Amy Irving Movies

This classic horror movie based on Stephen King's first novel stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy, diffident teenager who is the butt of practical jokes at her small-town high school. Her blind panic at her first menstruation, a result of ignorance and religious guilt drummed into her by her fanatical mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie), only causes her classmates' vicious cruelty to escalate, despite the attentions of her overly solicitous gym teacher (Betty Buckley). Finally, when the venomous Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen) engineers a reprehensible prank at the school prom, Carrie lashes out in a horrifying display of her heretofore minor telekinetic powers. Many films had featured school bullies, but Carrie was one of the first to focus on the special brand of cruelty unique to teenage girls. Carrie's world is presented as a snake pit, where the well-to-do female students all have fangs -- even the reticent Sue Snell (Amy Irving) -- and all the males are blind pawns, sexually twisted around the fingers of Chris and her evil cronies. The talented supporting cast includes John Travolta, P.J. Soles, and William Katt. One of the genre's true classics, the film was followed by a sequel in 1999, as well as by a famously unsuccessful Broadway musical adaptation that starred Betty Buckley, the movie's gym teacher, as Margaret White. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Based on a short story by Sherwood Anderson, I'm a Fool stars Ron Howard as a 1920s race-track groom. Told in bittersweet flashbacks, the story relates Howard's attempts to impress pretty debutante Amy Irving by pretending to be rich. If only he'd just been "himself"...but by the time he realizes this, it's too late. Previous adaptations of the Anderson story have included a 1954 GE Theatre half-hour starring James Dean. Shown in tandem with a dramatization of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair, the Ron Howard version of I'm a Fool was first telecast April 5, 1977, on PBS' American Short Story series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amy Irving plays a deaf woman whose ambition is to become a professional dancer in this drama. Rosemarie Lemon is unhappy with the support she is getting from her family for her dreams. She meets a sensitive truck driver, Drew Rothman (Michael Ontkean), and they become lovers. Rothman's family is full of hatred for the world and ridicules his dream of becoming a singer. Their common ambitions and need for support make their relationship stronger, as each pursues a dream. Director Robert Markowitz uses rock & roll songs to fill in the parts in the movie where Lemon's deafness is emphasized. The soundtrack includes tunes by Burton Cummings, Tom Petty, and Willie Nelson. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

After displaying his easygoing charm in a number of television appearances and a showy supporting role in The Electric Horseman, Willie Nelson scored his first leading role in this romantic comedy-drama in which he (appropriately enough) plays a musician. Buck Bonham (Nelson) is a country singer/songwriter with a loyal following in his native Texas and the neighboring Western states. However, Buck hasn't yet had the hit record that would make him a star nationwide; in the meantime, Buck and his band keep up a busy tour schedule, much to the annoyance of his wife, Viv (Dyan Cannon), and son, Jamie (Joey Floyd), who would like to see Buck at home every once in a while. As Buck wonders if he should press on with his musical career or call it quits, his close friend and longtime guitarist Garland Ramsey (Slim Pickens) announces he's retiring, and suggests a good replacement -- his daughter, Lily (Amy Irving). Lily had a crush on Buck as a child, and now as a full-grown and very beautiful woman, her infatuation has only increased with time. Consequently, Buck must choose between Viv and Lily as well as his home and his career. Honeysuckle Rose was written specifically for Nelson, and his character bears more than a passing similarity to Willie and his life before the album Red Headed Stranger made him a star; the film also earned Nelson an Academy Award nomination for the film's theme song, "On the Road Again." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Micki (Ann Reinking) is the wife of Rob (Dudley Moore), an airheaded TV talk show host. Maude (Amy Irving) is an attractive musician who is unaware of Micki's existence, and with whom Rob falls in love. Rob is a guy who can't say no, thus when Maude announces that she's pregnant, Rob obligingly marries her. Trouble is, he's still married to Micki who is also pregnant. To make matters worse, Rob's wives are due to give birth on the same day, forcing the double dealer to work doubly hard to keep both demanding women happy. Matters reach their comical climax when the Big Day arrives and Rob is expected to attend both births at the same time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Heartbreak House is a 1985 TV staging of the 1920 comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Rex Harrison stars as retired British sea captain Shotover, who tries vainly to maintain an even keel in his own household. The catalyst for the plot is Ellie (Amy Irving), a friend of Shotover's eldest daughter Heslone (Rosemary Harris). Having set her cap for a self-made industrialist (George Martin), Ellie is talked out of the union by Heslone, whereupon the younger girl claims she's taken up with an elusive and highly suspect stranger. As Shotover watches helplessly, the social structure that he has honored all his life crumbles before him--a symbol, claim Shaw's disciples, of the collapse of "proper" European society after World War I. This videotaped version of Heartbreak House premiered over the Showtime Cable service on April 16, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This two-part TV movie recounts the life of Anna Anderson, who until the day she died at age 82 insisted that she was really Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Czar Nicholas. Anna first makes her claim in 1920, when she is an inmate in a Berlin asylum. Her story of escape from the Bolsheviks who killed the rest of her family in 1918 seems so vivid that many Russian expatriates are willing to believe her. The film concludes in 1928, with Anna restating her claim before the surviving Romanovs living in New York. Amy Irving plays the leading character in a lady-or-the-tiger fashion, so that we never know if she truly swallows her own tale or if she's merely a clever charlatan. Olivia DeHavilland, Rex Harrison, Claire Bloom, Omar Sharif and Susan Lucci co-star in this opulent, location-filmed production, which originally aired on December 7 and 8, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Robert Zemeckis's trailblazing combination of animation and live-action, Hollywood's 1940s cartoon stars are a subjugated minority, living in the ghettolike "Toontown" where their movements are sharply monitored by the human power establishment. The Toons are permitted to perform in a Cotton Club-style nightspot but are forbidden to patronize the joint. One of Toontown's leading citizens, whacked-out Roger Rabbit, is framed for the murder of human nightclub owner Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), whose prejudice against Toons stems from the time that his brother was killed by a falling cartoon piano, reluctantly agrees to clear Roger of the accusation. Most of the sociopolitical undertones of the original novel were weeded out out of the 1988 film version, with emphasis shifted to its basic "evil land developer" plotline --and, more enjoyably, to a stream of eye-popping special effects. With the combined facilities of animator Richard Williams, Disney, Warner Bros., Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, the film allows us to believe (at least for 90 minutes) that "toons" exist, and that they are capable of interacting with 3-dimensional human beings. Virtually every major cartoon character of the late 1940s shows up, with the exceptions of Felix the Cat and Popeye the Sailor, whose licensees couldn't come to terms with the producers. Of the film's newly minted Toons, the most memorable is Roger Rabbit's curvaceous bride Jessica (voiced, uncredited, by Kathleen Turner). The human element is well-represented by Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, and Joanna Cassidy; also watch for action-film producer Joel Silver as Roger Rabbit's Tex Avery-style director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, television reporter Kate Ryan de Melendez (Amy Irving) investigates the death of two radical Puerto Rican activists, whom she begins to believe may have been framed and murdered by undercover American agents. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this suspense thriller, a woman wonders if she can trust her memory when her father returns from prison a very different man from the violent psychopath she remembers. Karen (Amy Irving) is a single mother who twenty years ago delivered the testimony that put her father Frank (Donald Sutherland) behind bars for the murder of her mother. While Karen has no doubts that Frank is guilty of the crime, the years have clouded her memory a bit and she doesn't recall all the events with complete clarity. Now that Frank has been released, he's returned to Karen's neighborhood and is going out of his way to ingratiate himself with Pete (Rider Strong), her son, and Dan (Christopher McDonald), her boyfriend. A furious Karen confronts Frank, but she discovers a father who is not the ogre she sent to prison but a calm, charming, well-spoken gentleman who seems to bear her no ill will. They discuss the death of Karen's mother and Frank begins to convince her that it was all a terrible accident. Frank begins to work his way back into Karen's life as he gradually cuts her off from her circle of friends; when Dan dies under mysterious circumstances, Karen thinks nothing of it, but Sheriff Calhoun (Graham Greene) wonders if Frank might have something to do with the crime. Benefit of the Doubt marked the feature debut for producer Jonathan Heap. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide