Robert Markowitz Filmography

Word of Honor

Crew: Director

Actors: Don Johnson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Sharon Lawrence, John Heard, Arliss Howard

Synopsis: A man is called by the military to defend himself against long-ago charges of criminal misconduct in this made-for-cable drama based on a novel by Nelson DeMille. Ben Tyson (Don Johnson) has done well for himself 30 years after his tour of duty in Vietnam -- he's a successful businessman and Read More

The Pilot's Wife

Crew: Director

Actors: Christine Lahti, Campbell Scott, John Heard, Kirsty Mitchell, Alison Pill

Synopsis: Based on the best-selling novel by Anita Shreve, the made-for-TV The Pilot's Wife also bears traces of the old Lana Turner movie Another Time, Another Place. Upon being told that her pilot husband has been killed in a crash, Kathryn Lyons (Christine Lahti) is in no mood to deal with the accusation Read More

The Big Heist

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Based on a book by Ernest Volkman and John Cummings, the made-for-cable The Big Heist endeavors to put a human face on the events surrounding a real-life robbery which occurred at JFK International Airport's Lufthansa terminal in 1978. Donald Sutherland stars as Jimmy "the Gent" Burke, a Read More

The Great Gatsby

Crew: Director

Actors: Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino, Paul Rudd, Martin Donovan, Francie Swift

Synopsis: F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, often regarded as one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century, is brought to the screen in this made-for-TV feature, produced in collaboration with the A&E Cable Network in the United States, and Granada Entertainment in Great Britain. Nick Carraway Read More

Small Vices: A Spenser Mystery

Crew: Director

Actors: Joe Mantegna, Marcia Gay Harden, Shiek Mahmud-Bey

Synopsis: Joe Mantegna stars as Spenser, Robert B. Parker's tough and intelligent private eye, in this made-for-cable mystery thriller. When Ellis Alves (Wood Harris) is accused of the murder of a well-to-do college student, no one seems terribly surprised; Alves has a long criminal record and has served Read More

Nicholas' Gift

Crew: Director

Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Alan Bates, Gene Wexler, Hallie Kate Eisenberg

Synopsis: In 1994, an American family made international headlines when, during a trip to Italy, their son was shot in the head by bandits. Left brain dead with no hope of recovery, the grieving parents made a great sacrifice and offered Italian surgeons the opportunity to harvest the boy's usable organs Read More

David

Crew: Director

Actors: Leonard Nimoy

Synopsis: This made-for-tv relgious epic relates the life story of David, one of the Bible's most fascinating figures. David's life included a passionate affair with Bathsheba, an odds-defying defeat of Goliath, to a struggle with King Saul. This film, co-starring Jonathan Pryce, Leonard Nimoy, and Sheryl Read More

Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

Crew: Director

Actors: Tim Dutton, Richard Jenkins, Nathaniel Parker, Peter Horton, Pamela Gien

Synopsis: Based on Jon Krakhauer's harrowing account of folly and tragedy on the slopes of the world's highest mountain, this made-for-TV movie re-enacts that fateful excursion. Christopher McDonald and Peter Horton star. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide Read More

The Tuskegee Airmen

Crew: Director

Actors: Laurence Fishburne

Synopsis: Based on a true story, The Tuskegee Airmen chronicles the experiences of the first African-American fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Using Hannibal Lee (Laurence Fishburne) as a focal point, the movie follows the airmen from their initial training at Tuskegee, Alabama, through their Read More

Because Mommy Works

Crew: Director

Actors: Anne Archer, John Heard

Synopsis: The sensitive topic of the working mother is the subject of this made-for-television movie. Anne Archer stars as Abby, the working, single mother of a 6-year-old. Abby shares her son with her husband by alternating custodial weekends with him. At first, she enjoys the freedom it affords her to Read More

The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Palance, Amy Irving, Patrick Bergin

Synopsis: This made-for-TV movie features two previously unproduced stories written by Rod Serling for his groundbreaking anthology series The Twilight Zone, and adapted by Richard Matheson, one of Serling's frequent collaborators on the show. In "The Theater," a woman (Amy Irving) who frequents a Read More

Murder in the Heartland

Crew: Director

Actors: Tim Roth, Fairuza Balk, Brian Dennehy, Randy Quaid, Milo O'Shea

Synopsis: The miserable life and long-overdue death of thrill killer Charles Starkweather is the basis of the two-part TV movie Murder in the Heartland. Over a bloody few months in 1958, Starkweather (Tim Roth), a 19-year-old high school dropout, embarked on a killing spree, snuffing out 11 victims. Along Read More

Overexposed

Crew: Director

Actors: Terence Knox, Marcy Walker

Synopsis: Overexposed starts out as a "heavy breather of the week" TV movie and develops into a truly involving suspense tale. Marcy Walker plays a wife and mother, stalked by wacko Terence Knox. This isn't just the usual hit-and-run harassment; Knox is a businessman who has an "X-rated" video of an Read More

Afterburn

Crew: Director

Actors: Laura Dern, Robert Loggia, Vincent Spano, Michael Rooker, Andy Romano

Synopsis: This riveting, fact-based made-for-cable drama follows the fight of Air Force widow Janet Harduvel to clear the name of her late husband, a pilot who died when his F-16 crashed. The official cause of the mishap was listed as "pilot error," but Harduvel refuses to believe this and so launches her Read More

Love, Lies & Murder

Crew: Director

Actors: Clancy Brown, John Ashton, Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly

Synopsis: Love, Lies and Murder is based on a true story that began its tragic unspooling on March 19, 1985 in Garden Grove, California. 23-year-old wife and mother Linda Brown is murdered. She leaves behind her computer-consultant husband Clancy Brown, her 17-year-old sister (Sheryl Lee), a 14-year-old Read More

Too Young to Die?

Crew: Director

Actors: Juliette Lewis, Michael Tucker

Synopsis: Another "based on fact" TV movie, Too Young to Die? stars Juliette Lewis as a benighted teenaged girl. She is married at 14, is deserted, and begins walking the streets at 15. Abused by virtually every man with whom she comes in contact (including her own father), Lewis commits murder--and finds Read More

Decoration Day

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Originally airing on the Hallmark Hall of Fame, this made-for-television adaptation of a novel by John William Corrington tells the story of a retired judge who decides to find out why his old pal is refusing to accept the Medal of Honor he should have been awarded years before. ~ Sandra Brennan Read More

A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story

Crew: Director

Actors: Nancy McKeon, Bruce Weitz, Dale Midkiff, Yvette Heyden, Terri Hanauer

Synopsis: Tracey Thurman was a real-life Connecticut housewife who, throughout her marriage, suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of her husband. The beatings culminate in a single bloody night when Buck Thurman stabs his estranged wife 13 times. She survives--barely--and Buck is arrested. Having failed Read More

A Dangerous Life

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Dangerous Life originated as a six-hour HBO miniseries about the 1986 Philippine revolution. Gary Busey stars as an American TV journalist, on the scene when the tempestuous situation in Manila boils over. He puts his own life on the line to get the inside story of the overthrow of the Marcos Read More

Alex: The Life of a Child

Crew: Director

Actors: Bonnie Bedelia, Gennie James, Craig T. Nelson

Synopsis: Alex: The Life of a Child is based on the true story of Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford and his dying 8-year-old daughter Alex. Craig T. Nelson plays Deford and Gennie James is Alex, both of whom come to grips in different ways with Alex's fatal cystic fibrosis. A subplot involves the Read More

Adam: His Song Continues

Crew: Director

Actors: Daniel J. Travanti, JoBeth Williams

Synopsis: Adam: His Song Continues is a sequel to the highly regarded fact-based 1983 TV movie Adam. The first film was the heartrending story of Floridians John and Reve Walsh (Daniel J. Travanti, JoBeth Williams) whose six-year-old son Adam was kidnapped and murdered in 1981, whereupon the Walshes lobbied Read More

Kojak: The Belarus File

Crew: Director

Actors: Telly Savalas, Suzanne Pleshette, Max von Sydow, Herbert Berghof, Dan Frazer

Synopsis: Seven years after the cancellation of the CBS TV series Kojak, the network attempted to revive the property with this adaptation of John Loftus' novel The Bellarus Secret. Telly Savalas returns to the role of lollipop-sucking New York police detective Lt. Theo Kojak, with George Savalas, Vince Read More

The Belarus File

Crew: Director

Actors: Max von Sydow

Synopsis: After a seven-year absence from the small screen, NYPD detective Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) made a comeback in the TV-movie The Belarus File (originally Kojak: The Belarus File). Adapted from John Loftus' best-selling spy novel The Belarus Secret, the film teams Kojak with federal agent Dana Read More

Children of the Night

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This drama chronicles the good deeds of a sociology student who after doing research into feminine crimes begins taking in teen-age hookers. It is based on a true story. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

My Mother's Secret Life

Crew: Director

Actors: Loni Anderson, Paul Sorvino, Amanda Wyss

Synopsis: After a long separation, a young girl finds her mother (Loni Anderson) and is surprised to find that she's working as a high-class call girl. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

The Phantom of the Opera

Crew: Director

Actors: Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour, Michael York

Synopsis: This 1983 TV adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1908 novel Phantom of the Opera was the fourth film version of the vintage chiller--and the one with perhaps the highest rate of digression from the original novel. This version is set in Budapest (where it was filmed) rather than Paris, obliging scripter Sherman Yellen Read More

The Neighborhood

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Ron Masak, Christine Belford, Ben Masters

Synopsis: Based on a story by Jimmy Breslin, The Neighborhood takes place in an all-white, blue collar neighborhood in an unspecified big city. A "blockbuster" real estate agent begins selling houses to black families (among the new neighbors is recent Oscar nominee Howard Rollins Jr.), resulting in mixed Read More

The Wall

Crew: Director

Synopsis: It could be said that without the incredible success of the ABC miniseries Holocaust in 1978, CBS might have thought twice before greenlighting the ambitious, three-hour TV docudrama The Wall four years later. Adapted by Millard Lampell from his own 1960 Broadway play, which in turn was inspired Read More

Pray TV

Crew: Director

Actors: Ned Beatty, Richard Kiley, John Ritter

Synopsis: The made-for-television Pray TV was the subject for hot debate long before its February 1, 1982 debut. This even-handed exploration of the televangelism business stars Ned Beatty as the Reverend Freddy Stone, whose religious empire nets $3 million annually. John Ritter co-stars as Rev. Tom Read More

A Long Way Home

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A young man searches for his brother and sister many years after the three were sent to separate foster homes in this made-for-TV drama. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Voices

Crew: Director

Actors: Michael Ontkean, Amy Irving, Alex Rocco, Viveca Lindfors, Barry Miller

Synopsis: Amy Irving plays a deaf woman whose ambition is to become a professional dancer in this drama. Rosemarie Lemon is unhappy with the support she is getting from her family for her dreams. She meets a sensitive truck driver, Drew Rothman (Michael Ontkean), and they become lovers. Rothman's family is Read More

The Storyteller

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Storyteller is a lukewarm exploration of a hot issue: TV violence. Martin Balsam plays a successful television writer who pens a tale in which one of the characters commits arson. A young and impressionable boy watches this TV drama--and shortly afterward dies in a fire of his own making. The Read More

The Deadliest Season

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The title of the made-for-TV The Deadliest Season obscures the fact that this is a film about hockey. Michael Moriarty stars as a popular defenseman whose take-no-prisoners approach to the game results in the serious--and ultimately fatal--injury of another player. Moriarty is outwardly blase Read More