Robert Downey, Sr. Filmography

Born:: June 1, 1936 in Tennessee
Occupation:: Actor, Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Birth name:: Robert John Elias, Jr.
Biography:: American director Robert Downey served in the Army, pitched in semi-pro baseball and became an actor, all before he was 25 years old. In 1963, he began directing basement-budgeted absurdist films which gained a following in the "underground" cinema circuit: Babo 73 (1963), Chafed Elbows (1965) and No More Excuses...Read More

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From Other Worlds

Actors: Cara Buono, Isaach de Bankolé, David Lansbury

Synopsis: A despondent Brooklyn housewife whose life has become a boring and predictable routine finds her entire perception of the universe changed upon experiencing a close-encounter in her very own kitchen. Joanne Schwartzbaum (Cara Buono) has been sleepwalking her way through life for as far back as she Read More

1/19/07
Rittenhouse Square

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Rittenhouse Square is a public park in Philadelphia located not far from the campus of the Curtis Institute of Music, and while the square has had a long and checkered history, these days locals know it as a place to relax, enjoy the day, and sometimes hear music students show off their talents. Read More

7/22/05
Hugo Pool

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Alyssa Milano, Patrick Dempsey, Cathy Moriarty

Synopsis: Cult figure Robert Downey, Sr. directed this offbeat comedy set in the eccentric environs of Los Angeles. Hugo Dugay (Alyssa Milano) is a young woman who makes her living cleaning swimming pools when she isn't busy looking after her mother Minerva (Cathy Moriarty), who's hooked on gambling, and Read More

1997
Hail Caesar

Actors: Anthony Michael Hall

Synopsis: A young man (director Hall) narrates this story of how he tried to impress the spoiled, bratty daughter of the millionaire owner of an eraser factory. He manages to ingratiate his way into the family and becomes the manager of the eraser plant. He then discovers that her father is actually a Read More

1994
The Last Party

Actors: Robert Downey, Sr., Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Robert Downey, Jr.

Synopsis: In this humorous documentary, Robert Downey, Jr. shares his views of politics, attitudes and himself while travelling across the country in 1992. He spends a special amount of time at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Downey includes brief interviews by such luminaries as Oliver Stone, Spike Lee Read More

1993
Too Much Sun

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Downey, Jr., Eric Idle, Andrea Martin, Jim Haynie, Laura Ernst

Synopsis: In this riotous British satire, a conniving Catholic priest convinces a dying tycoon into writing the church into his will by having him add the following proviso: the tycoon's children will only inherit the fortune if one of them can produce an heir within one year after his death. If they fail Read More

1/25/91
Johnny Be Good

Actors: Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey, Jr., Paul Gleason, Uma Thurman, Steve James

Synopsis: Johnny Walker (Anthony Michael Hall) is a hot-shot high-school quarterback who receives intoxicating offers from spirited college recruiters in this adolescent teen comedy. Bathroom humor and sight gags are strung together in a story involving booze, broads, and other benefits for the coveted Read More

3/25/88
Moving Target

Synopsis: Made for television, Moving Target bears a few faint echoes of the 1986 theatrical feature Out of Bounds. Jason Bateman plays a teenaged musician returning home from summer camp. He is hardly greeted with open arms; as a matter of fact, his family has moved out in his absence. Compounding this Read More

1988
Rented Lips

Crew: Director

Actors: Martin Mull, Dick Shawn, Jennifer Tilly, Edy Williams, Robert Downey, Jr.

Synopsis: A pair of naive documentarians find themselves in over their heads when they agree to finish an "art film" for the head of a local public television station in exchange for a chance to direct a documentary on Indian farming techniques. Comical situations ensue when they discover that "Halloween in Read More

1988
America

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Richard Belzer, Monroe Arnold

Synopsis: An TV news satire from director Robert Downey, this film concerns a cable evening news show that gradually turns into chaotic performance art. Head newscaster Terrence Hackley (Zack Norman) has been caught by his wife Joy (Tammy Grimes) with a plaid skirt in his suitcase, so he covers up by Read More

10/10/86
To Live and Die in L.A.

Actors: William L. Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro

Synopsis: William Friedkin's crime thriller, based on a book by U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, concerns an arrogant Secret Service official who wants to get his man at any price. Willem Dafoe plays Eric Masters, an ultra-smooth counterfeiter who has managed to sidestep the police for years. He Read More

1985
The Gong Show Movie

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Chuck Barris, Robin Altman, Mabel King, Lillie Shelton, Jaye P. Morgan

Synopsis: During the 1970s, the Gong Show was a game/talent show phenomenon. With equal measures of parody, camp and pure lowest-common denominator exploitation, it presented a bizarre assortment of talented and untalented contestants (for example, the musician who played his trumpet with his bellybutton) Read More

1980
Up the Academy

Crew: Director

Actors: Wendell Brown, Tom Citera, J. Hutchinson, Ralph Macchio

Synopsis: A teen comedy that does not quite rise to the level of that age group, this uninspired story features Ron Liebman as the Major, a sadistic instructor at a military school. Ralph Macchio (before his 1984 hit, Karate Kid) and other teens of every stripe suffer through the indignities heaped on them Read More

1980
Moment to Moment

Crew: Director

1975
Greaser's Palace

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Elsie Downey, Jackson Haynes, Alex Hitchcock, John Paul Hudson, Larry Moyer, Don Smolen

Synopsis: In Greaser's Palace, Alan Arbus plays a zoot-suited character named Jesse, who is not only a Christlike figure, he is Christ. En route to Jerusalem, where he hopes to find work as a "singer-dancer-actor," Jesse finds himself in a dusty western town. At first, he is targeted for extermination by Read More

1972
Is There Sex After Death?

Actors: Alan Abel, Buck Henry

Synopsis: Alan Abel, best known as a purveyor of hoaxes, codirected this porno movie spoof with his wife Jeanne. Alan also stars as an itinerant sex specialist who travels around asking just-folks opinions about the possibility of post-mortem cohabitation. Among the guest stars are satirist Buck Henry and Read More

1971
Pound

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Lawrence Wolf, Charles Dierkop

Synopsis: This allegorical film by Robert Downey finds humans all playing the role of animals in cages as they wait to be gassed. Flashbacks are used to tell the character's fantasies outside the cage. It is hard to tell if the characters are supposed to be animals, although a depressed prized fighter plays Read More

1970
Putney Swope

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Stanley Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Arnold Johnson, Ramon Gordon, Buddy Butler

Synopsis: After several years working along the margins of the underground film scene in New York, director Robert Downey broke through to wider recognition with the arthouse hit Putney Swope, a wildly irreverent satire of race and advertising in America. Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) is the token Read More

1969
No More Excuses

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Downey, Sr., Allen Abel, Lawrence Wolf, Prentice Wilhite, Linda Diesem

Synopsis: This New York underground film contains elements of the surreal and absurd. A Civil War soldier (Robert Downey) is shot in the posterior and finds himself wandering around New York in different time periods. He meets President James Garfield and his assassin. Documentary footage of the Vietnam War Read More

1968
Bersaglio Mobile

Synopsis: In this explicitly violent espionage drama, spies and counterspies collide in Athens as they endeavor to lay claim to a vital piece of microfilm that contains info regarding the identity of several key agents. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

10/9/67
Chafed Elbows

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: George Morgan

Synopsis: This New York art film is almost totally comprised of still photographs. It chronicles the hip and colorful life in SoHo during the 1960s. The filmmaker also comments and makes observations about the issues and cultural icons of the day; included are his insights concerning the underground film Read More

1967
Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos

Crew: Director

1967
Babo 73

Crew: Director

1964