Henry Czerny Movies
One of Canada's most respected dramatic actors, Henry Czerny (pronounced ChiERRnee) has earned acclaim on stage, television, and in feature films, both in his native land and in Hollywood. Born and raised in Toronto, Czerny cut his professional teeth on Shakespearean and classical theater following his graduation from Canada's National Theater school in 1982. He also occasionally guest starred on such television shows as Night Heat and Hot Shots. His blood-chilling portrayal of an anguished, pedophiliac priest running an orphanage for young boys in the 1993 CBC-produced miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent provided Czerny with the needed star-making turn. The film was a hit and was released theatrically in the U.S. In 1994, the critically acclaimed role earned Czerny a 1994 Canadian Gemini award for "best performance by an actor in a leading role in a dramatic program or miniseries." He appeared in other esteemed television films, including The Margaret Sanger Story, Trial at Fortitude Bay, and Shattered Vows. Czerny entered feature films with small supporting roles in the Canadian-produced police thrillers A Man in Uniform and Cold Sweat (both 1993). He got his break in Hollywood after playing an incestuous father in the CBS telemovie Ultimate Betrayal: The Rodgers Sisters Story (1994). Shortly after signing to the William Morris Agency, he was cast as the manipulative and clever chief of CIA operations opposite Harrison Ford in Clear and Present Danger (1994). The film was a smash hit. Czerny has subsequently been kept very busy, appearing in Canadian and Hollywood feature films and in television movies. His film credits include Jenipapo (1995), Mission Impossible (1996), The Ice Storm (1997), and Kayla (1998). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie GuideIn this drama, based on a true story, an unconventional New England principal tries some radical new techniques to reform his high school and ends up unemployed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Tucker, Jill Eikenberry, (more)
Members of Canada's groundbreaking improvisational comedy troupe CODCO helped create this broad black comedy about a small Canadian community's unique bid to become a world power. Solomon Gundy is a small island off the Atlantic Coast of Canada whose economy is built around fishing. A government researcher determines that Canada's fish production needs to be cut by four percent -- and since Solomon Gundy produces four percent of the nation's catch, the government simply decides to suspend all fishing licenses for the Island. Needless to say, this decision is wildly unpopular with the locals, and Dexter (Maury Chaykin), the Federal official who has to break the bad news to the town, nearly gets lynched for his troubles. Augustus (Paul Gross), who acts as Solomon Gundy's mayor when he isn't busy officiating at the local church or running the miniature golf course, decides to take the bull by the horns and rallies the townspeople to declare their independence from Canada. As fate would have it, a group of Russian sailors gone AWOL happen by the Island, and Augustus is able to buy their submarine from the sole crewman left on board (Tommy Sexton). Augustus soon discovers the sub still has a cache of tactical missiles on board, making the newly independent Solomon Gundy a nuclear superpower. Also released as Northern Extremes, Burried on Sunday proved to be the final film role for founding CODCO member Tommy Sexton, who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1993. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Gross, Denise Virieux, (more)
Longtime Hollywood vice detectives Holt (Chris Penn) and Nin (Jeffrey Wright) have themselves become gangsters and drug users. When violence-prone Holt catches his girlfriend Lyndel (Sherilyn Fenn) with drug kingpin Truman Rickart's (Henry Czerny) number one henchman Sean (Anthony DeSando), Nin does everything he can to save the hood's life from his obsessed partner. But it might be a matter of too little too late: Holt already has Sean strung up in a pig-iron box that he's filling with cement. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Two mismatched lawmen are on the trail of an unusually talented criminal in this crime thriller. Quentin Conners (Jason Statham) is a veteran police detective who is less than pleased when he's assigned a new partner, Shane Dekker (Ryan Phillippe). While Conners has been with the force for years, Dekker is a rookie, and it doesn't take Conners long to realize his partner has a lot to learn about the nuts and bolts of investigation. However, the two are forced to put aside their differences when they're given an important new case to crack -- a brilliant thief (Wesley Snipes) has masterminded a series of high-stakes bank heists, and the police are baffled as to how he seems to know what they're up to just as soon as they do. Chaos also stars Justine Waddell as a police officer who has become involved with one of the detectives. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Statham, Ryan Phillippe, (more)

- 1995
- Add Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story to QueueAdd Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story to top of Queue
Dana Delany stars in this made-for-TV movie as Margaret Sanger, a nurse who, in 1914, became a pioneering crusader for women's reproductive rights after she published a booklet on birth control techniques that flew in the face of a law established by Anthony Comstock (Rod Steiger) forbidding the dissemination of information on contraception. Sanger later helped to establish America's first birth control clinic in 1916, and in 1925 was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story also stars Henry Czerny and Julie Khaner.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Delany, Rod Steiger, (more)
This is the third film based on Tom Clancy's high-tech espionage potboilers starring CIA deputy director Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford, returning to the Ryan role after his first go-round in 1992's Patriot Games, is assigned to a delicate anti-drug investigation after a close friend of the President (a Reaganesque Donald Moffat) is murdered by a Colombian drug cartel. When Ryan discovers that the President's wealthy friend was in league with the cartel, the President's devious national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and an ambitious CIA deputy director (Henry Czerny) send a secret paramilitary force into Colombia to wipe out the drug lords. The force is captured and then abandoned by the President's lackeys. It falls to Ryan to enter Colombia and rescue them, aided only by a renegade operative named Clark (Willem Dafoe), with both his life and career on the line. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, (more)
An unemployed homeless man who once turned to God for the answers to life's problems decides to share the information he received with the rest of the world by penning a series of best-selling books, and now his remarkable story comes to the screen in a biographical drama from producer/director Stephen Simon. There was a time when Donald Walsch (Henry Czerny) had no place to go and no one to turn to, but that all changed when he directed the hardest questions he had ever asked at the entity many view as the be-all and end-all of human existence. The answers that he received would not only change his life, but the lives of millions of readers as well. An unlikely spiritual messenger whose works subsequently sold over seven million copies and translated into thirty-four languages, Walsch's remarkable tale finally comes to the big screen courtesy of the producer behind such spiritual-centric films as What Dreams May Come and Indigo. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Czerny, Vilma Silva, (more)
Brian Dennehy makes one of his many TV-movie appearances as Chicago homicide cop John Reed in the two-part Deadly Matrimony. Reed's quarry this time is mob lawyer Treat Williams, who murders his wife and then effectively covers his tracks. The closer Reed comes to the truth, the more he's in jeopardy of losing his job (and possibly his life) thanks to Williams' friends in high places. Based on a true story, part one of Deadly Matrimony was first telecast on November 22, 1992. In part two, which debuted November 23, Reed is victimized by the crooked cops under Williams' thumb, but refuses to knuckle under to mob pressure. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Dennehy, Lisa Eilbacher, (more)
A troubled cop makes a discovery that really has him worried in this thriller. Mickey Hayden (Kiefer Sutherland), a police detective, is ordered to take a new look at a case he'd worked on ten years ago. A brilliant but demented serial killer known as Jabberwocky went on a killing spree before dropping out of sight; Hayden was never able to track him down, and the disappointment has left Hayden with more than his share of emotional scars; the detective has since become an alcoholic in a failed attempt to cope. After a decade of silence, Jabberwocky strikes again, sending the police a note suggesting Hayden be put back on his case. But this time around, Hayden notices something different as he investigates the killings; when he comes in contact with the evidence, he has troubling psychic visions that tell him more about the murders than he ever wanted to know. Originally produced for the premium cable network HBO, Eye of the Killer also stars Polly Walker and Henry Czerny. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kiefer Sutherland, Henry Czerny, (more)
In a 1950s-era alternate universe where domesticated zombies play a functional role in society by delivering the milk, carrying the mail, and even helping out with household chores, one boy is about to find out just how big of a personal responsibility "pet" ownership truly is. When the Earth passed through a cloud of space dust and the dead arose from their graves to devour the flesh of the living, it first seemed that all hope for humanity was lost. Society's rapid slide into chaos, however, was soon halted when scientists at a company called ZomCom created a special collar that turned the rampaging animated corpses docile. Now, thanks to ZomCom, everything is under control -- or is it? Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) isn't quite convinced. Quiet and withdrawn, the skeptical young boy spends so much time locked away in his room that he's almost become invisible around the household. His mother Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) has recently purchased a zombie to help keep things tidy around the house though, and when the creature attempts to engage the curious youngster in a game of catch, a friendship is forged between boy and zombie that finds the amiable gut-muncher nicknamed Fido (Billy Connolly) practically becoming a part of the family. Things take a turn for the worse however, when Fido's collar malfunctions and Timmy's neighbors begin dying in droves. When ZomCom's top zombie control specialist Mr. Bottoms (Henry Czerny) moves in across the street from Timmy, the increasingly complicated situation threatens to place a serious stumbling block in the path of human-zombie relations. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Kaye, Jan Skorzewski, (more)
Comic actor Bob Saget served as producer and director of this made-for-TV film, inspired by the true story of Saget's sister Gay, who died in 1994 at the age of 47. Despite the pressures of single motherhood, schoolteacher Hope Altman (Dana Delany) seems to have her life in order until she is diagnosed with scleroderma, a disfiguring skin disease that causes her body's connective tissues to stiffen and atrophy, and will eventually paralyze her while eating away at her vital organs. There is no cure for scleroderma, and the survival rate is tragically low--and worse, neither the medical community nor the general public has a firm grasp on understanding the disease and its many victims (500,000, mostly female, in the United States alone). The film chronicles the manner in which Hope and her family handle the nightmarish situation, often with what Saget described as "irreverence and dark humor" (At one point, Hope's brother Alan--a comedy writer--quips that scleroderma sounds like "a deli entrée"). Sharon Monsky, who at the time ran one of the most prominent organizations for those suffering from scleroderma, appears briefly as herself. For Hope originally aired over the ABC network on November 17, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Armistead Maupin's colorful saga of life in San Francisco in the 1970s continues in this miniseries, the third following the characters of his serialized novel Tales of the City, which follows the story into 1981. After his relationship with Jon Fielding (Bill Campbell) comes to an end, Michael Tolliver (Paul Hopkins) throws himself back into dating, while Prue Giroux (Mary Kay Place) finds herself in a similar situation after her divorce. Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) finds that moving ahead in her career in local television is an uphill battle, while her boyfriend Brian Hawkins (Whip Hubley) is feeling the strain of adjusting to his new job while staying faithful to Mary Ann. And DeDe (Barbara Garrick) has some startling news for Mary Ann that could have a major impact on her life. Produced for the Showtime premium cable network, Further Tales of the City also stars Olympia Dukakis, Bruce McCulloch, Henry Czerny, Sandra Oh, Parker Posey, Scott Thompson, and Joel Grey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olympia Dukakis, Paul Hopkins, (more)
Delroy Lindo and Henry Czerny star in this TNT Original about Matthew Henson, the unsung hero of Robert Peary's historic expedition to the North Pole. Shown from the vantage point of Henson, an African American who began the journey as Peary's valet, the film explores his role in the expedition, eventually painting him as its most valuable member. Unfortunately, after completing their successful journey, Peary earned international fame while Henson was all but relegated to obscurity. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
A cop takes desperate measures to protect her identity in this urban thriller. Monica (Claire Forlani) is a police detective who has been sent undercover to crack open a drug-dealing operation run by Gale (Pete Postlethwaite). However, maintaining her cover has taken a heavy toll on Monica -- she's become romantically involved with Gale, and is now addicted to heroin. To make matters all the more dangerous for her, Monica has also been having a relationship with Denny (Henry Czerny), Gale's second in command. Denny lives in the same apartment building as an elderly woman named May (Lauren Bacall); Denny and May often get each other's mail, and as a result occasionally pass misdirected letters back and forth. When Denny is found dead, Monica begins to suspect that May might have a package from Denny that could blow her cover and reveal her true identity to Gale; desperate to find out how much May knows and what she could prove, Monica takes her hostage, but neither is sure what Monica will do when her need for heroin takes hold. Produced under the title The Limit, Gone Dark was the first directorial effort from producer and assistant director Lewin Webb. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Forlani
An American journalist takes on the dangerous responsibility of rescuing nearly a thousand refugees from a Nazi concentration camp in this two-part made-for-TV movie based on a true story. In the early days of America's involvement in World War II, Ruth Gruber (Natasha Richardson) is a reporter who has been giving particular attention to a recent story: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in violation of United States policies of the day, has announced he will grant asylum in America to 982 European refugees from Nazi labor camps. But someone needs to escort the prisoners to the U.S.; Gruber, of European ancestry and Jewish faith, volunteers for the assignment over the objections of her parents (Anne Bancroft and Martin Landau). Gruber travels to Italy on behalf of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes (Hal Holbrook), where she helps the refugees board the U.S.S. Henry Gibbins. But Gruber discovers that the American sailors manning the ship regard their passengers as little better than their Nazi jailers, and the State Department declares, upon their arrival in the United States, that all the refugees are to be housed in a camp in Oswego, NY -- even those who have families willing to sponsor them in America. Gruber realizes her work with the refugees is far from done, and she bravely battles against both bureaucracy and prejudice to win both dignity and fair treatment for the new settlers. Haven was originally broadcast on the CBS television network on February 11 and 14, 2001. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Natasha Richardson, Hal Holbrook, (more)
Actor Henry Adler (Tom McCamus) has a tenuous hold on his identity in Canadian director David Wellington's I Love a Man in Uniform. On his way to audition for a violent TV police show, he sees an officer shot in the line of duty. Using what he witnessed in his tryout, he impresses the casting director and gets the role of a tough street cop. But it's more than just a part for him: he takes his uniform home, goes out on the street, and gets mistaken for a real cop. Like Anthony John in A Double Life, he has become his character, and like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he wants to clean the world of its filth. This film is not merely an exploration of one man's descent into madness; it is also an indictment of society's confusion of televised fiction with real life. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom McCamus, Brigitte Bako, (more)
The fate of a remote Brazilian province will be determined by the passage of a reclamation bill. If the bill goes through the land will be destroyed. Fortunately, Father Stephen Lewis is working hard to stop it. For months he has led numerous high-profile protests, but then just a few days before the assembly retires to decide the bill, he simply vanishes. This off-beat political thriller chronicles the attempts of American reporter Michael Coleman to find the radical priest and interview him. Coleman, who works for a paper in Rio, is obsessed with finding Father Lewis for over the months the two have developed a tempestuous, argumentative relationship over the phone. Privately, Coleman wonders if the outspoken priest's actions mask ulterior motives. Still, he cannot help but respect the father's charisma and drive. So desperate is Coleman to find Lewis, that he stops at nothing, calling in every favor, and even resorting to dirty tricks. In the end it is his blatant abuse of media power that manages to keep the would-be land-grabbers from succeeding. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Czerny
This Canadian movie about a boy and his dog during the early 1920s is set in the countryside southeast of Montreal. Twelve-year-old Sam MacKenzie (Tod Fennell) is the son of an Arctic explorer who vanished in the tundra. His mother Althea (Bronwen Booth) has remarried, but Sam isn't as close to his stepfather, country doc Asa Robinson (Henry Czerny), as he is to the wolf-like dog Kayla. Sam builds a dog sled to enter a race with Kayla, but he soon is stunned to learn a request was made to have local authorities kill Kayla. Peter Behrens' screenplay is based on the novel by Elizabeth Van Steenwik. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tod Fennell, Henry Czerny, (more)
A thief gains an unlikely fan in a security specialist in this independent comedy. Emily (Meredith Bishop) is a young woman who isn't sure what she wants to do with her life; while she has fuzzy goals of becoming an artist, she's most concerned with convincing her mother (Leigh Taylor-Young) and her analyst (Michael Nouri) that everything is just fine. But Emily has discovered a way to take her mind off of her anxieties -- shoplifting. She steals for enjoyment rather than necessity, and her graceful work at a department store has earned her the admiration of Nick (Jsu Garcia), head of the store's security team. Nick is sick of his job and wants to start his own business; however, a seemingly foolproof get-rich-quick scheme has backfired, leaving him deep in debt to a Russian gangster (Henry Czerny). Rather than have Emily arrested, Nick persuades her to go out with him, and as a tentative relationship grows between the two, they decide to team up for a raid on the store after Nick is fired from his job. Klepto was the first feature film from director and screenwriter Thomas Trail. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meredith Bishop, Jsu Garcia, (more)
After he is framed for the death of several colleagues and falsely branded a traitor, a secret agent embarks on a daring scheme to clear his name in this spy adventure. Though it drew its name from the familiar television series, director Brian DePalma's big-budget adaptation shares little more with the original show than the occasional self-destructing message and the name of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). The film focuses not on Phelps but his protégé, Ethan Hunt (a reserved Tom Cruise), who becomes a fugitive after taking the blame for a botched operation. He responds by banding together with a group of fellow renegades, and he is soon maneuvering his way through a twisted series of double crosses that mainly serve as excuses for spectacular high-tech action sequences. Much of the activity revolves around a missing computer disk, with the film's most famous scene depicting Hunt's delicate efforts to retrieve the disk from a secure, well-alarmed room in CIA headquarters. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, (more)

- 1998
- Add My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story to QueueAdd My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story to top of Queue
One of the most sensational crime stories of the 1950s was the murder trial of Cleveland doctor Sam Sheppard, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Though he protested his innocence and insisted that he'd seen a "curly-haired man" leaving his house on the night of the crime, Sheppard was condemned in the court of public opinion long before the judge handed out his sentence. (This true story served as the basis for the long-running TV series The Fugitive.) Years later, Sheppard was released from prison after it was determined that he hadn't had a fair trial, but his name was never officially cleared. Forty years after the death of his mother, Sheppard's son Sam Reese made it his mission in life to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that his father was innocent. In this TV movie adaptation of the younger Sheppard's autobiographical book, Peter Strauss is seen as Dr. Sam Sheppard, and Henry Czerny as Sam Reese. My Father's Shadow: The Sam Sheppard Story made its CBS network bow on November 17, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Strauss, Henry Czerny, (more)
This adaptation of Dostoevsky's novella does an exceptional job of retaining the multi-textured richness of the original story about the intimate thoughts of an anonymous lonely building inspector known only as the Underground Man. Everything about the misanthropic civil servant is dull and unpleasant. His job is boring and his only joy comes in using bureaucracy to spitefully torment contractors and architects who despise him. Realizing that he has no friends, the Underground Man does try to ingratiate himself with acquaintances and only ends up even more lonely and bitter. It does not help that he believes himself intellectually superior to those he encounters. He gets involved with a prostitute, Liza, whom he sees at a local brothel. His relationship with her is as complex as he is. On one hand he inflicts his seething rage and the pain of his isolation upon her; on the other, he cares about her and wants to help her escape her sordid situation. He decides to take her to his home, but once she is there, he finds that he is unable to overcome his misanthropy and ends up making her even more miserable. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Czerny, Sheryl Lee, (more)
This made-for-cable drama was adapted from the true story of the only exorcism sanctioned by the Catholic church to be performed in America in the 20th century. Father Bowdern (Timothy Dalton) is a Jesuit priest and military veteran still dealing with the emotional traumas of World War II as he tends to his flock in St. Louis in 1949. A strange case comes to Bowdern's attention -- a boy named Robbie who has strange markings on his body and appears to be under the influence of some otherworldly spirit. Robbie's family believes the child has been possessed by a demon, and in time Bowdern agrees. After receiving the consent of the Vatican, Bowdern attempts the torturous process of casting out the demon, which proves to be as much a test of his own powers as those of the devil. Possessed also stars Piper Laurie, Christopher Plummer, and Henry Czerny. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Christopher Plummer, (more)
A conservative Presbyterian mother reaches out to the gay community for support after driving her homosexual son to suicide in this made-for-television movie adapted from Leroy Aaron's 1995 novel. Bobby Griffith (Ryan Kelley) hails from a devoutly Christian family. Lately Bobby's been questioning his own sexuality, and upon confiding this information to his older brother, the news quickly circulates to their parents and other siblings. While Bobby's father and siblings resolve to stand by him despite their opposition to his startling revelation, his mother Mary (Sigourney Weaver) believes that her son is committing a sin, and encourages him to change his ways with the help of the church. Despondent over his experiences in the church, Bobby decides that his best option is to move out of the family home, all the while hoping that his mother will find a means of accepting him for who he is. But Mary is staunch in her position, and when Bobby realizes he'll never live up to his mother's expectations he takes his own life. Devastated, Mary seeks consolation from her pastor but fails to find the answers she's looking for. In time, Mary begins a dialogue with the gay community, and discovers that sometimes support can come from the places we least expect. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny, (more)






























