Robert RossenFilmography

Born:: March 16, 1908 in New York City, NY
Occupation:: Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Birth name:: Robert Rosen
Biography:: American screenwriter, director, and producer Robert Rossen, born Robert Rosen, was raised by Russian-Jewish immigrants in the often violent ghettos of the Lower East Side in New York. As a young man he was briefly a professional boxer before beginning his show business career as a director and...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

Lilith

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, Peter Fonda, Kim Hunter, Anne Meacham, Jessica Walter, Gene Hackman

Synopsis: Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty) is a Korean War veteran who becomes an occupational therapist in a private mental hospital that cares for wealthy, schizophrenic clientele. He slowly begins to fall for Lilith Arthur (Jean Seberg), a patient who is mentally locked in her own little world. Vincent Read More

1964
The Cool World

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Hampton Clanton, Yolanda Rodriguez, Carl Lee, Gary Bolling

Synopsis: No relation to the later Ralph Bakshi semi-animated feature of the same name, Cool World is set in the meanest sections of Harlem. Hampton Clayton plays Duke, a powerful street gang member who claims that he is motivated by the Black Muslim movement. His subsequent criminal activities are thus not Read More

1963
Billy Budd

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Ryan, Peter Ustinov, Melvyn Douglas, Terence Stamp, Ronald Lewis, John Neville

Synopsis: Herman Melville's short novel Billy Budd is adapted for the screen, distinguished by Robert Krasker's expressive black-and-white cinematography and Peter Ustinov's crisp direction. Terence Stamp is Billy Budd, a seaman forced to serve in the British Navy during the war between England and France Read More

1962
The Hustler

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott, Myron McCormick

Synopsis: As The Hustler's "Fast" Eddie Felson, Paul Newman created a classic antihero, charismatic but fundamentally flawed, and nobody's role model. A pool player from Oakland, CA, as good as anyone who ever picked up a cue, Eddie has an Achilles' heel: arrogance. It's not enough for him to win: he must Read More

1961
They Came to Cordura

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Richard Conte, Michael Callan

Synopsis: Gary Cooper stars in one of his final roles in They Came To Cordura, Robert Rossen's moody study of the thin dividing line between heroism and cowardice. Cooper plays Major Thomas Thorn, a U.S. Army officer in the expedition into Mexico against Pancho Villa. Because he hesitated during a moment of Read More

1959
Island in the Sun

Crew: Director

Actors: James Mason, Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Collins, Michael Rennie

Synopsis: Political intrigue and romantic gamesmanship send an already torrid Caribbean community to the boiling point in this drama. Maxwell Fleury (James Mason) and David Boyeur (Harry Belafonte) are two men running for political office in a British-controlled island in the West Indies. Maxwell is the son Read More

1957
Alexander the Great

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom, Danielle Darrieux, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: The short life and quick death of Alexander the Great is recounted in this literate historical epic. Decked out in a blonde wig, Richard Burton stars as the Grecian warrior who conquered the known world while only in his twenties, then wept because there were no more worlds left to conquer. While Read More

1956
Mambo

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Silvana Mangano, Michael Rennie, Vittorio Gassman, Shelley Winters, Katherine Dunham

Synopsis: Unable to find work in Hollywood due to the Blacklist, director Robert Rossen filmed his 1954 production Mambo in Italy. Silvana Mangano stars as Silvia, who hopes someday to become a famous dancer. In the meantime, Silvia is torn between two lovers: Count Enrico (Michael Rennie), who hasn't much Read More

9/18/54
The Brave Bulls

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Mel Ferrer, Miroslava Stern, Anthony Quinn, Eugene Iglesias, José Torvay

Synopsis: Mel Ferrer and Anthony Quinn are perfectly cast in The Brave Bulls. Ferrer plays a star matador who is the idol of the crowds, an image carefully cultivated by Quinn, his manager. The matador is unbeatable until the woman he loves (Miroslava) perishes in an auto accident. Wracked by guilt and Read More

1951
All the King's Men

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Broderick Crawford, John Derek, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge

Synopsis: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men is a roman à clef inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark, a backwoods Southern lawyer who wins the hearts of his Read More

1949
The Undercover Man

Crew: Producer

Actors: Glenn Ford, Nina Foch, James Whitmore, Barry Kelley, David Wolfe

Synopsis: Eliot Ness may have gotten lots of publicity (especially long after the fact) for breaking the Capone mob, but as Joseph H. Lewis' The Undercover Man reminds us, it was the accountants and the numbers-crunchers that brought down Capone and his mob. Frank Warren (Glenn Ford) started out as an Read More

1949
Desert Fury

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Mary Astor, John Hodiak, Wendell Corey

Synopsis: Desert Fury is a rarety for the 1940s, a Technicolor "film noir." Set in a Nevada gambling town, the story concerns the various misadventures, romantic and otherwise, of Paula Haller (Lizabeth Scott), the rebellious daughter of gambling-house proprietress Fritzie Haller (Mary Astor, who steals the Read More

1947
Johnny O'Clock

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Dick Powell, Evelyn Keyes, Lee J. Cobb, Ellen Drew, Nina Foch

Synopsis: Three years after song-and-dance man Dick Powell reshaped his nice-guy image by playing hard-boiled gumshoe Phillip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet, he returned to film noir with this crime-based thriller. Johnny O'Clock (Dick Powell) and his partner Pete Marchettis (Thomas Gomez) operate a Read More

1947
Body and Soul

Crew: Director

Actors: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, James Burke, Anne Revere, Canada Lee, Mary Currier, Joe Devlin, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad

Synopsis: This riveting 1947 drama, regarded by many as the greatest boxing movie of all time, centers on a former pugilist who looks back on his life in and out of the ring and realizes that self-respect is a more important prize than winning. John Garfield is Charlie Davis, a former boxing champion who Read More

1947
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Roman Bohnen, Charles D. Brown, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Ann Doran, Judith Anderson

Synopsis: In The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, relationships formed in childhood lead to murder and obsessive love. The wealthy Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) is the prime mover of the small Pennsylvania town of Iverston. Martha lives in a huge mansion with her DA husband, Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), an Read More

1946
A Walk in the Sun

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, John Ireland, Norman Lloyd, George Tyne, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway

Synopsis: Harry Brown's honest, unsentimental WW2 novel A Walk in the Sun has been effectively adapted for the screen by Robert Rossen. Dana Andrews stars as Sgt. Tyne, a platoon squad leader in Italy who ends up assuming command of his platoon after a series of deaths. As they prepare to attack an isolated Read More

1945
Edge of Darkness

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Tom Fadden, Judith Anderson, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine

Synopsis: The Norwegian resistance to the Nazi occupation of their country inspired several wartime films from Hollywood, including this Warner Bros. production, filmed in and around Monterey, California. In October 1942, a German observation airplane discovers a seaside village named Trollness where the Read More

1943
Out of the Fog

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert, George Tobias

Synopsis: Out of the Fog is the film version of the Irwin Shaw play The Gentle People, refashioned to mollify the Hollywood censors by expert wordsmiths Robert Rossen, Jerry Wald, and Richard Macaulay. Humphrey Bogart lobbied strenuously to play the leading role of charming but ruthless waterfront loan Read More

1941
The Sea Wolf

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Alexander Knox, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The fifth film version of Jack London's The Sea Wolf stars Edward G. Robinson as "premature fascist" Wolf Larsen. The captain of the scavenger ship Ghost, Larsen is a heartless tyrant who can tolerate no sign of weakness in anyone. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" is Larsen's Read More

1941
Blues in the Night

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Priscilla Lane, Betty Field, Richard Whorf, Lloyd Nolan, Jack Carson, Elia Kazan

Synopsis: The big-band mystique of the 1940s was explored by Blues in the Night. Future directors Richard Whorf and Elia Kazan star as, respectively, a neurotic band-leader and a carefree clarinettist. Their jazz band travels from one small-time gig to another, always hoping for their big break but always Read More

1941
A Child Is Born

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lynn, Gladys George, Gale Page, Spring Byington

Synopsis: A Child is Born is a remake of 1932's Life Begins, softened to conform to stricter movie censorship and lengthened to qualify as an "A" picture. The film is an episodic account of one particularly busy night in a maternity hospital. A generous portion of screen time is lavished on a gangster's Read More

1940
The Roaring Twenties

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Gladys George

Synopsis: Based upon an idea by Broadway columnist Mark Hellinger, The Roaring Twenties opens during World War I as doughboys Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney), Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn), and George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) discuss what they will do when the war is over. Bartlett wants to go back to repairing Read More

1939
Dust Be My Destiny

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Garfield, Priscilla Lane, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, Billy Halop

Synopsis: John Garfield once more plays a social outcast who's had nothing but lousy breaks. Released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Garfield is promptly arrested as a vagrant and sent to a work farm. He falls in love with Priscilla Lane, stepdaughter of the farm's no-good foreman. Garfield Read More

1939
Racket Busters

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, George Brent, Gloria Dickson, Allen Jenkins, Walter Abel

Synopsis: In this gangster movie set in the Big Apple, a crime lord strong arms teamsters into paying him protection money. One young trucker with a very pregnant wife, stands up to the thug. His partner also refuses to pay in the hopes that they will help the other truck drivers. Naturally this enrages the Read More

1938
They Won't Forget

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Claude Rains, Edward Norris, Allyn Joslyn, Linda Perry, Cy Kendall, E. Alyn Warren, Lana Turner

Synopsis: This hard-hitting Warner Bros. courtroom drama begins with the usual "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental" disclaimer. Filmgoers with long memories, however, recognized Robert Rossen and Aben Kandel's screenplay as a blow-by-blow recreation of the Leo Frank-Mary Read More

1937
Marked Woman

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Isabel Jewell, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lola Lane, Rosalind Marquis

Synopsis: Bette Davis' famous walk-out from her home studio of Warner Bros. may have hurt her financially, but in the long run it paid off with bigger parts in better films. Like many Warners films of the period, Marked Woman was "torn from today's headlines." Specifically, it was inspired by the recent Read More

1937