Roger Spottiswoode

Roger Spottiswoode

Birth : 1945-01-05, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

History

Roger Spottiswoode is a Canadian-born film director and writer, who began his career as an editor in the 1970s. He was born in Ottawa, Ontario. He has directed a number of notable films and television productions, including Under Fire (1983) and the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies starring Pierce Brosnan. Spottiswoode was one of the writing team responsible for 48 Hrs. starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte. In 2000, he directed the science fiction action thriller The 6th Day starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Profile

Roger Spottiswoode

Movies

The Beach House
Director
Cara Rudland thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind, but returns to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers after losing her job in Chicago. There, she reconnects with her mother Lovie, who has been caring for her young, pregnant friend Toy in her charming beach house.
A Street Cat Named Bob
Director
James Bowen, a homeless busker and recovering drug addict, has his life transformed when he meets a stray ginger cat.
Midnight Sun
Director
In northern Canada, a young boy sets a goal for himself to to reunite an abandoned polar bear cub with its mother. Goran Visnjic joins the cast as Muktuk, a half Inuit and half Canadian, who knows the terrain where the polar bears live and who agrees to help the boy.
Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness
Producer
A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide struggles to forgive the man who killed her children. A victim’s daughter strikes up an unusual friendship with the ex-IRA bomber who killed her father. And two men—one Israeli, one Palestinian—form a bond after tragedies claim their daughters.
Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness
Director
A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide struggles to forgive the man who killed her children. A victim’s daughter strikes up an unusual friendship with the ex-IRA bomber who killed her father. And two men—one Israeli, one Palestinian—form a bond after tragedies claim their daughters.
The Children of Huang Shi
Director
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
Shake Hands With the Devil
Director
Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire was the military commander of the UN mission in Rwanda and this movie is personal and, all too true, story of his time there during the genocide of 1994. It is not quite as moving as the earlier Hotel Rwanda and is less geared to drama and emotional manipulation, but it is still grim and upsetting.
Ripley Under Ground
Director
After his friend, a hot young artist, is killed, a resourceful American man living in London covers up the crime and tries to keep the friend's name alive in order to exploit his legacy and reap millions in the process.
Spinning Boris
Director
Russian political elite hires American consultants to help with President Yeltsin's re-election campaign when his approval rating is down to single digits.
Ice Bound - A Woman's Survival at the South Pole
Director
It is during the final months of 1999 that 46-year-old physician Jerri Nielsen (Susan Sarandon) finds herself stranded at the Amundsen-South Pole Research Station along with a tiny staff of researchers and technicians. Although, at first, there is little love lost between the somewhat aloof Nielsen and her more down-to-earth colleagues, a strong bond develops among them as the extreme Antarctic winter progresses. Nielsen, in particular, grows quite close to two of the "Polies": Big John Penny (Aidan Devine) and Claire Furinski (Cynthia Mace).
The Matthew Shepard Story
Director
In a senseless act of hatred, openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998. This critically-acclaimed, moving film recounts the final days of Matthew's killers' trial—and the weeks leading to Matthew's death—with unnerving detail. Stockard Channing delivers an unforgettable, Emmy® Award-winning performance as Matthew's grieving mother, Judy, in a story of a murder that moved a nation to action. Also starring Law & Order's Sam Waterston.
The 6th Day
Director
A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.
Noriega: God's Favorite
Director
The story of Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega.
Highly Classified: The World of 007
His world is full of glamour, mystery and intrigue and now you get to be a part of it! Let gadget wizard Q (Desmond Llewelyn) be your guide to the ubiquitous lifestyle and thrilling adventures of the world's most notorious secret agent. The undercover team will take you behind-the-scenes as they infiltrate the highly classified worlds of the man everyone knows as Bond -- James Bond. Hosted by Desmond Llewelyn who plays Secret Service gadget master Q. Boasts rare behind-the-scenes footage of spectacular stunts and explosive action sequences. Reveals the special effects magic behind the remotely-driven BMW, the rooftop motorcycle chase and death-defying skysrcaper jump. Interviews with Tomorrow Never Dies' director Roger Spottiswoode and stars Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher and Judi Dench.
Tomorrow Never Dies
Director
A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium.
The Secrets of 007
Behind-the-scenes look at more than three decades of the James Bond feature film series.
Murder Live!
Director
Frank takes Pia Postman hostage on live TV, threatening to execute her after she accepts the blame for his daughter's suicide.
Hiroshima
Director
Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese / Canadian film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. Except as actors, no Americans took part in the production. The three-hour film was made for television and evidently had no theatrical release, but is available on DVD for home viewing. A combination of dramatisation, historical footage, and eyewitness interviews, the film alternates between documentary footage and the dramatic recreations. Both the dramatisations and most of the original footage are presented as sepia-toned images, serving to blur the distinction between them. The languages are English and Japanese, with subtitles, and the actors are largely Canadian and Japanese.
Mesmer
Director
A biography of the eighteenth century Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal magnetism."
And the Band Played On
Director
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
Director
A tough police sergeant's mother comes to visit him, and promptly starts trying to fix up his life, much to his embarrassment. For his birthday she buys him a machine gun out of the back of a van, and begins to further interfere with his job and love life, eventually helping him with a case he's on.
Air America
Director
Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited into it, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.
Another 48 Hrs.
Characters
For the past four years, San Francisco cop Jack Cates has been after an unidentified drug kingpin who calls himself the Ice Man. Jack finds a picture that proves that the Ice Man has put a price on the head of Reggie Hammond, who is scheduled to be released from prison on the next day.
Turner & Hooch
Director
Scott Turner has 3 days left in the local police department before he moves to a bigger city to get some 'real' cases—not just misdemeanors. When Amos Reed is murdered, Scott sets himself on the case, but the closest thing to a witness to the murder is Reed's dog, Hooch, which Scott has to take care of—to avoid Hooch being 'put to sleep'.
Third Degree Burn
Director
A down-and-out private eye (Treat Williams) gets too close to the wife (Virginia Madsen) of a rich man (Richard Masur) soon found dead.
Shoot to Kill
Director
When a cunning murderer vanishes into the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest, pursuing FBI agent Warren Stantin must exchange familiar city streets for unknown wilderness trails. Completely out of his element, Stantin is forced to enlist the aid of expert tracker Jonathan Knox. It's a turbulent yet vital relationship they must maintain in order to survive... and one that becomes increasingly desperate when Knox's girlfriend Sarah becomes the killer's latest hostage!
The Last Innocent Man
Director
A retired criminal lawyer is persuaded to take on one more case and becomes involved with his client's wife.
The Best of Times
Director
A small-town loser determines to have one more shot at the big time by winning a football game.
Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend
Executive Producer
A paleontologist and her husband discover a mother and baby brontosaurus in Africa, and try to protect them from hunters who want to capture them.
Under Fire
Director
Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.
48 Hrs.
Author
A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer.
The Renegades
Director
In this drama, undercover investigators are recruited from the streets to prevent arms smugglers from getting their weapons to street gangs.
The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper
Director
A speculation on the fate of the famous hijacker who parachuted with his ransom and disappeared in the mountains. Has Cooper succeeded in following a meticulous plan to disappear into anonymity despite the best efforts of a dogged cop?
Terror Train
Director
A masked killer targets six college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier and who are currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train.
Who'll Stop the Rain
Associate Producer
John, a disillusioned Vietnam War journalist, turns to heroin smuggling. He cons Ray, an equally burnt out veteran into delivering the drugs stateside to his wife. Everything soon falls apart and Ray ends up on the run with John's wife trying to evade crooked narcotics agents.
Hard Times
Editor
In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts. They go to New Orleans where Speed borrows money to set up fights for Chaney, but Speed gambles away any winnings.
The Gambler
Editor
New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him.
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Editor
Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.
Straw Dogs
Editor
David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.
Stamping Ground
Editor
Documentary of a 1970 rock concert held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.