In Memory Of
The story of the Promethean struggles of Nikola Tesla, as he attempts to transcend entrenched technology—including his own previous work—by pioneering a system of wireless energy that would change the world.
The Writer
Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream, this film captures the troubled spirit of America in 1975 and the joyous music that Dylan performed during the fall of that year.
Himself
A story about people whose lives are connected by typewriters. A meditation on creativity and technology featuring Tom Hanks, John Mayer, Sam Shepard, David McCullough and others.
Paul Stark
An artist whose work involves capturing images of strangers begins to believe she herself is being observed.
Writer
Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play in a production by The New Group, directed by Scott Elliott. Dodge (Ed Harris) and Halie (Amy Madigan) try to hang on to their farmland and their sanity while caring for their two wayward grown sons (Rich Sommer and Paul Sparks). When their grandson (Nat Wolff) arrives no one seems to recognize him and a secret must be kept. Hosted by Blythe Danner.
Mr. Anderson
In the California apple country, 900 migratory workers rise 'in dubious battle' against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members, and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—'courage, never submit, or yield'.
Calvin Meyer
A father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.
Writer
Often hailed as Sam Shepard’s masterpiece, True West deconstructs the damaged relationship between two estranged brothers who are striving for success. Director Phillip Breen combines comedic elements with unnerving silences in this tension-filled production, captured by Digital Theatre live at the Tricycle Theatre, London.
Willie Grogan
In a small town in California's San Joaquin Valley, 14-year-old Homer Macauley is determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger anyone has ever seen. His older brother has gone to war, leaving Homer to look after his widowed mother, his older sister and his 4-year-old brother, Ulysses. And so it is that as spring turns to summer, 1942, Homer Macauley delivers messages of love, hope, pain... and death... to the good people of Ithaca. And Homer Macauley will grapple with one message that will change him forever - from a boy into a man. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan's 1943 novel, The Human Comedy, ITHACA is the quintessential wartime tale of the Home Front. It is a coming-of-age story about the exuberance of youth, the sweetness of life, the sting of death and the modesty and sheer goodness that lives in each and every one of us.
Russell
While investigating noises in his house one balmy Texas night in 1989, Richard Dane puts a bullet in the brain of a low-life burglar. Although he’s hailed as a small-town hero, Dane soon finds himself fearing for his family’s safety when Freddy’s ex-con father rolls into town, hell-bent on revenge.
Beverly Weston
A look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.
Gerald 'Red' Baze
Two brothers live in the economically-depressed Rust Belt, when a cruel twist of fate lands one in prison. His brother is then lured into one of the most violent crime rings in the Northeast.
Acting Double
Produced by multiple EMMY® Award-winning executive producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman (HBO’s John Adams and The Pacific), and EMMY® Award-winning producer Mark Herzog (History’s Gettysburg) of Herzog & Company (HCO), on Thursday, Nov. 14, CNN will premiere The Assassination of President Kennedy at 9:00pm ET and PT. The two-hour film explores the events on the day that changed the nation – and the world, as well as how the public’s perceptions of what happened that day have changed through the years.
Tom
Two boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and form a pact to help him reunite with his lover and escape.
Mr. Stubbs
Savannah is the true story of Ward Allen, a romantic and bombastic character who rejects his plantation heritage for the freedom of life on a river. Ward navigates the change of early 20th century America on the wrong side of the law and society, his long-time friend, a freed slave named Christmas Moultrie, at his side. Master of Shakespeare, and the shotgun that provides Savannah's markets with fowl, Ward fights for his rights as a hunter. His charisma and eloquent rhetoric win the heart of a society woman who defies her father to marry him. An elderly Moultrie tells the story of life on the river with his friend to a little boy, who passes the legendary Ward Allen down to the next generation.
Self
An indelible portrait of the complex relationship between playwright and actor Sam Shepard and his close friend Johnny Dark as they prepare forty years of their correspondence for publication, stirring up old memories both good and bad.
Self
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
Dillon
Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.
Sheriff Morris
The story of a woman who loves her dog more than her husband. And then her husband loses the dog.
Harlan Whitford
A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.
James
In Bolivia, Butch Cassidy (now calling himself James Blackthorne) pines for one last sight of home, an adventure that aligns him with a young robber and makes the duo a target for gangs and lawmen alike.
James Harrison
A couple goes to dangerous lengths to find a lung donor for their daughter.
Sam Plame
Wife and mother Valerie Plame has a double life as a CIA operative, hiding her vocation from family and friends. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, writes a controversial article in The New York Times, refuting stories about the sale of enriched uranium to Iraq, Then Valerie's secret work and identity is leaked to the press. With her cover blown and other people endangered, Valerie's career and personal life begin to unravel.
Hank Cahill
When his helicopter goes down during his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, Marine Sam Cahill is presumed dead. Back home, brother Tommy steps in to look over Sam’s wife, Grace, and two children. Sam’s surprise homecoming triggers domestic mayhem.
Gordon
A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.
Wilder
Emma, a radio host, is about to be married to Richard, her perfect match. But right before her wedding, she learns she's already married to Patrick, a charming but irresponsible fireman. Furthermore, Patrick has a secret: he has arranged this little trick because Emma advised Patrick's ex-fiancée to end their relationship. However, Patrick may find that the trick is on him, for he soon begins to fall in love with his uptight adversary.
Self
An intimate portrait of poet, painter, musician and singer Patti Smith that mirrors the essence of the artist herself.
Himself
A look back on the weird and wasted career of the Holy Modal Rounders.
Frank James
Outlaw Jesse James is rumored to be the 'fastest gun in the West'. An eager recruit into James' notorious gang, Robert Ford eventually grows jealous of the famed outlaw and, when Robert and his brother sense an opportunity to kill James, their murderous action elevates their target to near mythical status.
Frank Whiteley
Ruffian is an American made-for-television movie that tells the story of the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame Champion thoroughbred filly Ruffian who went undefeated until her death after breaking down in a nationally televised match race at Belmont Park on July 6, 1975 against the Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. Made by ESPN Original Entertainment, the film is directed by Yves Simoneau and stars Sam Shepard as Ruffian's trainer, Frank Whiteley. The producers used four different geldings in the role of Ruffian. Locations for the 2007 film included Louisiana Downs in Shreveport, Louisiana and Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.
Narrator (voice)
Wilbur the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.
Ed Mills
Joanna Mills has a successful career but feels her personal life is spinning out of control. She has few friends, an estranged father, and a crazy ex-boyfriend who is stalking her. Joanna begins having terrifying visions of a woman's murder, and it seems that she is the killer's next target. Determined to solve the mystery and escape her apparent fate, Joanna follows her visions to the victim's hometown and finds that some secrets just do not stay buried.
Syrus
A small-town father is forced to make difficult, heartbreaking decisions in order to save his two daughters.
Bill Buck
Set in the late 19th century. When a ruthless robber baron takes away everything they cherish, a rough-and-tumble, idealistic peasant and a sophisticated heiress embark on a quest for justice, vengeance…and a few good heists.
George Cummings
Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war.
Writer
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
Howard
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
Himself - Playwright, Actor (Thunderheart)
A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.
Frank Calhoun
An epic love story centered around an older man who reads aloud to a woman with Alzheimer's. From a faded notebook, the old man's words bring to life the story about a couple who is separated by World War II, and is then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths.
Short Story
Joe, an overwrought rancher is striving from his harsh upbringing, trying make a better life for his family. When his business falters, Joe fears his son, at the age of 15, will follow in his footsteps, and decides to drive him from home.
Sheriff Jack Kolb
Left for dead in the remote Southwest, Frank is found clinging to life and in a state of amnesia. As he recovers, ominous memories begin to flash back...
Himself
Director Michael Almereyda's documentary on the weeks just prior to Sam Shepard's stage production of his play "The Late Henry Moss."
Himself
Rosy-Fingered Dawn is a film on Terrence Malick. It is about the making of BADLANDS, DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE THIN RED LINE and the personal involvement of some of the most representative figures of the American culture itself. This medley of voices has given origin to a journey throughout the whole United States, from California to Colorado, from Virginia to Minnesota, passing by New York and Los Angeles. Every stop represents an ideal set in which all the characters of the films come to life once again giving place to a growing flow of memories. The narrative dimension of Malick's cinema resounds and opens a new horizon on the visible contradictions of the American culture; no easy judgement but a critical consciousness is what emerges from this coral speech, together with a definite need: the necessity of art. A need that Terrence Malick was able to satisfy.
Writer
Filmed play about two very different brothers, one a criminal and the other a screen-writing family man who becomes appalled by his wayward brother's relationship with a producer.
Vic
A young mother is plagued by a tragic mistake and alienates her little boy. A brilliant writer is released from prison after serving a 15-year sentence and begins working at Vic's Diner. Their stories converge when the man must overcome obstacles of the past to save the little boy and ultimately himself.
Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison
When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.
Frank Gilmore, Sr.
The story of a man coming to terms with the sins and secrets of his notorious brother and, in the process, exploring the legacy of violence in his own family.
Senator James Reisman
Rogue agent Gabriel Shear is determined to get his mitts on $9 billion stashed in a secret Drug Enforcement Administration account. He wants the cash to fight terrorism, but lacks the computer skills necessary to hack into the government mainframe. Enter Stanley Jobson, a n'er-do-well encryption expert who can log into anything.
Caleb Gare
Caleb Gare (Sam Shepard) is a farmer obsessed with owning as much land as he can and controlling his entire family. This becomes more complicated when a beautiful visiting teacher moves into the Gare home and she becomes involved in a battle of wills. To complicate matters more, a deep secret held by Caleb's wife will have to come to the surface. With the family at the breaking point, they must put aside their differences to bring in the year's harvest, after which they celebrate at the town's annual festival. Little does Caleb suspect that the one night of celebration will end in disaster, turmoil, and forever change the family.
Eric Pollack
A police chief about to retire pledges to help a woman find her daughter's killer.
Narrator (voice)
Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa
J.C. Franklin
The year is 1949. A young Texan named John Grady finds himself without a home after his mother sells the ranch where he has spent his entire life. Lured south of the border by the romance of cowboy life and the promise of a fresh start, Cole and his pal embark on an adventure that will test their resilience, define their maturity, and change their lives forever.
Maj. Nelson Gray
A divorced female marine officer with two small children begins an affair with a senior officer.
Ghost
Modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's immortal story about Hamlet's plight to avenge his father's murder in New York City.
Arthur Chambers
In the 1950s, a Japanese-American fisherman is suspected of killing his neighbour at sea — and race is a factor in the trial. So is reporter, Ishmael.
Theatre Play
As youths in Azusa, Vinnie, Carter, and Rosie pull off a racing scam, substituting winners for plodders and winning big bucks on long odds. When an official uncovers the scam, they set him up for blackmail. Jump ahead twenty years, Carter and Rosie are married, successful racers in Kentucky about to sell their prize stallion, Simpatico. Vinnie is a drunk in Pomona. Vinnie decides to make a play for Rosie, lures Carter to California, steals his wallet and heads for Kentucky with the original blackmail material. Carter begs Vinnie's friend, a grocery clerk named Cecilia, to follow Vinnie and get the stuff back that he has in a box. Will she succeed?
Dashiell Hammett
Biographical look at the bombastic love affair that writers Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman shared in 1940 and 50's Hollywood. Refusing to marry, but deeply in love, the two engaged in many affairs and battled alcoholism.
Sheriff Forrest / Wild Bill Hickock
An outlaw band flees a posse and rides into Refuge, a small town where no one carries a gun, drinks, or swears. The town is actually Purgatory, and the peaceful inhabitants are all famous dead outlaws and criminals such as Doc Holiday and Wild Bill Hickok who must redeem themselves before gaining admittance to Heaven... or screw up and go to Hell.
Will Dodge
A bachelor afraid of marriage angers his long-time girlfriend by buying a splendid townhouse just for himself, only to find it haunted by the ghosts of a famous theatrical couple, who teach him about love and commitment.
Reece McHenry
A small-town store owner with a comatose wife shares a long-term relationship with his seamstress.
Pete Davenport
Still bitter toward his stepfather, a man reunites with his mother and sister following a long estrangement.
Tarnell
An aging cowboy must choose between his desire to remain free and the responsibilities of maintaining a family.
Self
A documentary portrait of Michangelo Antonioni based on Roland Barthes' essay.
Patrick
Recently estranged from her husband, and mother of seven sons, Mag Singer stands poised to pursue a whole new way of life. But when one of her children is involved in an explosion while on duty in the Middle East, Mag must rexamine everything she cherishes.
Writer
Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard, considered the first of a series on family tragedies. Drama about a dirt-poor 1950's-era farm family. Dad's a foul talking drunk and Mom is desperately trying to save what's left of their family life.
Self
A Paul Joyce documentary on the American independent film scene.
Thomas Callahan
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.
Writer
Mad with grief after the death of his Kiowa wife, Roe awaits death under a tree with her body beside him. She begins to haunt him because he won't bury her. His father, who bought him the wife, thinks her sister might reason with Roe.
Director
Mad with grief after the death of his Kiowa wife, Roe awaits death under a tree with her body beside him. She begins to haunt him because he won't bury her. His father, who bought him the wife, thinks her sister might reason with Roe.
Frank Coutelle
An FBI man with Sioux background is sent to a reservation to help with a murder investigation, where he has to come to terms with his heritage.
Det. Beutel
A Los Angeles lawyer defends her former college roommate, whose husband — her lover — has been slain.
Walter Faber
Walter Faber has survived a crash with an airplane. His next trip is by ship. On board this ship he meets the enchanting Sabeth and they have a passionate love affair. Together they travel to her home in Greece, but the rational Faber doesn't know what fate has in mind for him for past doings.
Jack Russell
In Montana, naive teenager George longs to escape from his broken home before his dysfunctional parents push him over the edge. When George meets pretty drifter Lucy, she easily convinces him and his friend Claude to join her on a road trip to Montana in hopes of breaking her brother out of jail.
Spud Jones
A young beautician, newly arrived in a small Louisiana town, finds work at the local salon, where a small group of women share a close bond of friendship and welcome her into the fold.
Writer
After generations of being apart, an accident brings a family back together and they begin to cope with their original issues.
Director
After generations of being apart, an accident brings a family back together and they begin to cope with their original issues.
With virtually no financial resources, Ellen Stewart created the La Mama theater in New York in 1961, where writers and actors such as Sam Shepard, Elizabeth Swados, and Harvey Fierstein found both encouragement and a home for their work. Includes footage from the early days, interviews and brief excerpts from some of the theater works. Stewart also talks about her experiences as a "colored" working at Saks Fifth Avenue between 1950 and 1957
Dr. Jeff Cooper
The life of super-yuppie J.C. is thrown into turmoil when she inherits a baby from a distant relative.
Doc Porter
Three sisters try to come to grips with the meaning of their mother's suicide.
Theatre Play
A woman is waiting in a motel for her boyfriend, when an old flame turns up and tries to take her back to the life she is trying to leave behind.
Screenplay
A woman is waiting in a motel for her boyfriend, when an old flame turns up and tries to take her back to the life she is trying to leave behind.
Eddie
A woman is waiting in a motel for her boyfriend, when an old flame turns up and tries to take her back to the life she is trying to leave behind.
Gil Ivy
Jewell and Gil are farmers. They seem to be working against the odds, producing no financial surplus. Gil has lost hope of ever becoming prosperous, but Jewell decides to fight for her family.
Writer
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
Writer
A videotaped stage performance of Sam Shepard's play.
Chuck Yeager
A chronicle of the original Mercury astronauts in the formation of America's space program: Alan Shepherd, the first American in space; Gus Grissom, the benighted astronaut for whom nothing works out as planned; John Glenn, the straight-arrow 'boy scout' of the bunch who was the first American to orbit the earth; and the remaining pilots: Deke Slayton, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, and Gordon Cooper.
Harry York
The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.
Music
A performance piece written by Sam Shepard, enacted by Joseph Chaikin and directed by Shirley Clarke, a dying man reflects on his life while delivering his own last rites.
Writer
A performance piece written by Sam Shepard, enacted by Joseph Chaikin and directed by Shirley Clarke, a dying man reflects on his life while delivering his own last rites.
Bailey
Nita, a divorced mother of two boys, is stuck working as a telephone operator in a small Texas town in World War II. Her friendship with a sailor on leave causes tongues to wag in town.
Writer
A prelude to Tongues (1982) which languishes over love and its effect on people.
Cal
The story of a woman who survives the car accident which kills her husband, but discovers that she has the power to heal other people. She becomes an unwitting celebrity, the hope of those in desperate need of healing, and a lightning rod for religious beliefs and skeptics.
The Farmer
In 1916, a Chicago steel worker accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend and little sister to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer.
Rodeo
Filmed in the autumn of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour – featuring appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton – the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.
Writer
Filmed in the autumn of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour – featuring appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton – the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.
Writer
Based on the controversial off-Broadway musical comedy revue, "Oh! Calcutta!" is a series of musical numbers about sex and sexual mores. Most of the skits feature one or more performers in a state of undress, simulating sex, or both. The show sparked considerable controversy at the time because it featured extended scenes of total nudity, both male and female. The title is taken from a painting by Clovis Trouille, itself a pun on "O quel cul t'as!" French for "What an arse you have!".
In 1969, Taylor Mead complained to his friend artist Wynn Chamberlain that Andy Warhol had never paid him for any of the work he had done for him and Wynn said he would make a film especially for Taylor. Inspired by the banality of 1960's television, Chamberlain wrote and directed Brand X, an 87 minute series of faux television shows spoofing the politics and mass media of the day, complete with commercials for Sex, Sweat, Computer Dating and Peanut Butter. BRAND X follows Taylor Mead through a day in a wacky television studio as he portrays an exercise guru, a talk show host, a veteran returning from the American Civil War, a hospital patient in a soap opera, the President of the United States and a televangelist giving the Nightly Sermon. BRAND X satirizes President Nixon, the Vietnam War, sex, drugs, computers, money and race relations.
Screenplay
Anthropology student Daria, who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert, and dropout Mark, who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot, accidentally encounter each other in Death Valley and soon begin an unrestrained romance.
Writer
Julius Orlovsky, after spending years in a New York mental hospital, emerges catatonic and must rely on his brother Peter, who lives with poet Allen Ginsberg. When Julius wanders off in the middle of filming, Frank hires and actor (Joseph Chaikin) to play the character and begins a fictional version of his psychological portrait. Then, as suddenly as he vanished, Julius turns up in an institution where he and Peter must face their relationship.
