Richard Benjamin Filmography

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Actors: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan

Synopsis: When America's number one NASCAR speed-demon is issued a direct challenge from a gay, French Formula One racer with a hunger for the top spot and a mean talent for tight-cornering, the race is on to become the number one man in all of NASCAR in a full throttle comedy starring Will Ferrell and Read More

Keeping Up With the Steins

Actors: Jeremy Piven, Jami Gertz, Garry Marshall, Daryl Hannah, Daryl Sabara

Synopsis: The competition heats up as a young man on the cusp of adulthood in Brentwood, CA, prepares for his upcoming bar mitzvah, and his father strives to outdo the gargantuan coming-of-age bash recently thrown by his number-one nemesis, in a madcap tale of Hebrew rivalry from actor-turned-director Scott Marshall Read More

A Little Thing Called Murder

Crew: Director

Actors: Judy Davis, Jonathan Jackson, Chelcie Ross, Cynthia Stevenson, Jake M. Smith

Synopsis: This true-crime biopic explores the life of mother-and-son grifters Sante and Kenny Kimes, from Kenny's childhood apprenticeship in early-'80s Honolulu to Sante's murder trial in late-'90s New York City. Fortyish Sante Kimes (Judy Davis) uses her looks and her brazen disregard for the law to Read More

The Goodbye Girl

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jeff Daniels, Patricia Heaton, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Lynda Boyd, Alan Cumming

Synopsis: The TNT cable network aired this made-for-TV version of Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl in January 2004. Jeff Daniels stars as Elliot Garfield, an actor who subleases an apartment in New York City. Unfortunately, the apartment is already occupied by dancer Paula McFadden (Patricia Heaton) and her Read More

Marci X

Crew: Director

Actors: Lisa Kudrow, Damon Wayans, Richard Benjamin, Christine Baranski, Paula Garcés

Synopsis: Paul Rudnick provides the script for the Scott Rudin-produced comedy Marci X, directed by Richard Benjamin. The new song "Shoot Ya' Teacha" by controversial hardcore rapper Dr. S. (short for Dr. Snatchcatcher, played by Damon Wayans) causes a public outcry. The stress causes a heart attack for the Read More

The Shrink Is In

Crew: Director

Actors: Courteney Cox Arquette, David Arquette, David James Elliott, Carol Kane, Kimberley Davies

Synopsis: Richard Benjamin directs the straight-to-video romantic comedy The Shrink Is In. Courteney Cox plays Samantha Crumb, a travel writer who suffers from a long list of phobias and disorders. When her psychiatrist, Dr. Louise Rosenberg (Carol Kane), suffers a mental breakdown, Samantha gets an idea to Read More

Laughter On The 23rd Floor

Crew: Director

Actors: Nathan Lane, Mark Linn-Baker, Victor Garber, Saul Rubinek, Peri Gilpin

Synopsis: Playwright Neil Simon got his first big break in the early '50s as a staff writer on Sid Caesar's fabled television series Your Show of Shows, and this comedy (adapted by Simon from his play) takes a fictionalized look at the backstage chaos that went into producing one of the landmarks of Read More

The Sports Pages

Crew: Director

Actors: Bob Newhart, Kelsey Grammer, Gary Basaraba, Brian Markinson, Graham Jarvis, Kevin McNulty

Synopsis: The funny side of sports fandom provides the common element for two stories in this made-for-cable anthology feature. In the first segment, based on a short story by Don Marquis, a golfer (Bob Newhart) looks like he's about to break 100 for the first time, but his partner (Kelsey Grammer) keeps Read More

Mad About You: Valentine's Day

Actors: Louis Zorich

Synopsis: Rhea Perlman and Richard Benjamin guest star as a suburban couple from whom Jamie (Helen Hunt) purchases a house. Jamie has done this as a Valentine gift for husband, Paul (Paul Reiser) -- but Paul is not entirely grateful. The whole megilla ends in a court trial and an enforced stay in the Land Read More

The Pentagon Wars

Crew: Director

Actors: Kelsey Grammer, Cary Elwes, Olympia Dukakis, John C. McGinley, Tom Wright

Synopsis: Excessive military spending provides the impetus behind this sharp, satirical account of an honest Air Force colonel who is so shocked at government spending in its development of a troop transport vehicle that he decides to launch a personal investigation as to why it has taken the military 17 Read More

Tourist Trap

Crew: Director

Actors: Daniel Stern, Julie Hagerty, David Rasche, Paul Giamatti, Margot Finley

Synopsis: Seeing his family drifting apart, a father announces that he is planning a special vacation that will take them down the same paths followed by his famous ancestor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Deconstructing Harry

Actors: Woody Allen, Kirstie Alley, Bob Balaban, Richard Benjamin, Billy Crystal

Synopsis: Woody Allen wrote, directed, and stars in this very dark comedy about a novelist, Harry Block, who says with admirable honesty, "I'm a guy who can't function well in life, but I can in art." So far, Harry has made his way through six psychiatrists and three marriages (one, conveniently enough Read More

Mrs. Winterbourne

Crew: Director

Actors: Shirley MacLaine, Ricki Lake, Brendan Fraser, Miguel Sandoval, Loren Dean

Synopsis: A poor woman is the beneficiary of a case of mistaken identity in this comedy. Luckless Connie (Ricki Lake) leaves home to move to New York, only to find herself stuck with no job, no money, and a louse of a boyfriend (Loren Dean) who gets her pregnant and abandons her. Despondently taking a train Read More

Milk Money

Crew: Director

Actors: Melanie Griffith, Ed Harris, Michael Patrick Carter, Malcolm McDowell, Anne Heche

Synopsis: After befriending a kind-hearted prostitute, a 12-year-old boy attempts to set her up with his widowed father in this family comedy. Young Frank Wheeler (Michael Patrick Carter) first meets working girl V (Melanie Griffith) when he and two friends pool their money to buy a glimpse of a naked Read More

Made in America

Crew: Director

Actors: Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson, Will Smith, Nia Long, Paul Rodriguez

Synopsis: Richard Benjamin directed this farce that plays like "Guess Who's Coming for Insemination?" Whoopi Goldberg stars as Sarah Matthews, who runs an African-American oriented bookstore in Oakland. She is raising her daughter, a beautiful high school student named Zora (Nia Long), on her own after her Read More

Mermaids

Crew: Director

Actors: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci, Michael Schoeffling

Synopsis: There's no point in recounting the many production problems and personal hostilities which plagued the filming of Mermaids: the end result is all that matters. Set in the 1960s, the film details the relationship between an unorthodox, unmarried vagabond mother (Cher), and her two daughters. The Read More

Downtown

Crew: Director

Actors: Anthony Edwards, Forest Whitaker, Penelope Ann Miller, Joe Pantoliano, David Clennon

Synopsis: When suburban police officer Alex Kearney (Anthony Edwards) angers a wealthy, influential citizen by stopping him for a traffic violation, he finds himself transferred to the city's worst precinct. Struggling to adapt to his new inner-city surroundings, Kearney must deal with his gruff new Read More

My Stepmother Is an Alien

Crew: Director

Actors: Seth Green, Juliette Lewis, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Basinger, Jon Lovitz, Alyson Hannigan, Joseph Maher

Synopsis: An astrophysicist falls in love with a beautiful woman who is actually a disguised extraterrestrial in this high-concept comedy. Dan Aykroyd plays Steven Mills, a dedicated and harmlessly odd scientist researching ways to send radio signals to deep space. Unbeknownst to him, one of his experiments Read More

Little Nikita

Crew: Director

Actors: Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava, Richard Bradford, Loretta Devine, Richard Lynch

Synopsis: Jeff Grant (River Phoenix) is a San Diego teen who discovers his father Richard (Richard Jenkins) and mother Elizabeth Grant) are KGB agents. When he applies to the Air Force Academy, a routine FBI check leads to the shocking news. Soon the suburb of Fountain Grove becomes the focus of Read More

The Money Pit

Crew: Director

Actors: Shelley Long, Tom Hanks, Alexander Godunov, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Mantegna

Synopsis: Adapting the themes of the 1948 film Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, this comedy stars Tom Hanks as Walter Fielding, who with his love Anna (Shelley Long) decides to buy a suburban New York home for next-to-nothing. Both Anna and Walter are willing to fix what ails the house and since they Read More

City Heat

Crew: Director

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn, Rip Torn

Synopsis: This standard, tongue-in-cheek, gangsters and good guys saga is carried on the star power and screen presence of Clint Eastwood as Lt. Speer, a taciturn, tough, play-it-by-the-book cop, and on Burt Reynolds as Mike Murphy, Speer's old friend in the force, now turned private eye but still a Read More

Racing with the Moon

Crew: Director

Actors: Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, Nicolas Cage, John Karlen, Rutanya Alda

Synopsis: Sean Penn graduated to full stardom with the 1984 drama Racing with the Moon, even though the film itself hardly set new box office records. Set in the early years of World War II, the film stars Penn as a small-town teen-aged hotshot, six weeks away from being shipped out to fight overseas. In Read More

Packin' It In

Synopsis: In this serio-comic made-for television adventure, an L.A. family gets more than it bargained for when it abandons the smog and hubbub for the peace of rural Oregon. Unfortunately, instead of finding a violence-free environment, they discover that they are surrounded by ultra-right-wing Read More

My Favorite Year

Crew: Director

Actors: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna, Bill Macy

Synopsis: Richard Benjamin's directorial debut is an engaging slice of nostalgia, purportedly based on an incident in life of Mel Brooks. Mark Linn-Baker stars as Benjy Stone, junior writer on the popular 1950s TV comedy/variety series The King Kaiser Show. Kaiser (Joseph Bologna)'s guest star this week is Read More

Saturday the 14th

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Severn Darden, Jeffrey Tambor, Kari Michaelsen

Synopsis: In this early '80s send-up of venerable horror clichés, Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss star as John and Mary, an ordinary couple who inherit a mysterious house from a deceased uncle. Along with kids Debbie (Kari Michaelsen) and Billy (Kevin Brando), they move into the musty mansion, unaware Read More

The Last Married Couple in America

Actors: George Segal, Natalie Wood, Richard Benjamin, Dom DeLuise, Arlene Golonka, Valerie Harper, Allan Arbus

Synopsis: Natalie Wood and George Segal star in this labored and old-fashioned sex farce, directed by Gilbert Cates. Wood and Segal play Mari and Jeff Thompson, a happily married couple who are thunderstruck when they see all their friends and acquaintances are headed for divorce court. Eventually their own Read More

How to Beat the High Co$t of Living

Actors: Susan Saint James, Jessica Lange, Richard Benjamin, Fred Willard

Synopsis: Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James share star-billing with Jessica Lange in this uninspired comedy about three women who need a cash infusion. (Curtin and Saint James would later co-star in the popular sitcom Kate and Allie.) Jane (Saint James) is divorced and financially pressed to raise her Read More

First Family

Actors: Gilda Radner, Bob Newhart, Madeline Kahn, Richard Benjamin, Bob Dishy

Synopsis: Gilda Radner, Bob Newhart, and Madeline Kahn star in this comedy. The farce sends up an idiotic First Family in the persona of a bumbling president (Newhart), his semi-alcoholic wife (Kahn), and his oversexed daughter (Radner). Satirizing the artificial, formal speech of real-life First Families Read More

Saturday Night Live: Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, The Grateful Dead

Synopsis: This 1980 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and features musical guest the Grateful Dead. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide Read More

Love at First Bite

Actors: George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin, Dick Shawn, Arte Johnson

Synopsis: George Hamilton confounded his detractors by turning in a first-rate comic performance in Love at First Bite. Hamilton plays Count Dracula, who is evicted from his Transylvanian domicile when the Communist government decides to nationalize his castle. With faithful toady Renfield (Arte Johnson) Read More

Scavenger Hunt

Actors: Richard Benjamin, James Coco, Scatman Crothers, Cloris Leachman, Cleavon Little

Synopsis: When millionaire Vincent Price dies, he leaves a riotous will which amounts to a scavenger hunt, the winner of which receives the entire willed fortune. So 15 potential heirs are sent on a zany quest where they must outrace and outsmart one another to inherit the big bucks. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Witches' Brew

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Teri Garr, Lana Turner, Kathryn Leigh Scott

Synopsis: Originally filmed in 1978 but shelved for several years, this story of a good housewife-witch (ala Samantha from the U.S. Bewitched TV series) finally saw the light of the small screen when it emerged on cable in 1985. Margaret (Teri Garr) is a young housewife married to Joshua (Richard Benjamin) Read More

Saturday Night Live: Richard Benjamin

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Rickie Lee Jones

Synopsis: This 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Richard Benjamin and features a performance from musical guest Rickie Lee Jones. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

House Calls

Actors: Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Art Carney, Richard Benjamin, Candice Azzara

Synopsis: Recently widowed Dr. Nichols (Walter Matthau) finds himself ill at ease in re-entering the singles scene. Then he meets Ann Atkinson (Glenda Jackson), a patient recuperating from a jaw operation. Freshly divorced from a philandering spouse, Jackson is as reluctant to inaugurate a lasting Read More

No Room to Run

Synopsis: In this thriller, a concert promoter is sent to Australia where he ends up entangled in corporate spying and is forced to fight for his life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Sunshine Boys

Actors: Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin, Lee Meredith, Carol Arthur

Synopsis: In this 1975 adaptation of Neil Simon's stage play, director Herbert Ross presents the story of two old-time Vaudvillians played by Walter Matthau and George Burns in his first starring role since 1939's Honolulu. After decades apart, the cantankerous duo is persuaded to reunite for a television Read More

The Last of Sheila

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, Joan Hackett, James Mason

Synopsis: This suspense drama features an all-star cast, including Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, James Mason, Ian McShane, and Raquel Welch. An interesting production fact about the film: its screenplay was written by actor Anthony Perkins and lyricist/songwriter Stephen Sondheim. Their Read More

Westworld

Actors: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Alan Oppenheimer, Victoria Shaw

Synopsis: Welcome to Westworld, where nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong....Writer/director Michael Crichton has concocted a futuristic "Disneyland for adults", a remote resort island where, for a hefty fee, one can indulge in one's wildest fantasies. Businessmen James Brolin and Richard Benjamin Read More

Portnoy's Complaint

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Karen Black, Lee Grant, Jack Somack, Jeannie Berlin

Synopsis: Screenwriter Ernest Lehman, whose credits include the screenplays for North by Northwest, Sabrina, West Side Story, and The Sweet Smell of Success, made a less than distinguished debut as a director with this adaptation of Philip Roth's controversial novel about Alexander Portnoy (Richard Read More

The Steagle

Actors: Richard Benjamin

Synopsis: In this comedy, Harold Weiss (Richard Benjamin) is a professor at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when a nuclear holocaust seemed imminent. Rather than sit around waiting to die, he decides to drive from Long Island to Los Angeles, taking in such sights as Las Vegas along the way. As Read More

The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Joanna Shimkus, Elizabeth Ashley, Adam West, Patricia Barry

Synopsis: A man who can't stop looking at other women finds that it might cost him his marriage in this farcical comedy. William and Lisa Alren (Richard Benjamin and Joanna Shimkus) are a young married couple whose relationship has begun to go stale. Bored and looking for diversion, William begins spying Read More

Catch-22

Actors: Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Jon Voight

Synopsis: Director Mike Nichols and writer-actor Buck Henry followed their enormous hit The Graduate (1967) with this timely adaptation of Joseph Heller's satiric antiwar novel. Haunted by the death of a young gunner, all-too-sane Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants out of the rest of his WW II bombing Read More

Diary of a Mad Housewife

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Frank Langella, Carrie Snodgress, Lorraine Cullen, Frannie Michel

Synopsis: Superstardom was predicted for Carrie Snodgress on the basis of her spectacular film debut in Diary of a Mad Housewife. Snodgress plays the long-suffering wife of pushy, insensitive attorney Richard Benjamin. Unable to withstand being treated as a trophy (and a tarnished one at that), Snodgress Read More

He & She: Season 03

Actors: Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, Jack Cassidy, Kenneth Mars, Hamilton Camp, Harold Gould

Goodbye, Columbus

Actors: Richard Benjamin, Ali MacGraw, Jack Klugman, Nan Martin, Michael Meyers

Synopsis: Based on one of author Phillip Roth's shorter works, Goodbye Columbus stars Richard Benjamin as Neil, a young man of humble means who falls in love with Jewish-American-princess Brenda (Ali MacGraw). Their romance is out of the question so far as Brenda's suburbanite parents are concerned, so Neil Read More

He & She: Season 02

Actors: Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, Jack Cassidy, Kenneth Mars, Hamilton Camp, Harold Gould

He & She: Season 01

Actors: Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, Jack Cassidy, Kenneth Mars, Hamilton Camp, Harold Gould

Riding Shotgun

Actors: Randolph Scott, Wayne Morris, Joan Weldon, Joe Sawyer, James Millican

Synopsis: In this western, a shotgun rider on a stagecoach must clear his reputation after some outlaws accuse him of being a crook. Gunplay ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Crime Wave

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk, Ted de Corsia

Synopsis: A car with two men visible in it pulls up to a Los Angeles service station at night, with a single attendant (Dub Taylor) working. As he starts to pump the gas, he doesn't see the third man come around the side until it's too late and he's knocked cold. The trio carries out their robbery but Read More

Thunder over the Plains

Actors: Randolph Scott, Lex Barker, Phyllis Kirk, Charles McGraw

Synopsis: Randolph Scott is as strong and silent as ever in Thunder Over the Plains. The scene is Texas, in the years just following the Civil War. Carpetbaggers have taken hold of the Texas government and imposed a near-dictatorship, hiding behind the legal protection of the Union Army of Occupation. Read More

The Stranger Wore a Gun

Actors: Randolph Scott, Claire Trevor, Joan Weldon, George Macready, Alfonso Bedoya

Synopsis: Randolph Scott makes his 3-D debut in the stereoscopic western Stranger Wore a Gun. This time, Scott plays Jeff Travis, a former spy for Quantrill's Raiders. When he heads to Arizona to start life anew, Travis finds that his reputation has preceded him: crooked Jules Mourret (George Macready) Read More

House of Wax

Actors: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones, Paul Picerni

Synopsis: This simplified (but lavish) remake of the 1933 melodrama The Mystery of the Wax Museum was the most financially successful 3-D production of the 1950s. In his first full-fledged "horror" role, Vincent Price plays Prof. Henry Jarrod, the owner of a wax museum, whose partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts Read More