Sam Neill Movies

Made for television, Submerged is the true story of the U.S.S Squalus, a submarine which was immobilized some 230 feet below the Portsmouth Naval Yard in 1939. Taking into account the 59 crew members on board, a daring and dangerous plan was hatched to expedite a rescue, using a diving bell for that purpose. Inasmuch as this constituted the first rescue of a living crew from an American submarine (and, incidentally, the first time that such an event was covered live on television), there is little doubt as to the outcome, though enough suspense is engendered by the central situation that one wonders why it was deemed necessary to include a sappy romantic subplot. Sam Neill heads the cast as "Swede" Momsen, the grizzled old Naval officer who stage-managed the rescue. Based on Peter Maas' book The Terrible Hours, Submerged originally aired May 20, 2001 on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of Australia's best-loved children's books is brought to the screen in this animated comedy-adventure from down under. Bunyip Bluegum (voice of Geoffrey Rush) is a koala bear who has lost his parents and can't find them. While many of his friends and relatives fear that Bunyip's folks are dead, Bunyip is certain they're still alive, and sets out on the road to find them. In his travels, Bunyip makes several new friends, including landlocked sailor Bill Barnacle (voice of Hugo Weaving), a penguin named Sam Sawnoff (voice of Sam Neill), and Albert (voice of John Cleese), a magical pudding who can change flavors at will and never runs out, no matter how much people eat him. But the mean-spirited wombat Buncle (voice of Jack Thompson) discovers Albert and decides he wants the magical pudding all for himself, and Sam, Bill, and Bunyip must come to his rescue. The Magic Pudding is based on the illustrated children's story by Norman Lindsay, who outside Australia is best known for his more controversial artwork for grown-ups; his paintings favored sensual depictions of nude women, and his story later formed the basis of the 1994 film Sirens, in which Sam Neill played Lindsay. Toni Collette and Dave Gibson also contribute to The Magic Pudding's voice cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This miniseries details the complex real-life relationship between Thomas Jefferson (Sam Neill), author of the Declaration of Independence and his slave Sally Hemings (Carmen Ejogo). Fuelled by recent DNA evidence of the Hemings-Jefferson relationship, the miniseries sidesteps much of Jefferson's political life and instead focuses on the love story. Though she acquired her freedom at age 16 while traveling with Jefferson to France, she faithfully remained with her lover throughout his life in spite of emotional consequences to both her brother and her children -- who were doomed to be sold as slaves. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Based on the true story of a priest who risked his life in order to help people no one else would touch (a wager he would eventually lose), Father Damien stars David Wenham as the titular Belgian saint. In 1872, Damien, a young Catholic priest serving as a missionary near Hawaii, volunteers to spend three months working in a colony for victims of leprosy on the island of Molokai. When he arrives, he discovers the lepers have been herded to a barely inhabitable part of the island where they're treated like animals. Damien is shocked, and makes it his crusade to improve the lives of the lepers, planting trees to help buffer the island's strong winds and building huts to house the sicker members of the tribe. Damien also concerns himself with their spiritual needs, restoring a sense of dignity and self-respect among the diseased and urging them away from drinking, sex, and other sinful behavior. At first, Damien's pleas to the mainland for medicine, supplies, and medical help fall on deaf ears, but soon the press picks up on Damien's story -- which only angers the Hawaiian government, who would prefer the plight of the lepers be forgotten. Damien is destined to spend the last years of his life on Molokai when he contacts the disease himself, working to ease the pain of his fellow victims to his last breath. Father Damien boasts a star-studded supporting cast, including Sam Neill, Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern, Kris Kristofferson, and Derek Jacobi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Robert Redford directed himself for the first time in this romantic drama adapted from the 1995 best-seller by Nicholas Evans. Fourteen-year-old Grace MacLean (Scarlett Johansson of Manny & Lo) and her friend Judith go horseback riding in upstate New York on a winter morning, but their horses lose their footing on ice and slide onto a road, where Judith and her horse are killed by a jackknifing truck. Grace and her horse are also seriously injured -- doctors must amputate Grace's right leg -- and the frightening incident leaves a lasting trauma not only on Grace but also on her horse, Pilgrim. Grace's mother -- magazine editor Annie MacLean (Kristin Scott Thomas) -- seeking Grace's recovery, feels there's a link between her crippled, embittered daughter and Pilgrim's behavior. Learning about a horse trainer with a special gift, she takes Grace and Pilgrim to Montana where horse whisperer Tom Booker (Robert Redford) lives on a ranch with his younger brother Frank (Chris Cooper), Frank's wife Diane (Dianne Wiest) and their children. Tom's work with the horse also has a rejuvenating effect on the guilt-ridden Grace. Annie loses her magazine job, and the low-key romantic involvement between Annie and Tom develops during the summer, stifled by the unexpected arrival of Annie's husband, Robert MacLean (Sam Neill). Screenplay by Eric Roth and Richard LaGravenese (who adapted The Bridges of Madison County). Filmed in Montana and Saratoga Springs, New York. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Once upon a time, pursuing wolves frighten horses drawing a carriage, and it tumbles down a hill. Dying, the pregnant woman inside orders her grieving husband Frederick (Sam Neill) to cut the baby from her womb, so that at least it might live. Years later, the infant is now headstrong young Lilli (Taryn Davis), who is resentful of her father's upcoming marriage to Claudia (Sigourney Weaver). Claudia is devoted to the memory of her own mother and installs a magic mirror that belonged to her in a wardrobe in her private room. More time passes; Lilli is now an adult, but her relationship with the now-pregnant Claudia has never improved, though Claudia has never done her any ill. Claudia loses her baby, and on the same night, gazes into her mother's mirror, which shows her an image of herself young and beautiful. She determines to rid herself of Lilli. Lilli is walking near the forest when Claudia's mute brother Gustav (Miroslav Taborski) draws a knife and chases the frightened young woman into the forest. She evades him, so he kills a pig and takes the heart to a delighted Claudia, who believes it to be Lilli's heart. She has Gustav put the heart in a stew cooking in the kitchen, and that night as she dines with Frederick, Lilli eats the stew with great pleasure. Later, Frederick and some men search for Lilli in the rainy forest.

Lilli takes refuge from wolves in a ruined castle, where she's confronted by seven vagabonds who've banned together to seek a lost gold mind. Will (Gil Bellows), scarred during the Crusades, is around Lilli's own age and resents her presence, but the older Lars (Brian Glover) is friendlier to her. The mirror tells Claudia that Lilli is still alive, so in the forest where Claudia keeps a shrine to her dead baby, she casts a spell designed to kill her stepdaughter. Lilli, helping the men in their mine, is almost smothered in a cave-in; she's rescued, but one of the men dies. The mirror again tells Claudia that Lilli still lives. Whirling in a black gown, Claudia conjures a wind that strikes the forest; giant trees topple all around Lilli and the men, killing Lars, but Lilli still lives. So the mirror now transforms Claudia into a bald old hag, and she goes into the forest herself. She offers an apple to Lilli, who takes one bite and falls into a trance that no one can tell from death. She's placed in a stained-glass coffin and lowered into the ground, but the agonized Will, who's fallen in love with her, lifts her from the coffin and a piece of apple falls from her mouth. She returns to life, and they all head for the castle. She arrives in time to interrupt Claudia in the act of slashing Frederick's throat, then confronts Lilli in a room full of mirrors. (There's a hint that Claudia had a part in the death of Lilli's mother.) Lilli stabs not Claudia but her mirror image. It bursts apart, shredding and burning Claudia to death.

This bold movie out-grims the Brothers Grimm, telling their oft-told tale as a horror movie/adventure -- and it works. In fact, the weakness of the movie is precisely that the story is so familiar, but the changes wrought by the writers and director keep it fresh for most of its length. It's handsomely designed, using real locations and costumes that are never too grand for the setting. Weaver is clearly having a great time as the not-so-wicked stepmother who eventually becomes a vengeful witch. Especially for a fairy tale, the characters are complex and not necessarily always likable; even Lilli (who is never called "Snow White") has a hard edge, and her "Prince Charming" is a bitter, scarred commoner. It's a shame this attractive, imaginative film didn't have any theatrical release in the United States; originality, especially in a field as well-ploughed as fairy tales, should be encouraged. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Jonathan Kaplan remakes Richard Brooks' 1967 masterpiece that takes the viewer inside the mind of a pair of killers during a shocking murder of a farm family in 1950s Kansas. Anthony Edwards and Eric Roberts star in this version. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Children of the Revolution is an Australian film whose cinematic roots go back to the sardonic comedies of Billy Wilder. It is set in two time periods, the 1950s and 1990s, and goes back and forth between them. In the 1990s, Australian politician Joe Welch (Richard Roxburgh) is having some serious difficulties. We learn just how serious they are through a series of interviews with important political commentators. Joe blames his mother, Joan Fraser (Judy Davis), for his problems. This claim seems ridiculous until we flash back to the 1950s and discover that Joan, an ardent communist, had a very brief fling with Joseph Stalin (F. Murray Abraham) and that Joe Welch could be Stalin's love-child. Welch was brought up accompanying his mother on her political rounds, and acquired a fondness for jack-booted women -- something which haunts him in his adult life. Double agent David Hoyle (Sam Neill) also had an affair with Joan during her one brief trip to Moscow, and his shadowy influence also follows Welch into the time of the film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This third feature film version of Joseph Conrad's tragic romantic drama (the best of which remains John Cromwell's 1940 adaptation) is the one that stick's closest to the original story of a reclusive, hard-hearted fellow living on a private island in the Dutch East Indies who must protect his home, and the woman he comes to love, from two brutish villains. The story is told by a sea captain and begins at a turn-of-the century hotel in the port town of Surabaya where the Dutch entrepreneurs come to drink and wind down while listening to an all-female orchestra led by creepy conductor Sam Giancomo (Simon Callow). The joint is owned by an unpleasant, bigoted German named Schomberg (Jean Yanne) who constantly pesters the conductor to sell him Alma (Irene Jacob), the prettiest girl in the band. Eventually Sam relents, causing the frightened Alma to beseech taciturn patron Axel Heyst (Willem Dafoe) to help her escape. At first Axel refuses, but then has a change of heart and takes her with him to his lonely island where she will live with himself and his valet Wang (Ho Yi). Initially, Axel wants nothing to do with Alma, but things change and they become lovers. Meanwhile, the vengeful Schomberg plots revenge. He gets a chance to enact it with the arrival of the villainous Mr. Jones (Sam Neill) and his henchmen who turn Schomberg's bar into a gambling house. Seeing that Jones is ruthless and avaricious, Schomberg casually mentions that there is an untapped fortune lying in an abandoned mine located on Axel's island. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sex, religion, and morality are the key ingredients in this Australian comedy set in the 1930s. Rev. Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) is a liberal, forward-thinking Anglican priest who is sent on an unusual assignment. Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) is a popular and highly controversial artist whose paintings often feature voluptuous nude women; his latest major exhibition is to feature a work called The Crucified Venus, which depicts a naked female impaled on a cross. Outraged, the Anglican Bishop of Sydney wants Campion to visit Lindsay and persuade him to remove the work from his show. Rev. Campion and his wife, Estella (Tara Fitzgerald), travel to Lindsay's Blue Mountain estate, where the artist is hard at work with a bevy of lovely nude models in tow, including Sheela (Elle MacPherson), Giddy (Portia de Rossi), and Pru (Kate Fischer). The Reverend is quietly appalled by the open sensuality of Lindsay's household, and Estella is mortified; they're even more upset when Lindsay calmly but firmly refuses to remove The Crucified Venus from his show. However, the longer the Campions stay with Lindsay in hopes of changing his mind, the more they find themselves drawn into the sensuous pleasures of his world. Sirens was based on an actual incident and Norman Lindsay was a real artist of the period (his life was depicted in the film Age of Consent, in which he was played by James Mason). But audiences were probably less interested in art and cultural history than in the opportunity to see supermodel Elle MacPherson appear undraped; she also gives a fine and charming comic performance, as do Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hired to help locate a missing author, an insurance investigator discovers to his terror that the nightmarish events depicted in the writer's best-selling horror novels are coming true. Wishing to be both a horror film and a parody of the genre, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness combines supernatural thrills with winking references. For instance, the vanished author, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), is modeled on writers like Stephen King and Howard Phillips Lovecraft, from his great popularity to his obsession with small-town New England. Indeed, it is to one such hamlet that investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) and Cane's female editor (Julie Carmen) travel, discovering a town filled with terrifying scenes right out of Cane's books, from random axe murders to far worse. Have Cane's fans gone psychotic and begun imitating his writings, or are Cane's stories of an otherworldly evil invading the earth actually true? In the Mouth of Madness's mix of self-referential satire and real frights anticipates the later Scream (1996). ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Family Pictures is a two-part TV adaptation of the Sue Miller novel of the same name. Anjelica Huston and Sam Neill are Lainey and David Eberlin, a 1950s married couple with six children, one of whom, Randall (Jamie Harrold), is autistic. The parents' initial decision not to institutionalize the boy results in a terrific strain on the rest of the family, until finally only Lainey is willing to shoulder the responsibility of raising Randall. The second half of Family Pictures, related from the vantage point of the 1980s by the Eberlins' oldest daughter (Kyra Sedgwick), details the effect that Randall's inevitable institutionalization had on the family. This anecdotal four-hour drama first aired on March 21 and 22, 1993. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide