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Companies: Best Movies & TV Shows/Series by American Playhouse

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52 movies and TV shows/series found (page 1/2):

Much Ado About Nothing(1993)

PG-13
| 1h 51min | Drama, Comedy, Romance / Love
3.5/5 (with 312 votes)

In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh - With Michael Keaton, Robert Sean Leonard, Keanu Reeves, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Kenneth Branagh, ...
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Stand and Deliver(1988)

PG
| 1h 43min | Drama
3.8/5 (with 143 votes)

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

Directed by Ramón Menéndez - With Edward James Olmos, Rosanna DeSoto, Lou Diamond Phillips, Andy Garcia, Carmen Argenziano, Estelle Harris, ...
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Safe(1995)

R
| 1h 59min | Drama
3.5/5 (with 114 votes)

Carol, a typical upper middle-class housewife, begins to complain of vague symptoms of illness. She "doesn't feel right," has unexplained headaches, congestion, a dry cough, nosebleeds, vomiting, and trouble breathing. Her family doctor treats her concerns dismissively and suggests a psychiatrist. Eventually, an allergist tells her that she has Environmental Illness.

Directed by Todd Haynes - With Julianne Moore, Peter Friedman, Xander Berkeley, April Grace, James LeGros, Steven Gilborn, ...

Testament(1983)

PG
| 1h 30min | Drama, Science Fiction
3.2/5 (with 49 votes)

It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Directed by Lynne Littman - With Jane Alexander, William Devane, Ross Harris, Roxana Zal, Lukas Haas, Leon Ames, ...
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Bloodhounds of Broadway(1989)

PG
| 1h 33min | Drama, Comedy, Music, Romance / Love
2.8/5 (with 10 votes)

This musical is based on four short stories by Damon Runyon. In one tale, gambler Feet Samuels sells his body to science just as he realizes that Hortense loves him and that he would rather live than die. In another story, Harriet's parrot is killed, and she has problems dealing with her loss. Then, there is a gambler, "Regret", who has bloodhounds on his trail when he becomes a murder suspect. Finally, "The Brain" is bleeding profusely, and his friends search for a way to save his life through a blood transfusion.

Directed by Howard Brookner - With Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey, Julie Hagerty, Rutger Hauer, Madonna, Esai Morales, ...
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Amateur(1994)

1h 45min | Crime, Comedy, Drama, Thriller
3.2/5 (with 34 votes)

A man wakes up in an alley, bleeding and with no memory of who he is. He stumbles into a coffee shop and is befriended by a charitable ex-nun who is failing in her attempts to write marketable pornography.

Directed by Hal Hartley - With Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, Elina Löwensohn, Damian Young, Parker Posey

My Family(1995)

R
| 2h 8min | Comedy, Drama
3.8/5 (with 26 votes)

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

Directed by Gregory Nava - With Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, Jennifer Lopez, Jacob Vargas, Scott Bakula, ...

Simple Men(1992)

1h 45min | Crime, Drama, Romance / Love
3.4/5 (with 21 votes)

Bitter about being double-crossed by the women he loved (and with the police after him to boot), Bill vows to seduce the next woman he sees, then throw her away. His brother Dennis, meanwhile, is equally determined to track down their long lost father, a revolutionary who has been in hiding for 20 years. For different reasons, both leave New York and head for Long Island, out of money, and short on ideas.

Directed by Hal Hartley - With Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Karen Sillas, Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan, Holly Marie Combs, ...

The Thin Blue Line(1988)

1h 43min | Crime, Documentary
3.9/5 (with 153 votes)

Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.

Directed by Errol Morris - With Randall Dale Adams, Marianne Leone Cooper
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Three Sovereigns for Sarah(1985)

Drama

This is a true story based on transcripts of the Salem Witch Trials.

Ethan Frome(1993)

PG
| 1h 39min | Drama, Romance / Love
2.9/5 (with 13 votes)

Married couple, Ethan and Zeena, are in need an extra hand around the house due to Zeena's debilitated body and constant illness. The young woman who joins them is a beautiful, spirited person. She and Ethan fall in love much to the dismay of Zeena.

Directed by John Madden - With Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Tate Donovan, Stephen Mendillo, Phil Garran, Katharine Houghton, ...
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Smooth Talk(1985)

PG-13
| 1h 32min | Drama, Thriller
3.2/5 (with 21 votes)

Based on the short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been", by Joyce Carol Oates, this film chronicles 15-year-old Connie's sexual awakening in the Northern California suburbs. Her experimentation gets out of hand when the mysterious Arnold Friend takes an interest in her.

Directed by Joyce Chopra - With Laura Dern, Treat Williams, Mary Kay Place, Levon Helm
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Longtime Companion(1989)

R
| 1h 36min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.6/5 (with 28 votes)

During the summer of 1981, a group of friends in New York are completely unprepared for the onslaught of AIDS. What starts as a rumor about a mysterious "gay cancer" soon turns into a major crisis as, one by one, some of the friends begin to fall ill, leaving the others to panic about who will be next. As death takes its toll, the lives of these friends are forever redefined by an unconditional display of love, hope and courage.

Directed by Norman René - With Campbell Scott, Bruce Davison, Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Cassidy, Dermot Mulroney, Tony Shalhoub, ...

Into the Woods(1991)

2h 33min | Drama, Music
4.0/5 (with 18 votes)

A collection of fairy tale characters head into the woods, and soon learn that fairy tales don't end at "happily ever after." This rendition of Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical was recorded on the stage with its original all-star Broadway cast. Originally broadcast as part of "American Playhouse" on PBS (season ten, episode one).

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Cabeza de Vaca(1991)

1h 51min | Action, Drama, History
3.3/5 (with 14 votes)

An international award winning saga of old Mexico. In 1528, a Spanish expedition flounders off the coast of Florida with 600 lives lost. One survivor, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, roams across the American continent searching for his Spanish comrades. Instead, he discovers the Iguase, an ancient Indian tribe. Over the next eight years, Cabeza de Vaca learns their mystical and mysterious culture, becoming a healer and a leader. But soon this New World collides with the Old World as Spanish conquistadors seek to enslave the Indians, and Cabeza de Vaca must confront his own people and his past.

Directed by Nicolás Echevarría - With Juan Diego, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Roberto Cobo, Josefina Echánove

El Norte(1983)

2h 21min | Drama
3.6/5 (with 27 votes)

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

Directed by Gregory Nava - With Lupe Ontiveros, Sabina Vannucchi, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Tony Plana
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1984)

2h 24min | TV Movie, Drama
2.8/5 (with 6 votes)

Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Directed by Jack Hofsiss - With Jessica Lange

Sunday in the Park with George(1986)

2h 26min | Music, Comedy, Drama
3.6/5 (with 9 votes)

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat is one of the great paintings of the world, and in "Sunday in the Park with George," book writer James Lapine and composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim bring a story based on the work brilliantly to life. While the painting depicts people gathered on an island in the Seine, the musical goes beyond simply describing their lives. It is an exploration of art, of love, of commitment. Seurat connected dots to create images; Lapine and Sondheim use connection as the heart of all our relationships. Winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Originally broadcast as part of "American Playhouse" on PBS (season five, episode nineteen).

Directed by Terry Hughes - With Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Barbara Bryne, Cris Groenendaal, Dana Ivey, Charles Kimbrough, ...
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Native Son(1986)

PG
| 1h 51min | Drama
2.7/5 (with 4 votes)

In 1940s Chicago, a young black man takes a job as a chauffeur to a white family, which takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills the teenage daughter of the couple and then tries to cover it up.

Directed by Jerrold Freedman - With Matt Dillon, Elizabeth McGovern, Geraldine Page, Carroll Baker

Go Tell It on the Mountain(1984)

1h 36min | Drama
2.5/5 (with 2 votes)

This film adaptation of James Baldwin's celebrated novel tells the journey of a family from the rural South to "big city" Harlem seeking both salvation and understanding and of a young boy struggling to earn the approval of a self-righteous and often unloving stepfather.

Directed by Stan Lathan - With Paul Winfield
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Daughters of the Dust(1991)

1h 52min | Drama, Romance / Love
3.4/5 (with 19 votes)

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastion of these mores in America.

Directed by Julie Dash
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Golden Gate(1993)

R
| 1h 31min | Crime, Drama
2.2/5 (with 4 votes)

A brash 22-year-old FBI agent trumps up charges of Communist spying against a Chinese laundryman. Ten years later, he wants to make amends to the man and his teenage daughter.

Directed by John Madden - With Matt Dillon, Joan Chen, Bruno Kirby, Elizabeth Morehead, Teri Polo, Tzi Ma, ...

A Flash of Green(1984)

2h 1min | Drama
2.9/5 (with 4 votes)

A reporter at a local Florida newspaper is torn between his friendship with a corrupt real estate developer and his love for an activist opposing the developer's latest project.

Directed by Victor Nuñez - With Ed Harris

The Wizard of Loneliness(1988)

1h 51min | Drama
3.1/5 (with 2 votes)

After his mother dies and father goes to fight in World War II, a young boy moves in with his aunt and uncle who live in the countryside. Lonely and unhappy, he starts believing he has super powers. Then a "dead" man shows up.

Directed by Jenny Bowen - With Lukas Haas, Lea Thompson, Lance Guest, Dylan Baker, John Randolph

All the Vermeers in New York(1992)

1h 27min | Comedy, Drama, Romance / Love
2.9/5 (with 9 votes)

A parable of the missteps of life enacted in the hothouse world of late 1980’s New York, in which the art market and the stock market each boomed, and in process spawned a smorgasbord of “yuppie” delusions which still persist. Anna, a French actress studying in New York, crosses paths with a successful stock-broker, Mark, standing before a Vermeer portrait at the Metropolitan, thence ensues a peculiar romance of missed meanings and connections, with tangential asides to the steaming arts world and stock market, loft-mate conflicts, and, perhaps, love. Wrapped up in their blindered worlds, Anna and Mark deflect away from their chances, leaving at the conclusion the wistful face of Vermeer’s portrait enigmatically asking questions. All the Vermeers in New York is a comedy of manners which, as gently as a Vermeer, looks beneath the skin of this time and place, and of these characters.

Directed by Jon Jost - With Stephen Lack, Emmanuelle Chaulet, Gordon Joseph Weiss

Silent Rebellion(1982)

1h 30min | TV Movie, Drama, Comedy
3.5/5 (with 1 vote)

A Greek immigrant (Savalas) and his son return to Greece, where they reunite with mother and brother and re-discover their heritage and each other. Cross-cultural misunderstandings abound; could have been interesting, but the story is just too generic and uninspired.

Surviving Desire(1992)

53min | Comedy, Drama, Romance / Love
3.5/5 (with 9 votes)

Jude, a college professor, is obsessed with Sophie, his student. She, in turn, is intrigued by his scholarly charm. Flirtation turns to lust and the two become lovers.

Directed by Hal Hartley - With Martin Donovan

A Raisin in the Sun(1989)

2h 51min | Drama, TV Movie
4.0/5 (with 1 vote)

A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family.

The House of Blue Leaves(1987)

1h 53min

On the day in 1965 that the Pope visits New York and masses of people line the streets in adulation, Artie, a zookeeper living in Sunnyside, Queens, thinks it's time for his life to be blessed, too. He desperately wants to escape his lower middle-class existence and become a popular singer and songwriter, but his life is complicated by an ambitious mistress, a crazy wife and a bomb-making son.

Directed by Kirk Browning - With Swoosie Kurtz

Lemon Sky(1988)

PG-13
| 1h 36min | Drama
3.9/5 (with 4 votes)

An out of high school teen from the midwest moves to San Diego, California in the 1950s to live with his estranged father and new family. Escaping his past may not be as easy as he had hoped...or is it all a dream?

Directed by Jan Egleson
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WatchPlayStream ID: COMPANIES:1986