Nancy Travis Movies

At the request of a judge, a retired sea-loving couple (Treat Williams and Nancy Travis) reluctantly take in troubled kids headed for juvenile detention. As days stretch into weeks, the couple see positive changes in their charges that inspire them to reconsider the course of their retirement. Based on a true story. ~ Brie Hearn, Rovi

Robin Swicord's adaptation of the novel The Jane Austen Book Club concerns a group of women and a man who meet regularly to discuss the works of the popular author, but soon discover their lives are playing out much like one of the author's fictional worlds. Among the members of the club are Sylvia (Amy Brenneman), a recent divorcée; Bernadette (Kathy Baker), who has decided to accept her advancing age; and Prudie (Emily Blunt), who feels guilty about her persistent fantasies of cheating on her loving husband. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Tom Selleck stretches his dramatic range by playing a liberal Democrat in this comedy-drama satirizing the underside of party politics. Governor James Pryce (Tom Selleck) is a well-respected politician with a strong reformist streak who is a shoo-in for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, thanks to a well-run primary campaign organized by his manager Lauren Hartman (Laura Linney), and the savvy speechmaking and moral support of his wife Jenny (Nancy Travis). Now Pryce has to pick a vice-presidential candidate, which proves to be not all that simple. Senator Parker Gable (Robert Culp) helped give Pryce his start in politics, and his wife Meg (Faye Dunaway), a Queen Bee on the Washington social scene, has asked Pryce to consider Gable as VP. Pryce believes Gable would be the right man for the job, but he's well known to chase anything in a skirt, and Pryce thinks his nomination would be a scandal waiting to happen. Besides Gable, the two most likely choices for Pryce's running mate are Senator Mitchell Morris (Bruce McGill), whose strong links to a number of corporate benefactors make Pryce nervous, and Senator Terrence Randall (Bob Grunton), whose outspoken support of campaign finance reform does not sit well with Shawna Morgan (Teri Hatcher), the fundraising expert who has been filling Pryce's war chest. Running Mates was produced for the TNT cable network, where it first aired on August 13, 2000; Gerald Rafshoon, the film's executive producer, has an inside perspective on Washington wheelings and dealings, having served as White House director of communications under President Jimmy Carter. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Chicago attorney Susan Morton (Nancy Travis) returns to her home town of California to wait out her final months. She also brings along her 11-year-old daughter Carson (Jamie Renee Smith), in hopes of finding a good home for the girl when the time comes. Unexpectedly, Susan falls in love with Michael Blake (Scott Bairstow), a much-younger busboy; alas, faced with the prospect of "instant" fatherhood, Michael breaks off the engagement. With nowhere else to turn, Susan entrusts Carson's future with her own elderly parents (James Karen, Holland Taylor)...and then Michael returns. Orginally telecast by ABC on January 25, 1999, My Last Love has since been rerun on the Lifetime cable channel as To Live For. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Albert Franklin (Haley Joel Osment) is the son of stage magician Lorraine Franklin, and has learned to do a few magic tricks of his own. However, when his mother dies and he is sent to live with his aunt Harriet (Whoopi Goldberg), it becomes clear that for him the boundary between stage magic and the real kind is just a bit fuzzy. This is fortunate, because the young man needs a friend. The friend magically appears in the form of a spirit (Gerard Depardieu) calling himself "Bogus," who helps him figure out how to meet the challenge of relating to his very preoccupied aunt. She is more concerned with keeping her restaurant supply company afloat than she is with her new ward. Things change when she, too, catches a glimpse of the spirit. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A man learns to be a better person when he turns into a dog in this thoughtful and surprisingly somber drama for the family. Tom (Matthew Modine), a businessman, is so driven to succeed that he all but ignores his wife Carol (Nancy Travis) and their son Brian (Max Pomeranc). Tom's perspective changes when he dies in an auto accident and is reincarnated as Fluke, a big brown dog. Fluke wants nothing more than to be with Carol and Brian, but he gets lost as he tries to make his way home. He's adopted by a homeless woman, and with her, Fluke truly learns to give and receive love for the first time, but when she dies, the dog is left with nowhere to go. Fluke is soon befriended by Rumbo (voice of Samuel L. Jackson), a guard dog at a junkyard who teaches him how to survive on the street, but before long, Fluke once again hears the call from his heart to find Carol and Brian. Fluke also stars Eric Stolz, Ron Perlman, and Jon Polito. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

It's been said that nothing can bring two men closer together than a dollar placed between them, and a large family finds themselves becoming far closer than they'd like over several million dollars in this satiric comedy. Uncle Joe McTeague (Kirk Douglas) is an elderly man with a multi-million dollar fortune that he made in the scrap metal business and has no immediate heirs. While Joe has no children, he has plenty of relatives, most of whom don't really like him but want to curry his favor in hopes of inheriting his money when he dies (and Uncle Joe is just shrewd enough to know this). However, Uncle Joe has hired a "nurse," Molly Richardson (Olivia D'Abo), who considers modeling bikinis in Joe's Jacuzzi to be therapeutic. The family is afraid that Molly will end up with the lion's share of Joe's money after they've been bending over backwards to earn his approval, so they bring in a ringer. Daniel McTeague (Michael J. Fox) is one of the only members of the family that Uncle Joe actually likes; a professional bowler of no particular skill, Daniel is the son of the family's black sheep, a leftist activist who decided years ago and wanted nothing to do with Uncle Joe. But Joe has a soft spot for Daniel and his imitation of Jimmy Durante, so the family tracks him down and has him come to visit his uncle. The idea is that if Daniel can get on Uncle Joe's good side, he'll be rewarded in his will, and then Daniel will share his fortune with the rest of the family. So Daniel and his wife Robin (Nancy Travis) move to be closer to Uncle Joe, but Daniel soon discovers that he doesn't like his family much more than Uncle Joe does. Greedy also features Phil Hartman, Ed Begley, Jr., Bob Balaban, Jere Burns, and Kirsten Dunst as some of the venal members of the extended McTeague Family; incidentally, the name "McTeague" is a reference to the lead character in Erich von Stroheim's silent epic Greed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Comic actor and former Saturday Night Live stock player Mike Myers attempted to transform himself from the goofy title character in Wayne's World (1992) (and its sequel) into a romantic leading man with this box office disappointment. Myers stars as Charlie Mackenzie, a San Francisco poet who meets the girl of his dreams, Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis) when he stops to pick up some haggis for his parents at Meats of the World, a butcher shop where Harriet works. Although he's been neurotically commitment-phobic in the past (dumping one girlfriend because she "smelled like soup"), Charlie thinks Harriet could be the one. That is, until his mother May (Brenda Fricker) and cop best friend Tony (Anthony LaPaglia) begin to suspect that Harriet could be an axe-wielding serial killer who has butchered several husbands. Harriet's wacky sister Rose (Amanda Plummer) and her connection to several of the slayings make Charlie nervous, but he nevertheless pops the question, leading to an eventful honeymoon where all is revealed. Although So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) earned less than $12 million at the U.S. box office, Myers hit upon the Peter Sellers-inspired formula of playing various supporting characters with this film, portraying Charlie's amusingly paranoid father Stuart. The actor repeated the trick with greater success in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequel. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In this black comedy, elderly Jack Scanlan (Jack Warden) passes away just as he's about to tell his oldest son Johnny (Bob Hoskins) what he's decided is truly important in life, which does little to ease Johnny's mid-life anxieties. Jack's funeral and the subsequent wake brings together the various members of the Scanlan Family, most of whom are having troubles of their own. Johnny's mother Mary (Maureen Stapleton) is not dealing well with losing her husband. His brother Frank (William Petersen), a would-be union delegate, has a nagging wife, Denise (Debra Rush), and a pregnant daughter, Rachel (Teri Polo). His sister Nora (Frances McDormand) is a leftist nun who has brought along a guest, a South American dissident wanted by the INS. Terry (Pamela Reed) is splitting up with her husband Boyd (Tim Curry) after finally realizing that he's gay. And Johnny is thinking of quitting his job and leaving his wife Amy (Blair Brown), which makes the mysterious Cassie (Nancy Travis) seem all the more attractive. Passed Away marked the directorial debut of successful screenwriter Charlie Peters. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi