William A. Fraker Filmography

Waking Up in Reno

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze, Natasha Richardson, Holmes Osborne

Synopsis: Country singer Dwight Yoakam is a co-producer of this Miramax comedy about marital infidelity among the Southern redneck set. Auto dealer Lonnie Earl (Billy Bob Thornton) and his wife, Darlene (Natasha Richardson), are best friends with good-natured Roy (Patrick Swayze) and his spitfire wife Read More

Town & Country

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Andie MacDowell, Garry Shandling, Jenna Elfman

Synopsis: This long-delayed romantic comedy from director Peter Chelsom stars Warren Beatty as a wealthy New York architect, Porter Stoddard. The revelation that his best friend Griffin (Garry Shandling) is cheating on his wife Mona (Goldie Hawn) leads to a mid-life crisis of sorts for Porter, jeopardizing Read More

Rules of Engagement

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Guy Pearce, Bruce Greenwood, Blair Underwood

Synopsis: In this drama, two U.S. Marines who stood side by side on the field of battle are reunited in a court of law. Attorney Hayes Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones) once aspired to a career as an officer, but a serious injury in Vietnam put an end to his military future, leaving him bitter and resentful. Col. Read More

Vegas Vacation

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry, Wayne Newton, Marisol Nichols

Synopsis: This is the fourth in a series of movies that began with National Lampoon's Vacation in 1983 and feature the family headed by Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) going on wacky vacations. This time, the Griswolds visit Las Vegas. Clark immediately goes to the blackjack table and starts blowing all his Read More

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman

Synopsis: On a remote tropical island, Dr. Moreau has appointed himself ruler over a menagerie of genetic mutants fashioned in his gene-splicing chamber of horrors. The products of his misguided attempt to create a more "pure" human species, the man-beasts worship Moreau as their god and "father" and live Read More

Father of the Bride II

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Martin Short, Kimberly Payne Williams, George Newbern

Synopsis: Just as the original 1950 version of Father of the Bride spawned a sequel, so did the 1991 remake; like its counterpart four decades earlier, this story concerns a father who learns that his anxieties are just beginning after his daughter takes the big walk down the aisle. George Banks (Steve Martin Read More

There Goes My Baby

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Dermot Mulroney, Rick Schroder, Kelli Williams, Noah Wyle, Jill Schoelen

Synopsis: Similar to the premise of American Graffiti, this film centers on eight California high school students whose lives intersect over two nights in the hot summer of 1965. As the Watts riots begin, the young people make decisions that will impact their entire lives. Writer-director Floyd Mutrux Read More

Street Fighter

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, Ming-Na Wen, Damian Chapa, Kylie Minogue

Synopsis: Based on the popular video game Street Fighter II, Street Fighter stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Col. Guile, the cocky but brave leader of an Allied Nations fighting force. When the evil General Bison (Raul Julia), the power-mad leader of Shadaloo, kidnaps a bus full of Allied Nations relief Read More

Death in Small Doses

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Richard Thomas, Tess Harper, Glynnis O'Connor

Synopsis: Based on a well-publicized 1991 Dallas murder case, the made-for-TV Death in Small Doses begins with the death of architect Nancy Lyon (Glynnis O'Connor), who has succumbed to arsenic poisoning. The prime suspect is Nancy's frequently estranged husband Richard (Richard Lyon), who stands to collect Read More

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography

Actors: Néstor Almendros, John A. Alonzo, Michael Ballhaus, Stephen H. Burum, Sven Nykvist, Vittorio Storaro, Haskell Wexler, Gordon Willis

Synopsis: The film equivalent of a stroll through the Louvre, the documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography collects interviews with many of modern-day Hollywood's finest directors of photography and is illustrated by examples of their best work as well as scenes from the pictures which most Read More

Tombstone

Crew: Associate Producer, Cinematographer

Actors: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Robert John Burke, Dana Delany

Synopsis: A high-energy action adventure based on legend rather than historical fact finds Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) desiring to retire from law enforcement. With brothers Virgil (Sam Elliot) and Morgan (Bill Paxton), he arrives in Tombstone, Arizona intending to build his fortune. He discovers that Read More

Honeymoon in Vegas

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: James Caan, Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita, Anne Bancroft, Johnny Williams

Synopsis: After making a deathbed promise to his mother that he would never marry, Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) finds that resolve challenged when his girlfriend, Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker), begins making noise about wanting to start a family. Worried he might lose her, Jack makes the rash decision that Read More

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean, Stephen Tobolowsky

Synopsis: Chevy Chase stars, though not always visibly, as Nick Halloway, a low-level businessman with an acerbic approach to life and work, whose humdrum existence utterly bores him. Nick gets an unexpected jolt of excitement when, nursing a hangover, he's the only one not to evacuate an office building Read More

The Freshman

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Marlon Brando, Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, Frank Whaley, Paul Benedict

Synopsis: In this farcical comedy, Matthew Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray (Bruno Kirby), leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor Read More

An Innocent Man

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Tom Selleck, F. Murray Abraham, Laila Robins, David Rasche, Richard Young

Synopsis: In Peter Yates' crime drama An Innocent Man, Tom Selleck plays Jimmie Rainwood, a stock figure airline maintenance supervisor with a perfect family. Then, one day, Jimmie decides to take a shower. While scrubbing himself clean, two crooked cops are getting themselves dirtier. Mike Parnell (David Rasche Read More

Chances Are

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Cybill Shepherd, Robert Downey, Jr., Ryan O'Neal, Mary Stuart Masterson, Christopher McDonald

Synopsis: Handsome young Washington attorney Louie Jeffries (Chris McDonald) has it all: a promising career, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way. But after discovering a local judge is in cahoots with the Mob, Louie bites it in a car crash and finds himself in Heaven. Unsatisfied with the customer Read More

B.L. Stryker: The Dancer's Touch

Crew: Director

Baby Boom

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Diane Keaton, Harold Ramis, Sam Wanamaker, James Spader, Pat Hingle, Sam Shepard

Synopsis: Management consultant Diane Keaton has no time in her life for anything except her high-profile job. All this changes when she inherits a 14-month-old infant from a pair of recently deceased-and very distant-relatives. Intending to put the child up for adoption, she discovers that she has grown Read More

Burglar

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Whoopi Goldberg, Bobcat Goldthwait, G.W. Bailey, Lesley Ann Warren, James Handy

Synopsis: Director of the first Police Academy movie, Hugh Wilson is also responsible for the action comedy-caper Burglar. Bernice Rhodenbarr (Whoopi Goldberg) is a retired cat burglar who works at a bookstore. Bad cop Ray Kirschman (G.W. Bailey) blackmails her, so she agrees to do a job for Dr. Cynthia Read More

Spacecamp

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Leaf Phoenix, Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, Tom Skerritt

Synopsis: This is an eerily prescient family adventure starring Kate Capshaw as Andie, a frustrated NASA astronaut who's never actually been into outer space. Her husband, flight controller Zach (Tom Skerritt), is sympathetic, but he can't influence her place in the rotation. Andie is assigned to train a Read More

Murphy's Romance

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim, Dennis Burkley, Georgann Johnson

Synopsis: Newly divorced Emma Moriarty (Sally Field) moves herself and her young son to a small Arizona town, hoping to establish a horse farm. Town pharmacist Murphy Jones (James Garner), the town's most eligible bachelor, develops a platonic friendship with Emma, but he decides to keep his distance when Read More

Fever Pitch

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Catherine Hicks, Giancarlo Giannini, Chad Everett

Synopsis: Writer-director Richard Brooks' final film features a weak script and poor acting but high energy direction in a tale of compulsive gambling in Las Vegas. Ryan O'Neal stars as Taggart, a sports reporter obsessed with gambling. As Taggart gets deeper and deeper into debt, he compounds his problems Read More

Protocol

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Goldie Hawn, Chris Sarandon, Richard Romanus, Andre Gregory, Gail Strickland

Synopsis: In this routine spoof of government and media foibles, Sunny (Goldie Hawn) is an ordinary cocktail waitress, someone who graduated in the top 75% of her class. When she dramatically prevents the assassination of a visiting dignitary, an Emir (Richard Romanus) from an Arab country. the event puts Read More

Irreconcilable Differences

Crew: Cinematographer, Screenwriter

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, Drew Barrymore, Sam Wanamaker, Allen Garfield

Synopsis: In this human-scale drama/comedy, a pair of Beverly Hills parents, Albert (Ryan O'Neal) and Lucy (Shelley Long) first come together as a couple interested in writing (she) and teaching (he), but Albert's life takes an upscale turn when he starts both writing and then directing in Hollywood. As he Read More

WarGames

Crew: Cinematographer, Screenwriter

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin

Synopsis: Once more, a wise-guy teenager tries to prove he's smarter than any adult-and nearly destroys the whole world in the process-in WarGames. Computer-game aficionado Matthew Broderick inadverently taps into a hush-hush Pentagon computer, then proceeds to inaugurate his favorite game, "Global Read More

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Dom DeLuise, Charles Durning, Jim Nabors

Synopsis: In this filmization of the hit Broadway musical, a popular brothel is threatened with a shutdown by Texas authorities. Burt Reynolds plays the Sheriff, while Dolly Parton portrays the Chicken Ranch madam. While this film has its moments, it never reaches the entertainment heights of its stage Read More

Sharky's Machine

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Burt Reynolds, Vittorio Gassman, Rachel Ward, Bernie Casey, Brian Keith

Synopsis: A William Diehl novel was the source of the noirish nailbiter Sharky's Machine. Sharky (Burt Reynolds) is an undercover cop who fouls up an assignment and is kicked downstairs to the vice squad -- a rough-shod bunch of hellraisers who make life miserable. Soon, however, Sharky's life does a 180 Read More

The Legend of the Lone Ranger

Crew: Director

Actors: Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse, Christopher Lloyd, Matt Clark, Juanin Clay, Jason Robards, Jr.

Synopsis: In this latter-day big-screen revival, the masked man (Klinton Spilsbury) and Tonto (Michael Horse) attempt to stop an assassin from murdering President Ulysses S. Grant. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The Hollywood Knights

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Fran Drescher, Leigh French, Randy Gornel, Gary Graham, Sandy Helberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Wuhl, Tony Danza

Synopsis: Fran Drescher, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tony Danza are the most notable aspects of this forgettable teen drama that features a gang of youths in a car club who decide to battle it out with the establishment in Beverly Hills. It seems their favorite haunt, the last drive-in restaurant in the Read More

Divine Madness!

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Bette Midler, Irving Sudrow

Synopsis: Bette Midler's wildly funny and theatrical stage show is preserved on the big screen in this concert film shot in California in 1980. Along with her usual raunchy comedy material and over-the-top staging, Midler performs some of her best known songs (including "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Chapel Read More

Old Boyfriends

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Talia Shire, Richard Jordan, Keith Carradine, John Belushi, John Houseman

Synopsis: Noted screenwriter Joan Tewksbury made her directorial debut with this bittersweet comedy-drama. Diane Cruise (Talia Shire), a psychologist going through a severe depression, takes a long look at her life after attempting to commit suicide. Diane decides to pay a visit to her former boyfriends in Read More

1941

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee, Nancy Allen

Synopsis: It's December of 1941, and the people of California are in varying states of unease, ranging from a sincere desire to defend the country to virtual blind panic in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus begin several story threads that comprise the "plot" of this strange period Read More

American Hot Wax

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Tim McIntire, Fran Drescher, Jay Leno, Laraine Newman, Carl Earl Weaver

Synopsis: This lively musical comedy pays tribute to the birth of rock & roll in the late 1950s and the instrumental role played by disc jockey Alan Freed who helped bring the new sound into vogue. Much of the story centers on the daring deejay's attempts to put on the very first live rock & roll stage show Read More

Heaven Can Wait

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, James Mason, Jack Warden, Charles Grodin

Synopsis: Opting for light entertainment after the critical satire of Shampoo (1975), producer-director-writer-star Warren Beatty remade the 1941 comic fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Dimly amiable L.A. Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is prematurely called to Heaven by an over-eager escort (Buck Henry Read More

Exorcist II: The Heretic

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn

Synopsis: Four years after her bout of demonic possession, Regan MacNeil seems at peace as she enjoys a privileged but lonely adolescence. Her actress mother, absent on-location, leaves her in the care of her childhood nanny, Sharon, who feels inextricably bound to her young charge despite the terror she Read More

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Richard Gere

Synopsis: Adapted from Judith Rossner's best-selling novelization of a true story, Richard Brooks's melodrama turns one woman's search for a liberated life into a cautionary tale about promiscuity. After an affair with her college professor, no-longer-good Catholic girl Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) follows Read More

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Cary Guffey, Bob Balaban

Synopsis: Steven Spielberg followed Jaws (1975), his first major box-office success, with this epic science fiction adventure about a disparate group of people who attempt to contact alien intelligence. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is an electrical lineman who, while sent out on emergency repairs, witnesses Read More

Lipstick

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, Perry King, Anne Bancroft, Robin Gammell

Synopsis: Lipstick is a cheap exploitation film pretending to make a social statement about rape and revenge. Chris (Margaux Hemingway), a fashion model is raped by Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon) her sister's music teacher. When he tries to rape her sister Kathy (Mariel Hemingway), Chris kills him. She is Read More

The Killer Inside Me

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn, Charles McGraw

Synopsis: Stacy Keach plays Lou Ford, a deputy sheriff whose brutal childhood experiences have left him emotionally warped. Ford is prized by his community for his no-mercy treatment of criminals. But the danger that he will snap and begin killing indiscriminately is ever-present. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson Read More

Gator

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Burt Reynolds, Jack Weston, Lauren Hutton, Jerry Reed, Alice Ghostley

Synopsis: Having created the character of Gator McKlusky in 1973's White Lightning, Burt Reynolds reprises the role in the appropriately titled Gator. Once again, ex-convict McKluskey is strong-armed into helping the feds nab a dangerous criminal, who turns out to be an old high-school chum (Jerry Reed). He Read More

Coonskin

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Barry White, Charles Gordone, Scatman Crothers, Philip Thomas

Synopsis: Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic helmer Ralph Bakshi subsequently directed the über-controversial animated feature Coonskin (aka Streetfight, 1975). Bakshi opens and closes the film with a live-action tale that stars Scatman Crothers, Miami Vice's Philip Michael Thomas, Charles Gordone, and Barry White Read More

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Dean R. Brooks, Scatman Crothers

Synopsis: With an insane asylum standing in for everyday society, Milos Forman's 1975 film adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel is a comically sharp indictment of the Establishment urge to conform. Playing crazy to avoid prison work detail, manic free spirit Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent to the Read More

Rancho Deluxe

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Charlene Dallas, Clifton James

Synopsis: In Frank Perry's curious, off-center comedy Western, Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack McKee and Cecil Carlson, a couple of cattle rustlers whose special target is taciturn rancher John Brown (Clifton James). Both men are outcasts by choice; McKee can't stand being around his stuck-up Read More

Aloha, Bobby and Rose

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Paul Le Mat, Diane Hull, Tim McIntire, Leigh French, Noble Willingham

Synopsis: Aloha, Bobby & Rose was conceived and promoted as a contemporary Bonnie and Clyde. Paul LeMat plays Bobby, an auto mechanic, while Diane Hull is Rose, a car-wash jockey; the two fall in love and dream of heading off to Hawaii, hence the title. Responsible for an accidental homicide, Bobby and Rose Read More

The Day of the Dolphin

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Pat Englund, George C. Scott, Trish VanDevere, Paul Sorvino, Fritz Weaver, Jon Korkes

Synopsis: Director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry team up again (after collaborating on The Graduate and Catch-22) for this adaptation of Robert Merle's best-selling adventure novel concerning dolphins who become pawns in a plot to kill the president. George C. Scott plays Dr. Jake Terrell, a Read More

A Reflection of Fear

Crew: Director

Actors: Sondra Locke

Synopsis: In A Reflection of Fear a young woman, Marguerite (Sondra Locke), cloistered in a turn-of-the-century Victorian dream-world by her mother, vies for the attention of her visiting dad, Michael (Robert Shaw), both conventionally and sexually, in hopes that she'll get to live with him. Her plans are Read More

Dusty and Sweets McGee

Crew: Cinematographer

Synopsis: Maverick director Floyd Mutrux made his feature debut with this offbeat semi-documentary look at the realities of the Los Angeles drug scene. Mutrux and his camera crew follow a handful of real-life heroin addicts as they go through their daily routines of scoring dope and whiling away the hours Read More

Monte Walsh

Crew: Director

Actors: Lee Marvin, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Palance, Mitchell Ryan, Jim Davis

Synopsis: Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin ) and his pal Chet Rollins (Jack Palance) are two over the hill cowboys seeking work in the town of Harmony, Arizona in the final days of the Old West. They take a job at the ranch of Cal Brennan (Jim Davis) and meet an old friend Shorty (Mitch Ryan). Monte goes off to Read More

Paint Your Wagon

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Jean Seberg, Ray Walston, Harve Presnell

Synopsis: After a debut on Broadway in 1951, Paramount spent an estimated 17 to 20 million dollars in production costs for this Lerner and Loewe musical. With Loewe's permission, Lerner wrote five additional tunes for the film with Andre Previn. Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) is the grizzled prospector trying his Read More

Rosemary's Baby

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans

Synopsis: In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Waifish Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), move into the Bramford, an old New York City Read More

Bullitt

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall

Synopsis: Robert L. Pike's crime novel Mute Witness makes the transition to the big screen in this film from director Peter Yates. In one of his most famous roles, Steve McQueen stars as tough-guy police detective Frank Bullitt. The story begins with Bullitt assigned to a seemingly routine detail Read More

The President's Analyst

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Joan Delaney, Pat Harrington, Jr.

Synopsis: The President's Analyst is James Coburn, whose position makes him privy to any number of delicate government secrets. Thus Coburn becomes a most desirable prize for several secret-agent organizations, including the CEA and the FBR (we know who these folks are really supposed to be, even though the Read More

Games

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Simone Signoret, James Caan, Katharine Ross, Don Stroud, Ken Smith

Synopsis: In this psychological thriller, Paul (James Caan) and Jennifer (Katherine Ross) are a pair of wealthy but blasé socialites with a sadistic streak. Lisa (Simone Signoret), an older woman from France, arrives at their door one day selling cosmetics; the couple invite her in, and when the Read More