Hurt, Jonathan Pryce, Dorothy Tutin

Synopsis: This British romantic comedy follows the exploits of a young woman determined to become an aviator in the 1950's. The story begins in the West Indies as plucky Gabriel Angel prepares to board a ship home to England to achieve her dreams of flying. Due to a reservations glitch, Gabriel must share Read More

Sirens

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Elle MacPherson, Portia de Rossi

Synopsis: Sex, religion, and morality are the key ingredients in this Australian comedy set in the 1930s. Rev. Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) is a liberal, forward-thinking Anglican priest who is sent on an unusual assignment. Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) is a popular and highly controversial artist whose Read More

War of the Buttons

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Liam Cunningham, Gregg Fitzgerald, Colm Meaney, John S. Coffey, Eveanna Ryan

Synopsis: Rival groups of boys from two neighboring Irish villages engage in a running battle in this remake of the 1962 French movie of the same name, based on a novel by Louis Pergaud. The boys from Ballydowse, who dress as they please, exchange insults with boys from nearby Carricksdowse -- who wear Read More

The Road to Wellville

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack, Dana Carvey

Synopsis: This adaptation of the comic novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle is the story of real-life Corn Flakes inventor Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins), an eccentric health nut in the early 20th century. Convinced of the benefits of holistic health practices (mostly involving irrigation of the bowels Read More

Benny & Joon

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Johnny Depp, Mary Stuart Masterson, Aidan Quinn, Julianne Moore, Oliver Platt

Synopsis: Johnny Depp was nominated for a Golden Globe for his astonishing performance in Benny & Joon, though the entire cast is equally impressive. Benny (Aidan Quinn) runs a small car repair shop. He must also take care of his mentally ill sister Juniper, better known as Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson). Read More

The Joy Luck Club

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao, Tamlyn Tomita

Synopsis: Director Wayne Wang and screenwriter Ronald Bass effectively interweave sixteen mother-daughter tales in their silken film version of Amy Tan's best-selling novel about the clash between generations. The film takes place in present-day San Francisco, concentrating on a group of late-middle-aged Read More

Friends

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Kerry Fox, Dambisa Kente, Marius Weyers, Tertius Meintjes

Synopsis: Friendship, politics, violence, and personal responsibility meet head on in this drama. In the late 1980s, three young women who are completing their college education share a house together in Johannesburg, South Africa. Aninka (Michele Burgers) is the daughter of wealthy Afrikaners; she is Read More

Used People

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Marcello Mastroianni, Marcia Gay Harden

Synopsis: Todd Graff wrote the screenplay for this eccentric romantic comedy in the spirit of Moonstruck that exchanges pasta for matzo balls. The film takes place in Queens in 1969, where Pearl Berman (Shirley MacLaine) has just arrived back from the funeral of her husband. As her dysfunctional family Read More

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Rupert Graves, Giovanni Guidelli, Barbara Jefford

Synopsis: A wealthy, upper-class British widow marries a much younger Italian man with disastrous results in this turn-of-the-century costume drama based on the E.M. Forster novel. After marrying into a wealthy family and then losing her husband, middle-aged Lilia Herriton (Helen Mirren) suffers under the Read More

Rebecca's Daughters

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Peter O'Toole, Paul Rhys, Joely Richardson, Keith Allen, Simon Dormandy

Synopsis: Set in Wales a few hundred years ago, Rebecca's Daughters stars Paul Rhys as an aristocratic member of the ruling class. Rhys is not happy with the way that the members of his social order, particularly dissipated nobleman Peter O'Toole, are taxing the Welsh peasants into nonexistence. Thus, he Read More

Ethan Frome

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Joan Allen, Tate Donovan, Katharine Houghton

Synopsis: Ethan Frome is an adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1911 novella . Set in Massachusetts in the late-19th century, the film relates the sad story of reclusive farmer Ethan Frome (Liam Neeson). Considering himself too homely for romance, he enters into a loveless marriage with the wealthy but spiteful Read More

Mr. Wakefield's Crusade

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Synopsis: Peter Capaldi essayed the title role in the three-part British miniseries Mr. Wakefield's Crusade. Fabulously wealthy, old Mr. Wakefield became bored by his life of leisure and privilege, and began seeking out adventure. He got more than he bargained for when he turned amateur sleuth to solve the Read More

Antonia & Jane

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Saskia Reeves, Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, Alan Corduner, Brenda Bruce

Synopsis: From director Beeban Kidron, Antonia & Jane is a look at an enduring friendship between a pair of decidedly opposite people. Beautiful, sophisticated, and self-assured, Antonia (Saskia Reeves) has it all -- or so it seems to the pudgy wallflower Jane (Imelda Staunton), who secretly resents the Read More

The Cloning of Joanna May

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Synopsis: A middle-aged divorcee has the foundation of her life rocked when she discovers that her ex-husband has created young clones to replace her. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Life Is Sweet

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks

Synopsis: Mike Leigh's situation comedy about a lower middle-class family in the London suburbs is a slice-of-life chronicle that subtly reveals the pain and rage underneath the surface of day-to-day conventions. The youngish parents, Wendy (Alison Steadman) and Andy (Jim Broadbent) live with their Read More

High Hopes

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Philip Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré, Philip Jackson, Heather Tobias

Synopsis: In this early film, award-winning director Mike Leigh uses a loose, open-ended narrative structure to unsettle cinematic expectations and create a truly inventive and very honest film. High Hopes opens with the arrival of Wayne, a small-town lad in his twenties, in the London metropolis. Read More

The Woman in Black

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Adrian Rawlins, Bernard Hepton, David Daker, Pauline Moran, David Ryall

Synopsis: Woman in Black was originally made for British TV. It's a melodrama, as the title should make abundantly clear. Adrian Rawlins stars as a vacationing barrister. He becomes involved in bizarre activities at a seaside resort, predicated by an elusive mystery woman. Woman in Black was picked up for Read More

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Geraldine McEwan, Charlotte Coleman

Synopsis: Filmed in Britain, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit stars Charlotte Coleman as a champing-at-the-bit teenager named Jess. The girl's domineering mother (Geraldine McEwan), a religious fanatic, wants Jess to become a missionary; to that end, she refuses to allow the girl any friends her own age. Read More

Young Charlie Chaplin

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Twiggy, Lee Whitlock

Synopsis: Aimed at the ten- to 15-year-old demographic, this six-episode British series offered an entertaining if not entirely accurate overview of celebrated comedian Charlie Chaplin's formative years. Though fairly explicit in detailing the alcoholism of Chaplin's music hall headliner father Charles Read More

Sharma and Beyond

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Suzanne Burden, Robert Urquhart, Michael Maloney, Antonia Pemberton, Benjamin Whitrow

Synopsis: This enjoyable romantic comedy-drama is about Stephan (Michael Maloney), an aspiring sci-fi writer who teaches English to a class of often amusing foreigners. On a field trip with his class one day Stephan goes by the house of his hero, Evan Gorley-Peters (Robert Urquhart), a celebrated sci-fi Read More

Four Days in July

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Brid Brennan, Desmond McAleer, Charles Lawson, Paula Hamilton, Shane Connaughton

Synopsis: The setting of Mike Leigh's Four Days in July is Belfast in the mid-'80s, just before the annual July 12th march of The Orangemen to celebrate the 17th century victory of the Protestant William of Orange over the Catholic King John II. Two couples prepare to have their first child. Collette (Brid Brennan Read More

Reflections

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Donal McCann, Harriet Walter, Fionnula Flanagan, Gerard Cummins

Synopsis: William Masters (Gabriel Byrne), an aloof and analytical young man studying the life of Sir Isaac Newton, takes up residence in a cottage on a family estate and then becomes involved with the family's own troubles. Masters is secretly enamored of the lady of the house who is burdened with an