Laura Allen Movies
Reportedly a distant relative of the late
Princess Grace of Monaco, Portland, OR, native
Laura Allen grew up on Washington State's Bainbridge Island, and attended Wellesley College, earning her undergraduate degree not in the performing arts but in criminology. After an exhausting stint doing social work in Manhattan,
Allen sought out acting as a break from a draining and demanding career. She commenced with off-Broadway theatrical assignments, then moved into filmed work in 2000, with the recurring role of Laura Kirk English du Pres on the long-running soap opera
All My Children -- a part she held for two years.
Allen achieved her first major movie break as a Wellesley coed (no major stretch given her background) in
Mike Newell's female-driven period drama
Mona Lisa Smile (2003), opposite
Julia Roberts,
Kirsten Dunst, and others.
Allen then made an impression as a recurring cast member on two television series. On the sci-fi drama
The 4400, she played Lily, one of four thousand MIA people disgorged by a falling meteorite. As the series rolls forward, the character must not only contend with the fact that the life of her family has continued, more or less unabated, without her, but deal with a mysterious pregnancy by an unknown progenitor.
Allen then essayed a much different role on the prime-time melodrama
Dirt, as a beloved young actress who finds her life and world destroyed by a nefarious tabloid. She was cast in The Collective and From Within, and then appeared in the box office smash Old Dogs. In 2012 she landed a leading role on the TV drama Awake. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

- 2012
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A reality-bending drama about a detective who lives in two parallel worlds after surviving his family's car accident. In one reality, his wife survived the crash and his son perished. In the other, his son continues to live but his wife was killed. While trying to regain footing in his complex double lives, he continues his efforts to crack cases in both worlds. ~ Dean Maurer, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Jason Isaacs, Dylan Minnette, (more)

- 2010
- R
- Add Cherry to Queue
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A naïve teenager finds out just how complicated adult relationships can be in this comedy drama from veteran television director Jeffrey Fine. Aaron (Kyle Gallner) is a bright but socially awkward college freshman studying to become an engineer, like most of the men in his family. Aaron has been accepted into a special advanced program at an Ivy League university, but he's also a gifted cartoonist and would rather study art. Aaron tries to work some drawing classes into his schedule, and through one he meets Linda (Laura Allen), a beautiful 34-year-old single mother who has returned to college. Upbeat and outspoken, Linda befriends Aaron; he's flattered by the attention and becomes deeply infatuated with her. However, when Linda invites Aaron home for dinner, he's introduced to Beth (Britt Robertson), her sharp-tongued and precocious 14-year-old daughter. Beth immediately develops a passionate crush on Aaron, and he finds himself in an uncomfortable position -- the woman he wants is only going to be his friend, while he's not so interested in the girl who wants him (and he could go to jail if he responds to her advances). Cherry received its world premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Kyle Gallner, Laura Allen, (more)

- 2009
- PG
- Add Old Dogs to Queue
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John Travolta and Robin Williams team up in the Walt Disney Company's Old Dogs, a family comedy that pairs the two as close business partners whose lives are thrown into disarray when twin seven-year-olds are put into their care. Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, co-stars, along with the couple's daughter, Ella, who makes her big-screen debut here. Wild Hogs helmer Walter Becker directs a script by Evolution scribes David Diamond and David Weissman, with producing duties going to Andrew Panay, Peter Abrams, and Robert Levy. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
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- Starring:
- John Travolta, Robin Williams, (more)

- 2007
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- Add Dirt: Season 01 to Queue
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Dirt stars Courteney Cox as Lucy Spiller, celebrity journalist and editor-in-chief of DirtNow, a tabloid magazine that traffics in sleaze -- especially sleaze with a Hollywood dateline. She and her photographer Don Konkey (Ian Hart) probe Hollywood's seamy underbelly in search of seepage, in a contant race with other media bottom feeders. Lucy simultaneously tries to engage her personal life, which includes her actor boyfriend, Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart), and her brother Leo Spiller (Will McCormack). This four-disc, 13-episode box set of Season 1 (which aired on cable's FX network in 2007) features an array of character-driven special features, including a behind-the-scenes look at real-life paparazzi darlings and co-producing couple, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, as well as interviews with entertainment leaders and Hollywood gossip gurus, a profile on schizophrenic paparazzo Konkey, and deleted scenes.
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- Starring:
- Courteney Cox, Ian Hart, (more)

- 2006
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House (Hugh Laurie) takes a personal interest in 6-year-old patient Ian (MacKenzie Astin), whose kidneys and pituitary gland are rapidly failing. The exact same symptoms occurred to a 73-year-woman who'd been House's patient a dozen years ago--and who had died less than a day after she was admitted to the hospital. Unwilling to make the same mistakes twice, House is bound and determined to succeed with Ian where he had failed with his previous patient. Meanwhile, the boy's regular doctor Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) is drinking and laughing the night away at a benefit poker tournament for the clinic's oncology department--and House intends to keep her thus occupied until he can figure out a solution to Ian's plight all by himself! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- 2005
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- Add The 4400: Season 02 to Queue
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As Season Two of USA Network's sci-fi thriller The 4400 gets under way, several of the secrets closely held during Season One have been revealed--foremost among the fact that those 4400 humans who'd suddenly reappeared in a flash of light after having been kidnapped from the earth over a period of nearly six decades were not alien abductees, but instead had been snatched up by futuristic earthlings. The purpose was to "seed" the abductees throughout history to prevent the apocalyptic destruction of the earth! Of special importance to National Threat Assessment Command agent Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch), who along with fellow agent Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie) had been assigned to track down all of the "4400" once some of them had begun exhibiting awesome paranormal powers, is the fact that the futuristic kidnappers had selected Tom's own son Kyle (Chad Faust as their primary messenger--and also as an avenging angel, foresworn to kill the one "4400" member who poses the greatest threat to mankind It is also now known that it is the "promicin", a transmitter imbedded in each of the 4400's brains, that gives them their unique powers, and that NTAC plans to kill off the most "dangerous" abductees (as well as few innocent bystanders!) with a promicin inhibitor. The only antidote to this inhibitor is found in the blood of Isabelle, the infant daughter of "4400" Lily Moore (Laura Allen) and Richard Tyler (Mahershalhashbaz Ali)--and thus Isabelle has been targetted for elimination as soon as she can be found. As the season ends, the NTAC goes to great lengths to wipe out all evidence that the 4400 ever existed. But those "in the know" intend to see that justice is done to the surviving 4400...and to solve the many puzzles still remaining. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- 2004
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- Add The 4400: Season 01 to Queue
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The first season of USA Network's sci-fi thriller The 4400 begins (pardon the cliché) with a bang, as a huge, glowing object falls from the sky and lands near Highland Beach, Washington. The comet-like object then disgorges some 4400 human beings, all of whom had vanished from the earth over the past 58 years! After a brief quarantine, the "4400" leave for various parts of the world--and then several returns, exhibiting such paranormal abilities as telekinesis, mind control, supersensitve hearing, and even, in the case of Shawn Farrell (Patrick Flueger), the power to revive the dead. Another of the 4400, Lily Moore, is pregnant with the child of Richard Tyler (Mahershalahashbaz Ali) Acutely aware that the returnees' otherworldly powers can be used for evil as well as good, Dennis Ryland (Peter Coyote), head of the National Threat Assessment Command division of Homeland Security, dispatches agents Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie) to locate the rest of the 4400 to make certain that nothing terrible happens. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done, as witness the serial killer who has the power to make others do his dirty work. Also, whatever has caused the 4400 to develop these skills also has a profound effect on the two NTAC agents--to say nothing of Tom's son Kyle (Chad Faust), whose erratic behavior turns is a harbinger of things to come. Meanwhile, another of the 4400, the mysterious Jordan Collier (Bill Campbell), offers protection and shelter to his fellow retunees at Arcadia Estates--an outward act of altrusim that may be a cover up for a sinister hidden agenda. The five-episode first season ends after several of the 4400 are assassinated once their identities are made public--and after the startling secret behind the 4400 is revealed (we won't give too much away here: suffice to say that, though the 4400 were definitely abduction victims, their abductors were NOT aliens from another planet!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Peter Coyote, Joel Gretsch, (more)

- 2004
- R
- Add Sucker Free City to Queue
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Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee makes the leap from the big screen to the small screen for this Showtime drama concerning the battle waged between black, white, an Asian gangs for control of the San Francisco streets. A modern-day melting pot that has become home to some of the vicious street-gangs in the country, San Francisco is a city teeming with racial tension. When each gang lays claim to the streets in a desperate bid to establish their turf, the simmering tensions soon boil to the surface in a violent eruption of murder and chaos. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Ben Crowley, Ken Leung, (more)

- 2003
- PG13
- Add Mona Lisa Smile to Queue
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Set in 1953, Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), a new young art history professor at Wellesley College, an all-female campus with a prestigious reputation for academic excellence. Unfortunately for free-minded Berkeley grad Watson, her East Coast teaching stint comes during a less-progressive time that finds most of her students -- among them Betty Warren (Kirsten Dunst), Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles), and Giselle Levy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) -- more interested in nabbing a good husband than achieving scholastic and intellectual growth. Watson challenges her students and the Wellesley faculty to think outside of the current mores of the community and redefine what it means to be a success; meanwhile, she tries to come to terms with her own heart's desires. Mona Lisa Smile co-stars Marcia Gay Harden, Juliet Stevenson, and, as Watson's conflicting love interests, Dominic West and John Slattery. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
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- Starring:
- Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, (more)