Robert Elswit Filmography

Shine a Light

Crew: Camera Operator

Synopsis: After exploring the careers of the Band and Bob Dylan in The Last Waltz and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, respectively, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese turns his lens on rock & roll legends the Rolling Stones for this feature focusing on two concerts from the band's 2006 A Bigger Bang tour. In Read More

The Burning Plain

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, Joaquim de Almeida, John Corbett, Robin Tunney

Synopsis: Charlize Theron top-lines the romantic ensemble The Burning Plain, written and directed by Babel screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. 2929 Production's film tells the tale of a web of interconnecting love stories, with Theron playing Sylvia, a woman with a troubled past who tries to reconcile with her Read More

There Will Be Blood

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier

Synopsis: Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man -- an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson's loose adaptation of the novel Read More

Michael Clayton

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe

Synopsis: Michael Clayton (George Clooney) handles all of the dirty work for a major New York law firm, arranging top-flight legal services and skirting through loopholes for ethically questionable clients. But when a fellow "fixer" decides to turn on the very firm they were hired to clean up for, Clayton Read More

American Dreamz

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein

Synopsis: The President of the United States (Dennis Quaid) seems to be having a nervous breakdown after picking up a newspaper for the first time in four years, and when his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe) determines to get the Commander in Chief out of his pajamas and back into the spotlight, the stage is Read More

Syriana

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt

Synopsis: Oil drives greed in Oscar-winning Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan's labyrinthine sophomore directorial effort that traces the corruption of the global oil industry from the backrooms of Washington, D.C., to the petroleum-rich fields of the Middle East. Based in part on the writings of former Read More

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: David Strathairn, George Clooney, Robert Downey, Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Frank Langella

Synopsis: George Clooney pays homage to one of the icons of American broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, in this fact-based drama, which was Clooney's second feature film as a director. In 1953, Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) was one of the best-known newsmen on television as host of both Read More

Runaway Jury

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Bruce Davison, Jeremy Piven

Synopsis: Three people attempt to bend justice for their own purposes in this drama based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham. After a man dies in a shooting incident, his wife files a lawsuit against the company that manufactured the gun, with her lawyer, Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), arguing that Read More

Gigli

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha, Lainie Kazan, Missy Crider

Synopsis: Larry Gigli (Ben Affleck) is a low-level Los Angeles mob enforcer. His volatile boss, Louis (Lenny Venito), hires Gigli to kidnap Brian (newcomer Justin Bartha), the mentally handicapped younger brother of a federal prosecutor who's about to bring Louis' boss to trial in New York. Gigli gets the Read More

Behind the Red Door

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Kyra Sedgwick, Kiefer Sutherland, Stockard Channing, Jason Carter, Chuck Shamata

Synopsis: Set in New York and New England (but filmed in Newfoundland), Behind the Red Door stars Kyra Sedgwick as Manhattan-based photographer Natalie Haddad, who enjoys success with her strangely gloomy and foreboding camerawork. When her agent and best friend Julia (Stockard Channing) arranges for her to Read More

Punch-Drunk Love

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Synopsis: Adam Sandler and Emily Watson star in Punch-Drunk Love, an odd romantic comedy from gifted young director Paul Thomas Anderson. Sandler plays Barry Egan, a shy sad-sack with a great deal of repressed anger that occasionally bursts forth in sudden violent outrages, who falls in love with Lena Read More

Heist

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay

Synopsis: Esteemed writer/director David Mamet fashioned this homage to the elegant, character-driven "tough guy" genre pictures of Warner Bros. in the 1930s and '40s, even using vintage scores in the soundtrack. Gene Hackman stars as Joe Moore, an accomplished thief whose career is jeopardized after he's Read More

Impostor

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, Mekhi Phifer, Tim Guinee

Synopsis: This long-delayed science fiction thriller from director Gary Fleder was actually filmed prior to his box-office hit Don't Say a Word (2001), which preceded it in theaters by several months. Based on a 1953 short story by Philip K. Dick, the film shares that schizophrenic author's long-running Read More

Bounce

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: David Paymer, Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joe Morton, Natasha Henstridge, Tony Goldwyn

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy-drama, two people whose lives were touched by the same tragedy find love. Buddy Amaral (Ben Affleck) is a successful L.A. advertising executive who has a way with the ladies, but inside he longs for a meaningful long-term relationship. One day Buddy sells his seat on a Read More

Magnolia

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jason Robards, Jr., Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy

Synopsis: Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson followed his critical and commercial breakthrough Boogie Nights with this wildly ambitious story of lives intertwining on a single day in California's San Fernando Valley. Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a successful producer of television game shows, left his Read More

8MM

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Anthony Heald, Catherine Keener

Synopsis: Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a surveillance expert on the rise. He's living the American dream with a wife, Amy (Catherine Keener), infant daughter, and a house in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After the completion of an assignment for a U.S. Senator, Welles is summoned to the house of Read More

Tomorrow Never Dies

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Roger Spottiswoode (Air America) directed this film, the 18th chapter in the 35-year-old James Bond series (excluding Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again). James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) learns billionaire media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) is manipulating world events via an exclusive Read More

Boogie Nights

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy

Synopsis: While set within the milieu of the Los Angeles adult film industry, Boogie Nights is less a film about pornography than the serio-comic story of a group of misfits, losers, and lost souls who are embraced by Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), a director who makes "adult films, exotic motion pictures." Read More

The Pallbearer

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: David Schwimmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Rapaport, Barbara Hershey, Carol Kane

Synopsis: This dark comedy is a clever homage to classic generation gap comedies such as The Graduate (1967), The Last Picture Show (1971) and The Big Chill (1983), filtered through an ironic Generation X lens. Tom Thompson (David Schwimmer) is unemployed and aimless, hovering between childhood and adult Read More

Boys

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Winona Ryder, Lukas Haas, Skeet Ulrich, John C. Reilly, Bill Sage

Synopsis: Boys is a coming-of-age tale about an addled prep school student who nurses a woman back to health after an accident and becomes involved in her cryptic past. John Baker Jr. (Lukas Haas) is a tormented high school senior outcast who's weary of his upper-crust boarding school life and dreads his Read More

Hard Eight

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, F. William Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Synopsis: Before his commercial breakthrough with Boogie Nights (1997), writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson made this low-key drama. John (John C. Reilly), a half-bright loser stranded in Reno, is down to his last few bucks when Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall), taking pity on him, buys him breakfast and offers Read More

The River Wild

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, David Strathairn, Joseph Mazzello, John C. Reilly

Synopsis: In a change-of-pace role designed to prove that she could carry high-concept genre films as well as character-driven dramas, Meryl Streep headlined this fast-paced adventure as Gail, a whitewater rafting guide. For a vacation, Gail is accompanying her son Roarke (Joseph Mazzello) and workaholic Read More

A Dangerous Woman

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey, Gabriel Byrne, David Strathairn, Chloe Webb

Synopsis: Debra Winger's performance as a slow, mentally disturbed woman in A Dangerous Woman, raises the film far above its conventional, violence-ridden plot. Winger plays Martha, a quiet, lonely woman who has adjusted to a life without a man as she toils away at her small job at a dry cleaners in a small Read More

Waterland

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jeremy Irons, Ethan Hawke, Sinéad Cusack, John Heard, Cara Buono

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Graham Swift, this drama follows the past and present crises of schoolteacher Tom Crick (Jeremy Irons), who attempts to resolve the problems in his own life and the apathy of his students by relating stories of his troubled childhood in the English Fens (a marshy region in Read More

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, Matt McCoy, Ernie Hudson, Julianne Moore

Synopsis: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is director Curtis Hanson's suburban horror story of a demented nanny bent on revenge for past wrongs. Peyton (Rebecca De Mornay) was once a happily married woman, but when her doctor husband is accused of assaulting a patient and he commits suicide, her world falls Read More

A Murderous Affair: The Carolyn Warmus Story

Crew: Cinematographer

Synopsis: Based on a true story, this is the case of Carolyn Warmus, a teacher from Westchester County who was convicted of the murder of her lover's wife. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Paris Trout

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Dennis Hopper, Barbara Hershey, Ed Harris, Ray McKinnon, Tina Lifford

Synopsis: Peter Dexter adapted his National Book Award-winning novel for this probing made-for-cable film featuring Dennis Hopper in the title role as an unrepentant racist in 1949 Georgia. Trout is a greedy and paranoid shopkeeper who murders the sister and mother of a black man who refuses to repay Read More

Prison Stories: Women on the Inside

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Rae Dawn Chong, Lolita Davidovich, Talisa Soto

Synopsis: This made-for-cable women-in-prison film is an anthology collecting three short subjects. In the first, a pregnant inmate (Rae Dawn Chong) must seek protection from a gang; in the middle film, a prisoner tries to keep her family from following her lead into a life of crime; and in the closer, a Read More

The Summer My Father Grew Up

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: John Ritter, Margaret Whitton, Joe Spano, Karen Young, Matthew Lawrence

Synopsis: Matthew Lawrence plays an 11-year-old boy whose life is torn asunder by the divorce of his parents. John Ritter plays Lawrence's doctor father, who finds himself with only one day to make amends to his estranged son. Complicating matters are the divergent emotions of Lawrence's mother's new Read More

Bad Influence

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Rob Lowe, James Spader, Lisa Zane, Christian Clemenson, Kathleen Wilhoite

Synopsis: Successful LA marketing analyst Michael Boll (James Spader) seemingly has it all-except a sense of self-confidence. Enigmatic drifter Alex (Rob Lowe) enters Michael's life and immediately begins to exert a negative influence. As Michael's self-esteem zooms (aided by generous dollops of sex and Read More

A Killing in a Small Town

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Barbara Hershey

Synopsis: To escape from the boredom of her small-town life, Sunday School teacher Candy Morrison (Barbara Hershey) engages in an affair with a fellow churchgoer. When his wife Peggy learns about the relationship, she attacks Candy with an axe; after a struggle, Candy kills Peggy, hitting her 41 times with Read More

Opposites Attract

Crew: Cinematographer

Synopsis: In this romance, a woman campaigns against a handsome actor in a mayoral race in their small seaside town. Trouble ensues when she falls in love with him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Heart of Dixie

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen, Phoebe Cates, Treat Williams, Don Michael Paul

Synopsis: Set at a Southern college during the 1950s, three co-eds (Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen and Phoebe Cates) re-assess their values in light of the burgeoning civil rights movement. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

How I Got into College

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Lara Flynn Boyle, Anthony Edwards, Corey Parker, Finn Carter, Charles Rocket

Synopsis: This teen comedy from Savage Steve Holland stars Corey Parker as an underachieving high schooler who hatches a crazy plot with valedictorian Lara Flynn Boyle to gain acceptance into a prestigious university. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Farrah Fawcett, Frederic Forrest

Synopsis: This made-for-cable biopic originally went out under the simpler title Margaret Bourke-White. Farrah Fawcett stars as the famed photojournalist, whose work for Life magazine from 1936 onward gained her worldwide celebrity. The best scenes, showing the dauntless Bourke-White (Fawcett) at work in Read More

Return of the Living Dead Part II

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: James Karen, Thom Matthews, Michael Kenworthy, Marsha Dietlein, Dana Ashbrook

Synopsis: A virtual remake of its predecessor, Return of the Living Dead (1985), which itself was a tongue-in-cheek rip-off of director George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), this follow-up adheres strictly to a gore and gags formula. Jesse Wilson (Michael Kenworthy), is a young boy being bullied Read More

Amazing Grace and Chuck

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Alex English, Gregory Peck, William L. Petersen, Joshua Zuehlke

Synopsis: When young Chuck Murdock (Joshua Zuehlke) visits a nuclear missile site, he learns that one bomb would destroy the earth in less time than it would take a piece of silverware to drop from his hand to the floor. This information sends the sensitive boy into existential angst. Wondering why anybody Read More

Into the Homeland

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Powers Boothe, C. Thomas Howell

Synopsis: This made-for-cable thriller stars Powers Boothe as a former policeman whose son (C. Thomas Howell) has fallen prey to a band of white supremacists. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Trick or Treat

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Marc Price, Tony Dean Fields, Lisa Orgolini, Doug Savant, Ozzy Osbourne, Elaine Joyce

Synopsis: Character actor Charles Martin Smith directed this quirky horror film about a dead rock star who wreaks vengeance on a small town. When a rock musician is banned from performing at a high school Halloween dance and ends up perishing in a hotel fire, he vows vengeance on the town and comes back Read More

Desert Hearts

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley, Gwen Welles, Andra Akers, Dean Butler

Synopsis: Director Donna Deitch makes a strong impression in her first feature film, a simple story of a lesbian love affair, based on Jane Rule's 1964 novel Desert of the Heart. Helen Shaver stars as Vivian Bell, an uptight 35-year-old Columbia University professor who travels to Reno to get a divorce. She Read More

The Children of Times Square

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Joanna Cassidy, Brandon Douglas, Danny Nucci

Synopsis: The Children of Times Square are alienated and disenfranchised kids from all over the country. With nowhere to go and no real purpose in life, they converge on the streets of New York, totally vulnerable despite their outward toughness. Howard Rollins plays a ruthless cocaine dealer who, in the Read More

The Sure Thing

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Anthony Edwards, Boyd Gaines, Tim Robbins, Lisa Jane Persky

Synopsis: Director Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing is essentially It Happened One Night for the 1980s, but its lack of surprise in no way impedes its entertainment value. John Cusack plays Walter "Gib" Gibson, a self-involved college freshman who makes plans to head to California, there to touch base (and a few Read More

Moving Violations

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Neal Israel, John Murray, Jennifer Tilly, James Keach, Brian Backer, Ned Eisenberg

Synopsis: In this flat attempt at comedy by the director of the Police Academy series, Neal Israel, a brash Dana Cannon (John Murray, brother of Bill) lands in a crooked re-education school for delinquent drivers, run by Deputy Halik (James Keach, brother of Stacey). The objective is to lord it over the Read More

Summerspell

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Dorothy Holland, Frank Whiteman, Michael Holmes, Joan Crosby

Synopsis: Made for peanuts, Summerspell transcends its meager budget by offering a first-rate character study. The film is set at the home of a typical American family during a two-day Fourth of July reunion in Texas. Dorothy Holland and Frank Whiteman play the Wisdoms, who along with their children host Read More

Tiger Town

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Roy Scheider, Justin Henry, Noah Moazezi, Bethany Carpenter

Synopsis: Originally telecast October 9, 1983, Tiger Town was the first feature film made specifically for the Disney Channel cable service. Roy Scheider stars as a veteran Detroit Tigers right fielder, whose chances of getting into at least one World Series before retirement diminishes with each Tigers Read More

Waltz Across Texas

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Anne Archer, Terry Jastrow, Noah Beery, Jr., Mary Kay Place, Josh Taylor

Synopsis: In this easily predictable romantic comedy, Gail (Anne Archer) is a no-nonsense geologist from the East Coast and John (Terry Jastrow) is a down-home, intuitive Texan whose expertise lies in guessing where petroleum is located -- Gail, as a geologist, is not in the habit of guessing. As the two Read More

The End of August

Crew: Cinematographer

Synopsis: Based on Kate Chopin's moving novel The Awakening, and set in the early 1900s, this drama chronicles the struggle of a young wife to escape the oppressing conventions of society and live life to the fullest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More