Chris Noth Movies

This hilarious look at dating, mating and relating in New York is "a thinking person's sitcom, brutally honest and hilariously funny." - The San Francisco Examiner. Can women have sex like men? What's it like to date someone younger? And what is "The Rabbit"? Find out in "Sex And The City."

This crime film, in the tradition of Bonnie and Clyde, is the directorial debut of writer John Ridley, scripter of Oliver Stone's U Turn. The neo-noir tale begins as Jude (Kelly Lynch) and Ned (David Caruso) attempt a getaway with $250,000 worth of stolen diamonds, leaving three dead back at the jewelry store. Ned is captured, makes an escape, and is in the process of tracking Jude when he makes the mistake of picking up hitchhiker Bec (Stacey Dash). Bec talks on about the sexual abuse she received from her alcoholic father and then pulls a gun on Ned, who manages to disarm her. Other characters, including a grifter known as T (Chris Noth) and a fence named Cokebottles (Pruitt Taylor Vince of Heavy), surface before different double-crosses lead to the final road rendezvous. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Monica (Roma Downey) is assigned to help married couple Ed and Sarah Bingham (Alex McArthur, Jessica Steen) find "closure" six years after Sarah was raped by Carl Atwater (Chris Noth). Claiming to be a born-again Christian, Carl has been paroled, and now is stalking Sarah, all the while insisting that he merely wants to beg her forgiveness. Though terrified at the prospect of confronting Carl again, Sarah is hesistant to inform the police...or even her own husband. Things come to a head when Ed buys a gun to settle accounts with Carl--who is pursuing a deadly agenda of his own! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a hard-luck gambler learns a new commandment: Honor Thy Mother's Lottery Winnings. Johnny Amico (Mike Starr) runs a delicatessen in New York City; regarded as a nice guy by his friends and regular customers, he has a weakness for gambling and is usually in debt. Johnny is constantly nagged by his well-meaning but domineering mother (Judith Malina), who gives him ten dollars to play the same number every week in the lottery. One week, her number turns up a winner, but this is bad news for Johnny: convinced that the number would never win, he's been using the money to place bets of his own. Now Mom expects Johnny to come up with the prize money for a winning ticket he never bought; Johnny hatches a scheme to raise the money, but, given his usual success as a gambler, no one is very optimistic that he can pull it off. The Deli features an impressive list of supporting names, including actors Michael Imperioli, Frank Vincent, and Debi Mazar; rappers Heavy D and Ice T; singer David Johansen; and model Iman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This independently produced film, The Broken Giant, depicts the almost affectless life and loves of an eccentric, unpopular preacher in a very remote Maine country community. Ezra Caton (Will Arnett) is the minister with a somewhat drab life, and he is not unhappy to see it disrupted when he grants a young woman, Clio, "asylum" in his church sanctuary. She is on the run from her father for reasons which are unclear. What is clear is that she diverts the preacher's affections from his waitress girlfriend to herself. The two of them then go back to Clio's father's house, where they then have a marathon discussion with her aggrieved father. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The biggest news surrounding Law & Order's fifth season was the acrimonious exit of series regular Michael Moriarty, who, since the program's inception, had upheld the "Order" part of the program as Executive Assistant DA Ben Stone. According to the script, Stone quit the DA's office in disgust and despair after a witness to whom he'd promised protection was murdered. In truth, Moriarty had long been dissatisfied with the diminishing amount of screen time afforded the DA's office -- and he was also worried that then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno would make good on her promise to purge network TV of "excessive violence," a move he felt would emasculate reality-based series like Law & Order. With the departure of Ben Stone, a new face was added to the series' judicial lineup: Assistant DA Sam McCoy, played by Sam Waterston. Like his colleagues, McCoy was a basically decent, but decidedly imperfect, human being; famous for walking a very thin line between ethics and legal flim-flammery, he was also a renowned womanizer, having slept with virtually all of his former law partners -- a fact that added a fascinating dimension to his relationship with State's Attorney Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy). Despite its so-so ratings, Law & Order had enough viewer support and industry clout to survive its fifth season, passing the 100-episode mark with "Progeny" (although NBC, refusing to acknowledge the existence of the series' 1990 pilot episode because it had been commissioned by CBS, insisted that "Rage" was Number 100). One indication that the series was supported by its network was the fact that the producers were given enough production money to complete 23 episodes, rather than the standard 22. In what was rapidly becoming a Law & Order tradition, the 1994-1995 season ended with the exit of still another character. In the season finale, "Pride," Detective Mike Logan Chris Noth was yanked from homicide and reduced to pounding a beat on Staten Island after punching out a homophobic councilman. In real life, producer Dick Wolf decided not to renew Noth's contract, feeling that the actor had reached the limits of his character -- and that the world-weary Mike Logan did not provide enough contrast with his equally hard-bitten, acerbic partner Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach). Although Noth never returned to the weekly version of Law & Order, he was able to persuade the series' producers to fashion a spin-off TV movie, 1998's Exiled, which tied up the loose ends of Logan's career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sponsorship of noted filmmaker Martin Scorsese helped the novice filmmakers making this film get it produced and receive mainstream distribution. In addition, it features a vast number of appearances by well-known performers, who took an interest in the project, taking union minimum pay. In the story, Jake (Eric Stoltz) has grown up in a wonderfully neurotic household. It is just as well that he has developed a fondness for drama, as this material is excellent fodder for his playwriting. He has spent a lot of time collaborating with his friend Chris (Ralph Macchio) writing plays, and eventually is given his chance to prove his stuff in New York City. There, he discovers that Chris wants to be more than just a friend, and an important stage actress (Kathleen Turner) also has the hots for him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Another major casting change occurred during the third season of Law & Order, although not until the series had offered eight episodes. In "Prince of Darkness," an undercover police operation goes tragically awry, and Detective Phil Ceretta (Paul Sorvino) ends up seriously wounded. Though Ceretta would recover sufficiently to take up a desk job, Sorvino himself decided to leave the series for good; like George Dzundza before him, the actor felt that the series' format was too confining for his talents. Brought in as Mike Logan's (Chris Noth) new partner was Jerry Orbach as laconic veteran detective Lennie Briscoe, a recovering alcoholic with a multitude of family problems (which, in fine old Law & Order tradition, were only revealed to the audience on a "need to know" basis). At the time Orbach joined the series, there was much speculation (usually tongue-in-cheek in nature) as to how long it would be before he, too, was shot down in the line of duty, just like Logan's two previous partners, Greevey and Ceretta. As it turned out, Orbach not only outlasted Noth as Logan, but by season 13, he had been on the series longer than any other regular. A few stylistic changes marked season three. The "street action" was more or less cut to the bone, as was the background music. Also, in answer to viewer demand, the handheld camerawork became more steady and less distracting. One thing still remained constant from season one: the series' lack of regular female characters. At least Carolyn McCormick, in the recurring role of police psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, was spotlighted in the compelling episode "Helpless." Once again, Law & Order was honored with several Emmy nominations during the 1992-1993 season. This time out, the series copped the Emmy twice, for Elaine Stritch's guest-star turn in "Point of View" and for Constantine Makris' photography. Ratings remained steady, if not spectacular, but things would change dramatically during the next season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." With this pithy but all-inclusive prologue, thus began each hour-long episode of Law & Order, American network television's longest-running police drama.

This was not the first such program to equally divide its time between the arrest and the trial; indeed, there had been a series precisely titled Arrest and Trial back in 1963. But Law & Order was easily the most popular and successful of the batch, and as the series eased gracefully past its 11th, 12th, and 13th season, it was very likely that its creator and executive producer Dick Wolf would fulfill his dream of matching and even surpassing the longevity of Gunsmoke, which lasted 20 years, setting a record as American network television's most durable dramatic series. Although Law & Order boasted a large and fluid ensemble cast, there were no real "stars" per se, save for the city of New York (a point made by scores of TV historians, notably Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh). Virtually every episode starts out with the discovery of a dead body or evidence of a violent crime. A pair of NYPD detectives arrive on the scene, begin gathering evidence and eyewitnesses at the behest of their superiors, and -- generally after a handful of frustrating dead ends and false leads -- manage to collar the principal suspect. The story then shifts to the offices of the DA, where a team of brilliant prosecuting attorneys do their best to build a case against the accused, dodging the obstructive tactics of defense lawyers all along the way. Even when the case gets to court, the story is far from over, with several twists and turns -- and usually a shocking and unexpected denouement -- awaiting both the prosecutors and the viewer.

The series made its NBC network debut Thursday, September 13, 1990, moving to its originally scheduled Tuesday-night slot October 23. The original cast included, on the side of "Law," chubby, hard-boiled veteran detective Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza) and his younger, more athletic partner, Mike Logan (Chris Noth). Their supervisor was Captain Donald Cragen, played by Dann Florek. Once the detectives had completed their share of the work, the scene changed to the "Order" team of District Attorney Adam Schiff (played by Steven Hill), who appeared in all but the pilot episode, and a brace of intense, dedicated assistant DAs, the Caucasian Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty) and African-American Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks). The program's first season had several distinctions: In keeping with network's promise of delivering TV's top "action series," the scenes in which Greevey and Logan track down the perp are top-heavy with noise and violence (generally implied, but not always so), vertigo-inducing handheld camerawork and punchy background music. Also, individual scenes run a bit longer than the later short-and-sweet vignettes that would become the series' stylistic trademark. And unlike the relatively dispassionate detectives seen in later seasons, Greevey and Logan tend to become emotionally involved in their work; similarly, lawyers Stone and Robinette seem to take every legal setback personally, much more so than their successors in the series' subsequent years, although DA Schiff exhibits as much calm, stoic integrity in his first appearance as he would in his last, a decade later. Even in its earliest episodes, however, the emphasis is on the story rather than personalities: All we learn of the regulars' private lives is revealed in fragmentary fashion, and only when it bears some relevance.

Fans of the latter-day Law & Order will notice that the first season lacks the gender balance of the series' later years -- or, put more bluntly, the series was pretty much an "all boys' club." Although dozens of prominent actresses appeared in supporting roles, there were no regular female characters, a fact that tended to weaken the series' ratings in its formative seasons. Still, it would not be until the fourth season began in 1993 that any distaff characters would be added to the weekly lineup. One element of the series was established early on and would remain in place forever afterward: Most of the stories on Law & Order were "ripped from today's headlines," often with only the names changed to protect the innocent (?). In season one alone, the series offers fictionalizations of the Bernard Goetz subway shootings, the Menendez killings, the Central Park "Preppie Murder," the "Mayflower Madam," the Tawana Brawley imbroglio, and the Steinberg child-murder case. So close did the last-named episode come to the actual facts that the series' producers were compelled to include a disclaimer at the beginning of several episodes, assuring viewers that, although the story was inspired by real happenings, the script itself was otherwise purely a work of fiction. The fact that Law & Order was frequently pre-empted by network specials indicated that NBC wasn't all that sure of the series' success. By the end of the first season, however, the ratings, if not spectacular, were good enough to warrant a renewal -- while backstage intrigues assured that the series would undergo the first of its many abrupt cast changes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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 fond of the kid and has begun to thrive on the responsibilities of motherhood. All of this, of course, jeopardizes Keaton's love life and professional standing, but all turns out well when the baby inadvertently leads to a whole new moneymaking agenda for our heroine. Capraesque in concept, Baby Boom avoids phony sentiment and obvious humor, emerging as one of the singular comic delights of the late 1980s. On great bit has Keaton "celebrating" a major business coup by surreptiously performing an under-the-table jig (a bit of business that dates back to the 1924 Reginald Denny comedy Skinner's Dress Suit). Baby Boom was spun off into a TV sitcom in 1989, with Kate Jackson filling Diane Keaton's designer shoes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this charming comedy that lives up to its title, Judge Reinhold stars as Joe Gower, a librarian's assistant posing as a police officer and trying to win the heart of a beautiful police officer, Rachel Wareham (Meg Tilly). A complex chain of events is put in place when Joe agrees to help out a good friend who's a policeman by taking his place at an audition for the cop's annual benefit show. Once at the auditions, Joe falls for Rachel, who will be dancing in the benefit. Joe starts hanging out with the choreographer in order to spend more time with Rachel. Unfortunately, this gets him into his borrowed police uniform more than he would like, and soon he's carrying out the duties of a beat cop while wearing his disguise. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Apology stars Lesley Anne Warren (with a Stefanie Powers hairdo) as a Manhattan-based sculptor/performance artist. To enhance her latest project, Warren invites the participation of anonymous phone callers, whose voices she records. One of her unseen "collaborators" calls her up to confess to a murder--several murders, in fact. Warren strongly suspects that the mystery caller may be intending a little "performance" involving her own demise. Peter Weller co-stars as a sympathetic detective who ends up Warren's lover--but can he be trusted? Made for HBO, Apology was originally telecast July 27, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After emigrating to the United States in 1969, Czech-born director Ivan Passer finally broke through to American audiences with his fourth film, a unique blend of mystery and social commentary. Cutter's Way is set in Santa Barbara, CA, a community of wealth and power. Its main characters, however, are among the town's have-nots: Richard Bone Jeff Bridges, a beach-boy gigolo starting to go to seed; Bone's best friend Alex Cutter (John Heard), a Vietnam veteran maimed in body and spirit; and Mo (Lisa Eichorn), Cutter's alcoholic wife. When Cutter spots one of the community's most prominent citizens in the act of covering up a murder, Bone insists that the police would never take their word over that of a man of wealth and prestige. Cutter seizes the opportunity to blackmail the killer, as a means of striking back at a system he thinks sent him off to an unjust war and ruined his life. The film was fortunate to fall into the hands of United Artists Classics, a new division of the company crippled by the financial disaster of Heaven's Gate. UA Classics adroitly marketed Cutter's Way, riding a wave of rave reviews and good word-of-mouth among more discriminating filmgoers to modest box-office success. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide