Robert Ryan Filmography

Born:: November 11, 1909 in Chicago, IL
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: It was his failure as a playwright that led Robert Ryan to a three-decade career as an actor. He was a unique presence on both the stage and screen, and in the Hollywood community, where he was that rarity: a two-fisted liberal. In many ways, at the end of the 1940s, Ryan was the liberals' answer...Read More

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The Outfit

Actors: Tony Trabert, Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey

Synopsis: A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death in this drama based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake. Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother. Read More

1973
The Man without a Country

Actors: Cliff Robertson, Beau Bridges

Synopsis: Though previously filmed several times in one- and two-reel form, Edward Everett Hale's classic 1863 novel The Man Without a Country was not given a full-length treatment until this ABC "Kodak Special" TV presentation. Cliff Robertson stars as young, zealously patriotic American military officer Read More

1973
The Lolly Madonna War

Actors: Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan, Jeff Bridges, Scott Wilson, Katherine Squire

Synopsis: Petty jealousies and misunderstandings between two rival families escalate into a tragic outburst of violence in this drama. Laban Feather (Rod Steiger) is the patriarch of a family of Tennessee moonshiners, brewing corn liquor with the help of his sons: Thrush (Scott Wilson), Zack (Jeff Bridges) Read More

1973
Executive Action

Actors: Deanna Darrin, James MacColl, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, Gilbert Green, John Anderson

Synopsis: If you think that Oliver Stone invented the "political paranoia" movie, take a glance at Executive Action sometime. Based on Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment, the conspiracy theorist's bible, Executive Action perpetuates the popular urban legend that John F. Kennedy was assassinated at the behest of a Read More

1973
The Iceman Cometh

Actors: Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Fredric March, Jeff Bridges

Synopsis: John Frankenheimer's screen version of Eugene O'Neill's 1947 Broadway play The Iceman Cometh is set in 1912 at Harry Hope's dingy waterfront saloon. On the occasion of Hope's birthday, several derelicts enter the scene to pontificate on the lives they'd planned, the lives they still dream about Read More

1973
La Course Du Lièvre à Travers les Champs

Actors: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Lea Massari, Aldo Ray, Tisa Farrow

Synopsis: In this decidedly offbeat and rather arty crime drama, a French fugitive heads for Canada and ends up joining a gang of desperate criminals who have been plotting to kidnap a crimelord's retarded daughter. Things go well until she accidentally dies. Despite the unfortunate turn of events, the Read More

9/15/72
The Love Machine

Actors: John Phillip Law, Dyan Cannon

Synopsis: Based on the novel The Love Machine, by Jacqueline Susann, this movie concerns the machinations, in the boardroom and in the bedroom, of a group of people--from the chairman of the board down--who are involved in network television. Through his own guile and the sponsorship of his mistress (Dyan Cannon Read More

1971
Lawman

Actors: Bill Brimley, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Sheree North, Joseph Wiseman

Synopsis: In Lawman, Burt Lancaster is Jered Maddox, a dedicated marshal with an inflexible adherence to upholding the law at all costs. Riding into a nearby town to pick up a group of local carousers who, during a drunken spree, killed an old man, Maddox meets up with Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb). Bronson Read More

1971
The Wild Bunch

Actors: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates

Synopsis: "If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western ruthlessly takes apart the myths of the West. Released in the late '60s discord over Vietnam, in the wake of the controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Read More

1969
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City

Actors: Robert Ryan, Chuck Connors, Nanette Newman, Luciana Paluzzi, Bill Fraser

Synopsis: Captain Nemo and the Underwater City thrusts several "name" actors into the specialized world of Jules Verne. Six 19th-century shipwreck victims are rescued by a modernistic submarine. The skipper is Captain Nemo (Robert Ryan), who had not died at the end of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as viewers Read More

1969
Anzio

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Peter Falk, Earl Holliman, Mark Damon, Arthur Kennedy, Robert Ryan

Synopsis: This Dino De Laurentiis-produced re-creation of the decisive Italian military operation top-bills Robert Mitchum as a battle-weary war correspondent. Robert Ryan and Arthur Kennedy play generals, Peter Falk is the lovable Brooklynese corporal, and Earl Holliman is the country-boy sergeant. Anzio Read More

10/3/68
Custer of the West

Actors: Robert Shaw, Mary Ure, Jeffrey Hunter, Ty Hardin, Kieron Moore

Synopsis: Opening with a montage depicting its subject's Civil War exploits, Custer of the West carries us across four years of fighting in less than four minutes of screen time. The Civil War ended, George Armstrong Custer (Robert Shaw) longs for action and to hold onto his rank of general, so General Phil Read More

1968
The Dirty Dozen

Actors: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, George Kennedy, Richard Jaeckel

Synopsis: Director Robert Aldrich took what he considered a hopelessly old-fashioned script by Lukas Heller and Nunnally Johnson and fashioned The Dirty Dozen into one of MGM's biggest moneymakers of the 1960s--and the sixth highest-grossing film in the studio's history. Lee Marvin plays Major Reisman Read More

1967
Hour of the Gun

Actors: James Garner, Jason Robards, Jr., Robert Ryan, Albert Salmi, Charles Aidman

Synopsis: John Sturges directed this sequel to his Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is more of a melancholy character study than an action Western. The Edward Anhalt screenplay (based on Douglas D. Martin's Tombstone's Epitaph) traces Wyatt Earp's (James Garner) moral decline from a lawman with high Read More

1967
The Busybody

Actors: Sid Caesar, Robert Ryan, Anne Baxter, Kay Medford, Jan Murray

Synopsis: A nosey housewife (Marguerite Viby) takes on extra responsibilities when her husband (Buster Larsen) hurts his back while reading the Sunday paper. When she finds a dead body in the upstairs office, she calls the police. The detective (Ole Monty) is summoned, and he discovers the woman is his old Read More

1967
A Minute to Pray, a Second To Die

Actors: Alex Cord, Arthur Kennedy, Robert Ryan, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Mario Brega

Synopsis: Clay McCord (Alex Cord) is a former outlaw determined to live the life of a law-abiding citizen. Colby (Arthur Kennedy) is the town marshall who keeps law and order. Not far from the peaceful town is a haven for criminals led by Kraut (Mario Brega), a trigger happy outlaw who welcomes those who Read More

1967
Guilty or Not Guilty

Synopsis: Filmed on location in New York, the 60-minute TV drama Guilty or Not Guilty was cowritten by Evan "Blackboard Jungle" Hunter. Robert Ryan stars as Andrew Dixon, a New York assistant DA. Disgusted by the crime rate and the court's revolving door policy regarding street criminals, Dixon organizes a Read More

1967
The Professionals

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, Woody Strode

Synopsis: Grant (Ralph Bellamy) is a wealthy rancher who hires four mercenaries to retrieve his wife, Maria (Claudia Cardinale), from the clutches of the desperado Raza (Jack Palance) in this Western adventure set in 1917. Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) is a munitions expert who joins gunslinger Fardan (Lee Read More

1966
Guerre Secrete

Actors: Bourvil, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Vittorio Gassman, Mario Adorf, Annie Girardot, Peter Van Eyck

Synopsis: La Guerre Secrete is divided into four separate vignettes, each scene representing a day in the life of international espionage agents. Stories involve a secret agent (Vittorio Gassman) who goes undercover as a kidnapper, an attempt to impede a Russian attack on two submarines, and an undercover Read More

6/23/65
Battle of the Bulge

Actors: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, Telly Savalas, George Montgomery

Synopsis: In December of 1944, the Allied high command is convinced that German forces in Belgium are in a low state of readiness, and perhaps even about to withdraw. Only one officer on the front lines, intelligence specialist Lt. Col. Kiley (Henry Fonda), believes otherwise -- that the Germans are Read More

1965
The Crooked Road

Actors: Stewart Granger, Robert Ryan

Synopsis: This British programmer was filmed on the cheap in Yugoslavia, with an American star, Robert Ryan, to secure U.S. playdates. Ryan plays an American journalist who views with alarm as a dictator (Stewart Granger) runs roughshod over the citizens of an unnamed Balkan country. The news hound puts Read More

1965
Billy Budd

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 Longest Day

Actors: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, Richard Todd

Synopsis: The Longest Day is a mammoth, all-star re-creation of the D-Day invasion, personally orchestrated by Darryl F. Zanuck. Whenever possible, the original locations were utilized, and an all-star international cast impersonates the people involved, from high-ranking officials to ordinary GIs. Each Read More

1962
The Canadians

Actors: Robert Ryan, John Dehner, Torin Thatcher, John Sutton

Synopsis: In the late nineteenth century, Inspector Gannon (Robert Ryan) is a member of the Northwest Mounted Police (forerunners of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) sent to give a message to the leaders of the Sioux Indian nation. Chased by the U.S. cavalry, the Indians have entered Canada in the wake of Read More

1961
King of Kings

Actors: Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhan McKenna, Hurd Hatfield, Ron Randell, Harry Guardino, Viveca Lindfors, Rip Torn

Synopsis: One major film star referred to director Nicholas Ray as a "loser," because of Ray's alleged willingness to let his more temperamental actors walk all over him. Evidently, Ray had a very compliant and cooperative cast in King of Kings, inasmuch as the film emerged as one of the most disciplined Read More

1961
Ice Palace

Actors: Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones, Martha Hyer, Jim Backus

Synopsis: Based on the Edna Ferber novel, this engrossing period piece covers the triumphs, tragedies, loves, and sorrows of a few generations of Alaskan settlers between the first World War and the granting of statehood in 1959. Zeb (Richard Burton) is a local despot whose tough personality dominates the Read More

1960
Day of the Outlaw

Actors: Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: Set in an isolated, snow-covered town in the far West, this story has a renegade army officer named Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his henchmen riding into the town threatening their worst to the men and women there. Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) decides to agree to Bruhn's demands for someone Read More

1959
Odds Against Tomorrow

Actors: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley, Sr., Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: Harry Belafonte was both producer and star of this hard-edged film noir crime drama. Dave Burke (Ed Begley, Sr.) is an ex-cop who has been kicked off the force for refusing to inform on his colleagues to the State Crime Committee. Short on money, the former policeman jumps to the other side Read More

1959
God's Little Acre

Actors: Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise, Buddy Hackett, Jack Lord

Synopsis: Erskine Caldwell's steamy novel God's Little Acre was given a film adaptation in 1958. A heavily grayed-up Robert Ryan plays Ty Ty Walden, the patriarch of a slovenly backwoods family. As Ty Ty digs around his farm in search of gold (which he has yet to find), his son in law Bill Thompson (Aldo Ray Read More

1958
Lonelyhearts

Actors: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: For his film directorial debut, producer Dore Schary selected a longtime pet property: Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaniel West's trenchant 1933 novel. Montgomery Clift delivers a haunting performance as journalist Adam White, assigned by his cynical editor Adam Shrike (Robert Ryan) to take over a Read More

1958
Men in War

Actors: Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Robert Keith, Phillip Pine, Vic Morrow, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: Anthony Mann, best known for his intelligent Westerns and hard-boiled crime films, directed this unflinching look at the realities of war set against the backdrop of the Korean conflict. Lt. Mark Benson (Robert Ryan) is the leader of a platoon that has just been given orders to advance to Hill Read More

1957
The Proud Ones

Actors: Robert Ryan, Virginia Mayo, Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Middleton, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: A small Kansas town braces itself for the arrival of the first Texas trail herd. The marshal (Robert Ryan) expects trouble from the herd drivers, who'll be thirsty and lascivious after months on the trail. The town's saloon owner (Robert Middleton), anticipating a business boom, wants to remove Read More

1956
Back from Eternity

Actors: Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, Rod Steiger, Phyllis Kirk, Keith Andes

Synopsis: Director John Farrow's Back From Eternity is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of Farrow's 1939 film Five Came Back. The earlier film is the better of the two, if only because it is 22 minutes shorter. The plot concerns a small passenger plane that crashlands in South America, square in the heart Read More

1956
Bad Day at Black Rock

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This powerfully tense, fast-paced suspense drama also yields a grim social message about racial prejudice. Spencer Tracy is John J. MacReedy, a one-armed stranger who comes to the tiny town of Black Rock one hot summer day in 1945, the first time the train has stopped there in years. He looks for Read More

2/1/55
The Tall Men

Actors: Clark Gable, Jane Russell, Robert Ryan, Cameron Mitchell, Juan Garcia, Emile G. Meyer

Synopsis: Clark Gable and Jane Russell star in this rugged widescreen western, exquisitely photographed by Leo Tover and directed by veteran action expert Raoul A. Walsh. Gable plays Ben Allison, who with his brother Clint (Cameron Mitchell) journeys to Montana in search of gold. They come upon wealthy Read More

1955
House of Bamboo

Actors: Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi, Cameron Mitchell, Brad Dexter

Synopsis: Samuel Fuller directed and cowrote this typically hard-boiled drama set in Japan following World War II. Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese Read More

1955
Escape to Burma

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, David Farrar, Murvyn Vye, Lisa Montell

Synopsis: In this production from Benedict Bogeaus and RKO Radio, Robert Ryan stars as a fugitive from justice who hides out in the Far Eastern teak plantation managed by Barbara Stanwyck. As the two fall in love, Stanwyck comes to believe in Ryan's innocence. Upon the arrival of doggedly determined Read More

1955
Alaska Seas

Actors: Robert Ryan, Jan Sterling, Brian Keith, Gene Barry, Richard Shannon, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.

Synopsis: Alaskan salmon fisherman Matt Kelly (Robert Ryan) doesn't care who he runs over in race to get ahead in life. He even manages to exploit his friendship with Jim Kimmerly (Brian Keith) so he can make time with Kimmerly's fiancee Nicky (Jan Sterling). As a capper to his many misdeeds, Kelly's Read More

1954
About Mrs. Leslie

Actors: Shirley Booth, Robert Ryan, Marjie Millar, Alex Nicol, Sammy White

Synopsis: Shirley Booth followed up her Oscar-winning performance in Come Back Little Sheba with the high-gloss soap opera About Mrs. Leslie. Based on a novel by Vina Delmar, the film casts Booth as a philosophical boarding house keeper who recalls her life and loves in a long, long flashback. Born on the Read More

1954
Her Twelve Men

Actors: Greer Garson, Robert Ryan, Barry Sullivan, Richard Haydn, Barbara Lawrence

Synopsis: After a fruitful 15-year association, Greer Garson and MGM parted company with Her Twelve Men. The William Roberts-Laura Z. Hobson screenplay was adapted from Louise Baker's autobiographical novel Miss Baker's Dozen, the title of which pointed out the fact (which the film's title does not) that Read More

1954
The Naked Spur

Actors: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell

Synopsis: The powerhouse combination of star James Stewart and director Anthony Mann score another cinematic bullseye in The Naked Spur. Stewart plays a taciturn frontiersman who loses his home while he's off fighting the Civil War. To raise enough money for a new grubstake, Stewart becomes a bounty hunter Read More

1953
Inferno

Actors: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan, Larry Keating, Henry Hull

Synopsis: Brief and very much to the point, Inferno is a grim, fascinating tale of survival. Breaking his leg on a vacation trip, millionaire Carson (Robert Ryan) is left in the middle of the desert by his wife Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming) and his business partner Joseph Duncan (William Lundigan). Ostensibly Read More

1953
City Beneath the Sea

Actors: Robert Ryan, Mala Powers, Anthony Quinn, Suzan Ball, George Mathews

Synopsis: The motivating factor behind City Beneath the Sea is an underwater treasure hunt. In 1692, an underwater earthquake sends the Jamaica city of Port Royal to the bottom of the Caribbean. Three-hundred-fifty years later, deep-sea divers Brad Carlton (Robert Ryan) and Tony Bartlett (Anthony Quinn) Read More

1953
Clash by Night

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The opening credits appearing over a turbulent ocean serve as a foreshadowing of things to come in this standard-issue love triangle that shifts into high drama thanks to taut direction by Fritz Lang and a sizzling performance by Barbara Stanwyck. Returning to live with her brother, Joe (Keith Read More

1952
Horizons West

Actors: Robert Ryan, Julie Adams, Rock Hudson, John McIntire, Judith Braun, Raymond Burr

Synopsis: Set in the years following the Civil War, Horizons West stars Robert Ryan as Dan Hammond, one of three Texans who decide to return home after the cessation of hostilities. While his brother Neal (Rock Hudson) and his friend Tiny (James Arness) decide to become ranchers, Dan opts for a more Read More

1952
Beware, My Lovely

Actors: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Taylor Holmes, Barbara Whiting, James Williams

Synopsis: Adapted from the stage thriller The Man (itself based upon a half-hour radio drama), Beware My Lovely is a taut suspenser tailor-made for the talents of Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan. Lupino plays a pretty widow who impulsively hires handyman Ryan to look after her house. She soon learns Ryan is a Read More

1952
On Dangerous Ground

Actors: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper, Anthony Ross

Synopsis: Robert Ryan plays Jim Wilson, a tough police detective embittered by years of dealing with low-life urban scum, in Nicholas Ray's moving film noir. After severely beating several suspects, Jim is assigned to a case far from the city to find the killer of a young girl. Joining the manhunt, in Read More

1951
Flying Leathernecks

Actors: John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Don Taylor, Janis Carter, Jay C. Flippen

Synopsis: The Technicolor adventure epic Flying Leathernecks offers two things that film cultists can never get enough of: star John Wayne and director Nicholas Ray. Filmed at the behest of RKO chieftain Howard R. Hughes, Leathernecks is a paean to the Marine Flying Corps of World War II. Wayne plays Major Read More

1951
The Racket

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan, William Talman, Ray Collins

Synopsis: The Racket was based on a play by Bartlett Cormack, first filmed as a silent in 1928. The storyline was updated to include references to Estes Kefauver's Senate Crime Investigating Committee: otherwise, the plot (and much of the dialogue) was lifted bodily from the Cormack play. Racketeer Robert Ryan Read More

1951
Born to Be Bad

Actors: Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott, Joan Leslie, Mel Ferrer

Synopsis: One of the most oft-revived of the pre-Technicolor Nicholas Ray efforts, Born to Be Bad offers us the spectacle of Joan Fontaine portraying a character described as "a cross between Lucrezia Borgia and Peg O' My Heart". For the benefit of her wealthy husband Zachary Scott and his family, Fontaine Read More

1950
Best of the Badmen

Actors: Robert Ryan, Claire Trevor, Jack Buetel, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: Though RKO Radio Pictures was, in 1951, still faithful to the concept of "B" westerns starring Tim Holt, the studio was more than capable of turning out an "A" oater from time to time. Best of the Badmen stars Robert Ryan as a former Union officer who persuades a fictional vigilante group which Read More

1950
The Secret Fury

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Robert Ryan, Jane Cowl, Paul Kelly, Philip Ober

Synopsis: The Secret Fury works best if one is willing to suspend one's disbelief from the outset. Claudette Colbert stars as Ellen, a famed concert pianist who, on the day of her wedding, is accosted by a stranger who insists that she's already married to someone else. Ellen is willing to laugh this off Read More

1950
The Set-Up

Actors: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: As shown by the clock face that opens and closes the film, The Set-Up takes place within a compact 72 minutes, with the action played out in "real time." Robert Ryan plays Bill "Stoker" Thompson, a washed-up boxer who refuses to give up his career despite the pleas of his wife Julie (Audrey Read More

1949
I Married a Communist

Actors: Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, John Agar, Thomas Gomez, Janis Carter

Synopsis: There's propaganda aplenty in RKO's I Married a Communist, the first of producer Howard R. Hughes' many anti-Red broadsides. Robert Ryan plays shipping executive Brad Collins, whose youthful flirtations with certain left-wing causes have made him ripe for plucking by Commie cell leader Vanning (Thomas Gomez Read More

1949
Act of Violence

Actors: Van Heflin,