Joseph Ruben Filmography

Born:: May 10, 1950 in Briarcliff Manor, NY
Occupation:: Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: Filmmaker Joseph Ruben has gained a reputation for his offbeat, psychological, and dark examinations of modern American family life. His 1987 film The Stepfather, which looks at an outwardly normal dad whose bland face masks the ruthless heart of a serial killer, has become a cult favorite and is...Read More

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Crazy Dog

Crew: Director

1/1/08
Other Side of Simple

Crew: Director

2005
The Forgotten

Crew: Director

Actors: Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache

Synopsis: A grieving woman must make a journey into her past in this psychological thriller. Telly Paretta (Julianne Moore) is a mother who is struggling to put her life back together after the unexpected death of her eight-year-old son. Telly begins seeing a therapist (Gary Sinise) who offers a startling Read More

9/24/04
Return to Paradise

Crew: Director

Actors: Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Joaquin Phoenix, David Conrad, Vera Farmiga

Synopsis: This remake of Force Majeure (aka Uncontrollable Circumstances), a 1989 film with Alan Bates and Kristin Scott Thomas, recalls the prison plight depicted in Midnight Express (1978). Rambling around Asia, getting high and just having a good time, are three young men -- Sheriff (Vince Vaughn), Lewis Read More

1998
Money Train

Crew: Director

Actors: Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Lopez, Robert Blake, Chris Cooper

Synopsis: A pair of New York City cops collaborate on a plan to rob a cash-packed subway train in this action-comedy. Charlie (Woody Harrelson) and John (Wesley Snipes) are not just co-workers and close friends but also foster brothers. Because of this family connection, the reluctant John becomes involved Read More

1995
The Good Son

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Macaulay Culkin, Elijah Wood, Wendy Crewson, David Morse, Daniel Hugh Kelly

Synopsis: Macaulay Culkin tries for a change of pace playing a schoolyard psychotic in The Good Son. When 12-year-old son Mark (Elijah Wood) is his mother's side as she's dying of cancer, she makes him promise her that she won't die. When she does die, Mark is consumed with grief, as well as guilt that he Read More

1993
Sleeping with the Enemy

Crew: Director

Actors: Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson, Elizabeth Lawrence, Kyle Secor

Synopsis: Hot off her success in Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts starred in this thriller about a battered wife stalked by her abusive husband. Roberts plays Laura Burney, the wife of a rich investment counselor, Martin (Patrick Bergin). Martin appreciates his wife as a trophy, but at home he abuses her for not Read More

2/8/91
Stepfather 2

Crew: Director

Actors: Terry O'Quinn, Meg Foster, Caroline Williams, Jonathan Brandis, Henry Brown

Synopsis: A passable sequel to the excellent sleeper hit that preceded it, this film steers its story in a cartoonish, less horrific direction. Terry O'Quinn returns as the nameless family man who butchered one nuclear unit and was on his way to dispatching another when he was (seemingly) fatally stabbed. Read More

11/3/89
True Believer

Crew: Director

Actors: James Woods, Robert Downey, Jr., Yuji Okumoto, Margaret Colin, Kurtwood Smith, Tom Bower

Synopsis: The only True Believer at the beginning of this drama is idealistic young attorney Robert Downey Jr., who apprentices under the guidance of celebrated civil-rights activist James Woods. Alas, in the years since the sixties, Woods has become a disillusioned, dope-smoking ambulance chaser. Goaded by Read More

2/17/89
The Stepfather

Crew: Director

Actors: Terry O'Quinn, Jill Schoelen, Shelley Hack, Stephen Shellen, Charles Lanyer

Synopsis: Terry O'Quinn plays The Stepfather in this intelligent, unsettling chiller. We'd tell you O'Quinn's character name, but he has so many. You see, O'Quinn has been a stepfather many times over, romancing and marrying widowed women in several different states. After each wedding, everything is Read More

1/23/87
My Chauffeur

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Deborah Foreman, Sam Jones, Sean McClory, Howard Hesseman, E.G. Marshall

Synopsis: In a well-wrought sex comedy with one foot in the feminist camp and another on a banana peel, Casey Meadows (Deborah Foreman in an excellent performance) defies social custom when she gets a job as a limo driver. The manager of the Brentwood Limousine Company, McBride (Howard Hesseman), and her Read More

1/24/86
Dreamscape

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Eddie Albert, Kate Capshaw

Synopsis: Great special effects do not always make for a great film, but Dreamscape comes awfully close. Dr. Paul Novotny (Max Von Sydow) and Dr. Jane Devries (Kate Capshaw) run a clinic for the study of dreams. Hoping to alleviate the pain of those plagued with recurring nightmares, Novotny hires a team of Read More

1984
Gorp

Crew: Director

Actors: Michael Lembeck, Dennis Quaid, Philip Casnoff, Fran Drescher, David Huddleston

Synopsis: Chaos reigns in the Catskills in this low-budget teen comedy. Kavell (Michael Lembeck) and Bergman (Philip Casnoff) are college students who spend their summers working in the dining hall at Camp Oskemo, an upstate New York summer camp where they're the senior waiters. Serving food to bratty Read More

1980
Our Winning Season

Crew: Director

Actors: Scott Jacoby, Deborah Benson, Dennis Quaid, Randy Herman, Joe Penny

Synopsis: In this youthful drama, a high-school senior aspires to become a track star while simultaneously dealing with the other travails of youth. One of his best friends is drafted and ends up getting killed in Vietnam. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1978
Joyride

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Desi Arnaz, Jr., Robert Carradine, Melanie Griffith, Anne Lockhart, Tom Ligon

Synopsis: Hoping to break out of the boring lives they knew in L.A., a group of young people make the journey to Alaska to work on the oil pipeline that is being built. However, they soon start getting into trouble. Life on the oil pipelines is difficult, violent, and expensive, and soon these city kids Read More

1977
The Pom Pom Girls

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Carradine, Jennifer Ashley, Lisa Reeves, Michael Mullins, Bill Adler

Synopsis: Guys go crazy for the gals cheering on the home team in this raunchy teen comedy from the Seventies. It's football season at Rosedale High, and Johnny (Robert Carradine) and Jesse (Michael Mullins) are eager to lead the school's team to victory. But while Coach Hartmann (Robert Gammon) wants to Read More

1976
The Sister-In-Law

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: John Savage

Synopsis: In this drama, the career of an aspiring singer (John Savage) is threatened when he is drawn into the drug-smuggling organization run by his brother and his brother's seductive wife. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

1974