Sydney PollackFilmography

Margaret

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Jean Reno, Matthew Broderick

The Reader

Crew: Producer

Actors: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Bruno Ganz, Matthias Habich

Synopsis: Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers Read More

Made of Honor

Actors: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd, Kathleen Quinlan, Sydney Pollack

Synopsis: A handsome and successful bachelor is taken aback when his dream girl asks him to be the "maid" of honor in her upcoming wedding in this romantic comedy starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan. Tom (Dempsey) and Hannah (Monaghan) have been best friends for years. Though all the hard times Read More

Leatherheads

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Gerety

Synopsis: Good Night, and Good Luck director George Clooney pulls double duty once again in this sports-oriented romantic comedy set against the formation of professional football in the 1920s. Dodge Connelly (Clooney) is a brash and handsome gridiron giant who is equally comfortable leading his team in a Read More

Recount

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Kevin Spacey, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Laura Dern, John Hurt

Synopsis: Kevin Spacey and Bob Balaban headline Austin Powers director Jay Roach's all-star docudrama examining the events surrounding the most controversial presidential election in United States history. The highest office in the country is up for grabs, and the fate of the free world may hang in the Read More

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jill Scott, Anika Noni Rose, Lucian Msamati, David Oyelowo, Idris Elba

Synopsis: Academy Award-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella teams with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Curtis to adapt author Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling series of novels in this film concerning Botswana's only female-owned detective agency. The first feature film shot entirely in the Read More

Michael Clayton

Crew: Producer

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

Avenue Montaigne

Actors: Cécile De France, Valérie Lemercier, Albert Dupontel, Claude Brasseur, Dani

Synopsis: A fresh-faced orphan from the provinces labors away at the last old-fashioned café on Avenue Montaigne as the Paris theater elite prepare for the biggest night of the year in Jet Lag director Danièle Thompson's whirlwind comedy of intersecting lives. Jessica (Cécile De France) may have been Read More

James Taylor: One Man Band

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: James Taylor

Synopsis: Singer/songwriter James Taylor goes back to his roots by performing some of his most beloved songs, and telling the unique stories that inspired them. Captured live during a series of concerts at the Colonial Theater in the Berkshires, One Man Band allows Taylor the opportunity to reflect on his Read More

Breaking and Entering

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Martin Freeman, Ray Winstone

Synopsis: A petty thief is the link between a well-to-do businessman and a single mother struggling to get by in his edgy, emotional drama. Will Francis (Jude Law) is a successful landscape architect who runs an upscale business with his friend Sandy (Martin Freeman) in the King's Cross section of London, a Read More

Catch a Fire

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Tim Robbins, Derek Luke, Bonnie Henna, Mncedisi Shabangu, Tumisho K. Masha

Synopsis: An apolitical South African oil-refinery worker and soccer coach is forced into terrorism as a means of fighting back against the brutality of the apartheid regime in director Phillip Noyce's dramatic look at the life of one-time political prisoner and freedom fighter Patrick Chamusso. In the Read More

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Crew: Cinematographer, Director, Executive Producer

Actors: Frank Gehry, Chuck Arnoldi, Sydney Pollack, Edward Ruscha, Mildred Friedman, Michael Ovitz, Philip Johnson, Craig Webb

Synopsis: Acclaimed film director Sydney Pollack took a five-year break from the realms of fiction to assemble a lovingly crafted tribute to longtime friend and acclaimed architect Frank Gehry in this documentary born from the sketches of its talented subject. A notoriously shy craftsman whose impressive Read More

John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend

Actors: Sydney Pollack

Synopsis: The enduring relationship between two of the biggest names in Hollywood history is explored in this 2006 documentary from director Sam Pollard. Produced for PBS's American Masters series, the film combines interviews with clips from the fourteen films the John Ford and John Wayne collaborated on Read More

The Interpreter

Crew: Director, Executive Producer

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen, Yvan Attal

Synopsis: An overheard conversation leads a woman into a dark world of deadly intrigue in this political thriller. Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) is an African émigré who works as an interpreter at the United Nations. One of the languages she understands is Ku, a dialect spoken in her home country of Matobo. Read More

Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters

Actors: George Clooney, Danny DeVito, Peter Bogdanovich, David Brown, Richard Dreyfuss

Synopsis: Take a walk on the fine line between box-office blockbusters and instantly forgettable bombs as Oscar and Emmy-winning producer/director Bill Couturie sets out to explore just what separates such high-profile hits as Jaws from such room-clearing disasters as Howard the Duck. Executive produced by Read More

Dream Jets

Synopsis: Take to the sky with the rich and famous as you step aboard the most exuberant personal jets ever to grace the clouds in this high flying video that shows just why the skyways of today may be the highways of tomorrow. The celebrity customers of an exclusive design team demand aircraft that are as Read More

Cold Mountain

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Eileen Atkins, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Charles Frazier, Anthony Minghella's star-studded Cold Mountain is a sweeping tale set in the final days of the American Civil War. Jude Law stars as Inman, a young soldier who, despite an injury, is struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, NC, where his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman Read More

A Decade Under the Influence

Actors: Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Ellen Burstyn

Synopsis: In the late '60s, American culture experienced a period of change as the youth movement challenged conventional attitudes about politics, sex, drugs, and gender issues, while the advancement of the Vietnam War found many citizens questioning the actions and wisdom of their government for the first Read More

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Actors: Sydney Pollack, Charles Chaplin, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Allen, Milos Forman, Marcel Marceau

Synopsis: American film historian and author Richard Schickel directs the documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin. Schickel offers an exploration into Chaplin's life, from his childhood in London until his death in 1977. The film also contains insight on his multifaceted film career and Read More

The Quiet American

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Hai Yen, Rade Serbedzija

Synopsis: Graham Greene's allegorical novel about America's role in the Vietnam conflict, and how it was perceived by the rest of the world, is brought to the screen for the second time in this adaptation directed by Phillip Noyce. Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) is a British journalist who in 1952 is Read More

Fidel

Actors: Vlasta Vrana

Synopsis: Fidel Castro is one of the world's best known and most recognizable political leaders, but he is also among the most mysterious. While Castro became a household name after overthrowing the rule of Fulgenico Batista and became the head of Cuba's new socialist government, little is known of his Read More

Heaven

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Remo Girone, Stefania Rocca, Matthis Sbargia

Synopsis: German filmmaker Tom Tykwer made his English-language debut with this feature, which was adapted from a screenplay co-authored by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British schoolteacher living in Italy, whose husband fell victim to a drug overdose, as have several of Read More

Changing Lanes

Actors: Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack, William Hurt

Synopsis: Director Roger Michell follows up the hit romantic comedy Notting Hill (1999) with this thought-provoking thriller. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson star, respectively, as Gavin Banek and Doyle Gibson, two New York men whose lives become accidentally intertwined in a Good Friday fender bender on Read More

Birthday Girl

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz, Kate Evans

Synopsis: A man looking for love gets more than he bargained for when he chooses his prospective wife on the internet in this dark comedy. The manager of a bank in a small British community (Ben Chaplin) decides that he's in need of long-term companionship, and through an on-line marriage broker called From Read More

The Majestic

Actors: Jim Carrey, Martin Landau, Bob Balaban, Gerry Black, Brent Briscoe, Karl Bury

Synopsis: Director Frank Darabont created this Frank Capra-inspired drama based on a screenplay by his friend and one-time schoolmate Michael Sloane. Jim Carrey stars as Pete Appleton, a screenwriter in the Hollywood of the 1950s. Pete's on top of the world with his first motion picture "Sand Pirates of the Read More

Iris

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Bonneville, Penelope Wilton

Synopsis: Based on a pair of memoirs by her husband John Bayley, this biographical portrait of writer Iris Murdoch stars both Judi Dench and Kate Winslet as the philosophical author at different stages of her life. When the young Iris (Winslet) meets fellow student Bayley (Hugh Bonneville) at Oxford, he's a Read More

Blow Dry

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths, Rachael Leigh Cook, Josh Hartnett

Synopsis: When the tiny burgh of Keighley lands the rights to host the annual British hairdressing championships, practically every city in the United Kingdom is represented in the competition -- except Keighley itself. It seems the event is team-oriented, and the only suitable local contestants had a huge Read More

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

Actors: Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: Stanley Kubrick was one of the most acclaimed and controversial filmmakers of his generation, but he was also an intensely private man who rarely gave interviews and produced most of his films under a shroud of secrecy, which tended to foster a great deal of rumor and speculation about his working Read More

Up at the Villa

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn, Anne Bancroft, James Fox, Jeremy Davies

Synopsis: A woman left alone by the death of her husband finds her love life has become suddenly and dangerously complicated in this drama. Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a British woman living in Italy in 1938 who has been financially ruined by the death of her husband. Edgar (James Fox), an aging Read More

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Synopsis: After the Oscar-winning The English Patient, writer/director Anthony Minghella attempted another tricky literary adaptation with The Talented Mr. Ripley, which features heartthrob Matt Damon cast against type as a psychopathic bisexual murderer. Tom Ripley (Damon) is a bright and charismatic Read More

Random Hearts

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt, Dennis Haysbert, Sydney Pollack, Richard Jenkins, Paul Guilfoyle, Peter Coyote, Bill Cobbs

Synopsis: Two people who've known the pain of loss and the sting of betrayal are brought together under trying circumstances in this romantic drama. Dutch van den Broeck (Harrison Ford) is a police detective based in Washington D.C. whose wife works for an upscale department store; flying to Miami on Read More

Eyes Wide Shut

Actors: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson, Rade Serbedzija, Todd Field, Vinessa Shaw

Synopsis: The final work of legendary director Stanley Kubrick, who died within a week of completing the edit, stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, at the time Hollywood's most bankable celebrity couple, and was shot on a open-ended schedule (finally totaling over 400 days), with closed sets in London Read More

The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick & "Eyes Wide Shut"

Actors: John Boorman, Tom Cruise, Jan Harlan

Synopsis: Produced by the British television network Channel 4, this documentary takes a look at the life and work of acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, with special emphasis on the production of what proved to be his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. Family, friends, and collaborators of the great director Read More

A Civil Action

Actors: Kathy Bates, John Travolta, Robert Duvall, Tony Shalhoub, William H. Macy, Zeljko Ivanek

Synopsis: Directed by Schindler's List screenwriter Steve Zaillian, this courtroom drama is based on a true story and non-fiction book by Jonathan Harr. The case revolves around an incident in 1979 in East Woburn, MA, where two drinking wells supplying water to the town were found to be contaminated with Read More

Poodle Springs

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: James Caan, Dina Meyer, David Keith, Tom Bower, Brian Cox

Synopsis: For this TV movie, Bob Rafelson directed James Caan as famous shamus Philip Marlowe. The novel Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was writing during the year of his death remained unfinished until it was completed 30 years later by Spenser author Robert Parker. The British-based, Czech-born Read More

Sliding Doors

Crew: Producer

Actors: Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Zara Turner

Synopsis: British actor Peter Howitt wrote and directed this British romantic comedy-drama with a "road not taken" premise recalling the 1921 play If by Lord Dunsany (1878-1957), Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and O.Henry's short story Roads of Destiny (1909). Howitt's storyline branches in two Read More

Mad About You: Cheating on Sheila

Actors: Louis Zorich

Synopsis: Dissatisfied with their regular therapist, Sheila (Mo Gaffney), Paul and Jamie Buchman (Paul Reiser, Helen Hunt) try out a new shrink named Sydney (played by Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack). Unfortunately, the cost of this switch cannot merely be counted in dollars -- though Paul certain Read More

Independent's Day

Synopsis: The Sundance Channel produced this guided tour through the world of independent films and filmmakers, tossing out the statistic that the movement has escalated from some 50 films in 1985, to 800 in 1997. Interview segments include Sundance fest director Geoffrey Gilmore, fest programmer Bob Hawk Read More

The Directors: Sydney Pollack

Synopsis: As actor, director, and executive producer, Sydney Pollack has been involved with some of Hollywood's most acclaimed works including Tootsie, Out of Africa, and Three Days of the Condor. This video profile highlights his life and career. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide Read More

Never Again, Forever

Crew: Executive Producer

American Cinema: The Hollywood Style

Synopsis: Originally produced for PBS, the American Cinema series examines what is probably the leading American art form: film. Chock-full of clips from important films, and interviews with the men and women who made them, each episode is an in-depth look at an important facet of the history of American Read More

Sabrina

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear, John Wood, Nancy Marchand

Synopsis: A remake of a 1954 Billy Wilder romance, this updated version of the play Sabrina Fair was directed by Sydney Pollack. Julia Ormond stars as Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of a kindly chauffeur (John Wood) at the Long Island estate of the upper-crust Larrabee family. Sabrina has grown up Read More

Sense and Sensibility

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Gemma Jones, Elizabeth Spriggs, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, James Fleet, Greg Wise

Synopsis: The recipient of seven Oscar® nominations, this film version of Jane Austen's classic 1811 novel stars Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood. With her mother and sisters, Elinor struggles financially after the death of her father, who bequeathed the Dashwood estate to his oafish son by an earlier Read More

Frasier: The Candidate

Synopsis: An upcoming election causes a rift between Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Martin (John Mahoney) when Frasier, turned off by the platform of Martin's favorite candidate, decides to support the man's opponent, Phil Patterson (Boyd Gaines). At first, Frasier's choice seems to be a model of logic and Read More

The Firm

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Terry Kinney, Ed Harris

Synopsis: In this drama, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham, Mitch McDeer (Tom Cruise) is a young man from a poor Southern family who has struggled through Harvard Law School to graduate fifth in his class. Mitch is entertaining offers from major firms in New York and Chicago, but when Read More

Flesh and Bone

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, James Caan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: Small-time Texas businessman Arlis Sweeney (Dennis Quaid) can never shake the memory of his father's (James Caan) wasted life. What particularly sticks in his craw is the murder committed years earlier by his father and a teenaged accomplice. While going through the by-rote motions of his job (he Read More

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Joe Mantegna, Max Pomeranc, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne

Synopsis: Searching for Bobby Fischer was inspired by the life of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, as written by his father Fred Waitzkin. Josh (Max Pomeranc) is a "regular kid" who begins evincing signs of being a genius at chess. His father (Joe Mantegna) encourages this, hoping that it won't fundamentally Read More

Husbands and Wives

Actors: Woody Allen, Judy Davis, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, Juliette Lewis

Synopsis: One of Woody Allen's most seemingly biographical films, Husbands and Wives opens with upper-middle class Manhattan couple Sally (Judy Davis) and Jack (Sydney Pollack) announcing to their best friends, the Roths, that they are splitting up. Gabe Roth (Allen) and his wife Judy (Mia Farrow) are taken Read More

Death Becomes Her

Actors: Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, Isabella Rossellini, Ian Ogilvy

Synopsis: High-concept director Robert Zemeckis applies his usual polish -- helped by an equally adept cast -- for this surprisingly gruesome and extremely funny black comedy. The film begins with narcissistic actress Madeline (Meryl Streep) stealing the latest in a series of potential fiancées, wimpy Read More

Leaving Normal

Crew: Producer

Actors: Christine Lahti, Meg Tilly, Lenny Von Dohlen, Patrika Darbo, James Gammon, Maury Chaykin

Synopsis: Meg Tilly and Christine Lahti star in this female buddy story that recalls the earlier Thelma and Louise. Marianne (Meg Tilly) is a quiet waif who has just walked out on her abusive husband. Darly (Christine Lahti) is a brassy waitress who was a ballsy stripper using the stage name Pillow Talk. Read More

The Player

Actors: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher

Synopsis: Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a Read More

Dead Again

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi, Robin Williams

Synopsis: Set in contemporary Los Angeles as well as the Los Angeles of the 1940s, Dead Again explores a romance between two star-crossed lovers -- and the doomed passion they shared in their last lifetime. Los Angeles detective Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) comes to the aid of mute, amnesia-victim Grace (Emma Thompson Read More

King Ralph

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: John Goodman, Peter O'Toole, John Hurt, Camille Coduri, Richard Griffiths

Synopsis: Sometimes a family title, among the nobility of England, goes to the "collateral" heirs -- people not in the direct line of decent, like cousins, great-nephews and the like. On rare occasions, these people are not even aware that they are about to be elevated to the House of Lords, and they have Read More

Havana

Crew: Co-producer, Director

Actors: Robert Redford, Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Tomas Milian, Raul Julia

Synopsis: A cynical gambler reluctantly comes to the aid of a mysterious beauty in this interpolation of Casablanca and the real-life Cuban revolution. Big-stakes American gambler Jack Weil (Robert Redford) is comfortable in the anything-goes Havana of 1958. But with Fidel Castro out in the wilderness Read More

White Palace

Crew: Producer

Actors: Susan Sarandon, James Spader, Jason Alexander, Kathy Bates, Eileen Brennan

Synopsis: Screenwriters Ted Tally and Alvin Sargent adapted the novel by Glenn Savan into this intelligent comedy-drama about a May-December romance where the woman is the senior partner. James Spader is Max Baron, a 27-year-old St. Louis advertising executive who has completely shut himself off from the Read More

Presumed Innocent

Crew: Co-producer

Actors: Harrison Ford, Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Winfield

Synopsis: Rusty Sabich (Harrison Ford) is a bland, oppressed man who burns with a quiet, corrosive intensity that can flare uncontrollably. A Philadelphia prosecutor, Sabich's fire seems to have one outlet: his job. He loves prosecuting people. Otherwise, his life is dead-ended. He has a loveless marriage Read More

The Forest Through the Trees

Synopsis: A video discussion of the different points of view on redwood harvesting. The last privately owned stands in the United States are being cut down. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Michelle Pfeiffer, Beau Bridges, Ellie Raab, Jennifer Tilly

Synopsis: Real-life siblings Beau and Jeff Bridges star as the eponymous Fabulous Baker Boys. Musical prodigies both, the Bakers have long been teamed as a twin-piano act, with the less talented Frank (Beau Bridges) coasting on the skills of his brilliant younger brother Jack (Jeff Bridges). Their career Read More

Bright Lights, Big City

Crew: Co-producer

Actors: Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates, Swoosie Kurtz, Frances Sternhagen

Synopsis: Michael J. Fox once more makes a courageous effort to shed his nice-guy image in Bright Lights, Big City. Fox plays an impressionable Kansan who comes to the Big Apple to take a job at a major magazine. It isn't long before he falls into the twin traps of drug and alcohol abuse. His only hope for Read More

Out of Africa

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen, Malick Bowens

Synopsis: Out of Africa is drawn from the life and writings of Danish author Isak Dinesen, who during the time that the film's events occured was known by her married name, Karen Blixen-Flecke. For convenience's sake, Karen (Meryl Streep) has married Baron Bor Blixen-Flecke (Klaus Maria Brandauer). In 1914 Read More

Sanford Meisner - The Theater's Best Kept Secret

Crew: Executive Producer

Synopsis: This informative documentary highlights the life and career of dramatic coach Sanford Meisner -- not exactly a household name, but the names of his students are: Gregory Peck, Grace Kelly, Sydney Pollack, Joanne Woodward, Peter Falk, Jon Voight, Eli Wallach, Robert Duvall, Tony Randall, Mary Read More

Songwriter

Crew: Producer

Actors: Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Melinda Dillon, Rip Torn, Lesley Ann Warren

Synopsis: A good ol' boy comedy-drama, Songwriter flashes enough substance between the songs and the hijinks to qualify as a sometimes astute look into the darker areas of the music business. Willie Nelson plays Doc Jenkins, the title character, who conspires with longtime pal Blackie Buck (Kris Kristofferson Read More

Tootsie

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Bill Murray, Geena Davis

Synopsis: Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman), a brilliant but troublesome New York actor, has managed to alienate every producer on both coasts. Michael's agent George Fields (Sydney Pollack) can't even get his client a commercial since Michael complained that the tomato he was playing wasn't properly Read More

Absence of Malice

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Luther Adler, Wilford Brimley

Synopsis: In this legal drama from director Sydney Pollack, Sally Field stars as Megan, an ambitious newpaper reporter who, based on information from FBI investigator Rosen, played by Bob Balaban, writes a scathing article that implicates Gallagher, a reclusive business-owner played by Paul Newman, in the Read More

Honeysuckle Rose

Crew: Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon, Amy Irving, Slim Pickens, Joey Floyd

Synopsis: After displaying his easygoing charm in a number of television appearances and a showy supporting role in The Electric Horseman, Willie Nelson scored his first leading role in this romantic comedy-drama in which he (appropriately enough) plays a musician. Buck Bonham (Nelson) is a country Read More

The Electric Horseman

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Valerie Perrine, John Saxon, Willie Nelson

Synopsis: A cowboy-turned-huckster unexpectedly finds love as he tries to regain his self-respect in this romantic comedy drama. Sonny Steele (Robert Redford) is a one-time rodeo star whose career as a cowboy has ground to a halt. He makes a good living as a spokesman for Ranch Breakfast, a sugar-coated Read More

Bobby Deerfield

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Al Pacino, Marthe Keller, Anny Duperey, Walter McGinn, Romolo Valli

Synopsis: Starring Al Pacino and directed by Sydney Pollack, Bobby Deerfield stars Pacino plays the title character, a reckless race car driver. As his fame grows, Bobby becomes increasingly full of himself, which seriously jeopardizes his performance on the track and his private life. Marthe Keller plays Read More

The Yakuza

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Brian Keith, Herb Edelman, Richard Jordan

Synopsis: Between making They Way We Were and Three Days of The Condor, Sydney Pollack directed this little-seen thriller from a script by Paul Schrader and Robert Towne. The Yakuza stars Robert Mitchum as Harry Kilmer, a former soldier who returns to Japan to help rescue the daughter of his friend George Read More

Three Days of the Condor

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman

Synopsis: "His code name is Condor. In the next 24 hours, everyone he trusts will try to kill him." As the ads ominously announced, a low-level spook confronts the unfathomable in Sydney Pollack's 1975 political thriller, adapted from the James Grady novel Six Days of the Condor. CIA researcher Joe Turner (Robert Redford Read More

The Way We Were

Crew: Director

Actors: Sally Kirkland, James Woods, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Bradford Dillman, Patrick O'Neal, Viveca Lindfors

Synopsis: "Gorgeous goyish guy" meets Jewish radical girl in Sydney Pollack's glossy romance. In 1937, frizzy-haired Red co-ed Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) briefly captures the attention of preppy jock Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford) with her passionate pacifism, while the writing talent beneath his Read More

Jeremiah Johnson

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch, Allyn Ann McLerie, Delle Bolton, Josh Albee, Charles Tyner

Synopsis: Years before Kevin Costner danced with wolves, Robert Redford headed to the mountains to escape civilization in Sydney Pollack's wilderness western. Around 1850, ex-soldier Johnson (Redford) decides that he would rather live alone as a mountain man in Colorado than deal with society's constraints. Read More

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young, Red Buttons

Synopsis: A total of nine Academy Award nominations went to this wildly acclaimed, allegorical drama set amongst the contestants in a marathon dance contest during the Great Depression. Gig Young stars as Rocky, the obnoxious emcee for a dance marathon that offers prize money of $1,500, a small fortune Read More

Castle Keep

Crew: Director

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Peter Falk, Scott Wilson, Bruce Dern

Synopsis: This decidedly different war movie follows Maj. Abraham Falconer (Burt Lancaster), a tired, one-eyed Army officer, as he leads eight men into Belgium where they hope to take a much-needed rest at a 10th century castle. The master of the house, Henri Tixier (Jean-Pierre Aumont), welcomes them with Read More

The Scalphunters

Crew: Director

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas, Ossie Davis, Armando Silvestre

Synopsis: For his third feature outing, director Sydney Pollack helmed this comedic western starring (Burt Lancaster) as fur trapper Joe Bass. While heading for the trading post for his pay after a successful hunting season, Bass runs into a band of Kiowa Indians, who offer to trade the educated slave Read More

This Property Is Condemned

Crew: Director

Actors: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson, Kate Reid, Mary Badham

Synopsis: Sydney Pollack's tawdry potboiler, adapted from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, was rife with production problems, culminating in Williams' failed attempt to have his name removed from the credits. The story is set by a framing device as thirteen-year-old Willie Starr (Mary Badham) sits on Read More

The Slender Thread

Crew: Director

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill, Ed Asner

Synopsis: Sidney Pollack marked his feature film directing debut with this taut suspense drama, based upon an actual incident reported in Time Magazine. Sidney Poitier stars as Alan Nuell, a student volunteer at a medical clinic in Seattle who answers the phone to find Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft) on the Read More

The Fugitive: Man on a String

Crew: Director

Synopsis: When a philandering husband is found murdered, the man's paramour Lucey Russell (Lois Nettleton) is supsected of the crime. But Lucey has a perfect alibi: at the time of the murder, she was with a fellow named Joe Walker--which happens to be the current alias of fugitive Richard Kimble (David Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Diagnosis - Danger

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles McGraw, Michael Parks, Berkeley Harris, Irene Martin, Marc Cavell

Synopsis: In one of the few "procedural" dramas presented on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, the health officials and police department of Los Angeles race against time to prevent an anthrax epidemic. They must also keep secret the fact that they've found a disease-ridden corpse, lest they throw the city into a Read More

War Hunt

Actors: John Saxon, Robert Redford, Charles Aidman, Sydney Pollack, Gavin MacLeod

Synopsis: Robert Redford makes his big-screen debut in this off-beat war drama that tells the tail of a new replacement on the Korean front line. It is his first time in battle, and he comes all starry eyed and eager to prove himself a glorious hero. Obviously a greenhorn, the platoon commander takes the Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Black Curtain

Crew: Director

Synopsis: After suffering a blow on the head, Phil Townsend (Richard Basehart) awakens to discover that he has long been suffering from amnesia. Realizing that he's slated to be married, Phil rushes to the house of his fiancée, only to discover that he is three years late. Soon afterward, he finds out that Read More

Have Gun, Will Travel: A Quiet Night in Town, Part 2

Synopsis: In the concluding episode of the series' only two-parter, future director Sydney Pollack guest stars as Joe Culp, a sadistic cattleman bent upon lynching murder suspect (and sheepherder) Joselito Kincaid (Robert Carricart) just for the fun of it. Hired to bring Kincaid to trial, Paladin (Richard Read More

Have Gun, Will Travel: A Quiet Night in Town, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first episode of the series' only two-parter, Paladin (Richard Boone) arrives in a Texas border town with his prisoner, murder suspect Joselito Kincaid (Robert Carricart). Unfortunately, Kincaid is a sheepherder, and the men of the town trade in cattle. Thus Paladin's task becomes twofold Read More

The Twilight Zone: The Trouble with Templeton

Actors: Brian Aherne, Pippa Scott, Charles S. Carlson, Sydney Pollack, Larry Blake

Synopsis: The past and present collide with poignant results in this handsomely mounted Twilight Zone episode. Brian Aherne stars as aging Broadway matinee idol Booth Templeton, who is unable to give his full attention to his latest play because of his obsession with the past in general and his late wife Read More

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Contest for Aaron Gold

Synopsis: A short story by best-selling novelist Philip Roth (Goodbye Columbus, Portnoy's Complaint) is the basis for this sensitive -- and remarkably non-lethal! -- episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Unlike his fellow kids at summer camp, Aaron Gold (Barry J. Gordon) wants nothing to do with athletics Read More