Craig Sheffer Movies
American leading man Craig Sheffer was first seen on a nationwide basis on the TV-serial circuit. He played Ian Hayden on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live, and was cast as the teenaged son of Michael Goodwin and Leigh-Taylor Young on the 1983 prime time serial The Hamptons. Sheffer's earliest starring assignment in films was as the best friend of troubled teenager Emilio Estevez in That Was Then...This Is Now (1985). Among Craig Sheffer's more recent films are A River Runs Through It (1992) (in which he played the older brother of Brad Pitt), Fire in the Sky (1993), and Sleep With Me (1994) (top-billed, as the apex of a romantic triangle which included Eric Stoltz and Meg Tilly). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Robert Redford's lyrical direction sets the tone for this evocative adaptation of author Norman MacLean's memoir of his idyllic Montana youth. The MacLean family is presided over by the strict but encouraging Rev. MacLean (Tom Skerritt) and his loving wife (Brenda Blethyn). Craig Sheffer stars as the young Norman, the older son in his family, who takes his school work and writing a bit too seriously for Paul (Brad Pitt), the impetuous younger son, to take much stock in. Paul would rather have a good time, drink and play cards than get involved with academic study. Where Norman wants to be a college literature professor, Paul would prefer to stay in Montana all his life and wrangle some kind of job writing for a local newspaper. But, ironically, Paul is the better fly fisherman and in this way attains a sense of perfection. The film also details the MacLean boys' involvement with a colorful group of town's people -- including a young Indian woman Paul decides to date and the defiant Jessie (Emily Lloyd), whom Norman later marries. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, (more)
Actor Craig Sheffer makes his feature directorial debut with this ensemble comedy featuring Ron Livingston, Rob Schneider, Jennifer Esposito, and Michael Clarke Duncan, and following a harried group of characters through twenty-four hours in a typical Los Angeles day. Quite a bit can happen over the course of a single day in L.A., and when smooth-talking scam artist Johnny (Livingston) decides to throw a bachelor party for his best friend Bill (Schneider) the events of the day take a decidedly bizarre turn. As the festivities get underway, the appearance of a transvestite prostitute, a trigger-happy ex-con, and a notorious porn king signal that this isn't going to be your typical night on the town. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ron Livingston, Rob Schneider, (more)
Babycakes is an American remake of the raucous 1988 German comedy Sugarbaby. A pre-talkshow Ricki Lake stars as Grace Johnson, who works as a cosmetician in a funeral parlor. The elephantine Grace falls in love with pencil-thin ice skater Rob Harrison (Craig Sheffer). Despite Harrison's indifference, Grace maps out a meticulous campaign to overwhelm and seduce her dream lover. Made for TV, Babycakes had its premiere on February 14, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A provocative drama about sex, love, and trust, Bliss concerns Joseph (Craig Sheffer) and Maria (Sheryl Lee), a young married couple whose relationship is in serious trouble. While they love each other, Maria has difficulty opening up to Joseph, and, after six months of marriage, he makes the unhappy discovery that she's been unable to have an orgasm with him (though she's been willing to let him think otherwise). At work, Joseph and his co-workers notice a steady stream of beautiful women visiting an apartment across the street; the scuttlebutt around the office is that some sort of shady sex therapist works out of the building. One day, Joseph is shocked to see Maria visiting the apartment, and he bursts in and demands to know what's happening. The apartment does indeed house an unlicensed sex therapist, who goes by the name of Balthazar (Terence Stamp), and, before long, Joseph realizes that Balthazar's teaching are about the mind as much as the body, and that he's less concerned with orgasm than with "bliss," which he considers an emotional and spiritual as well as physical state. Before long, Joseph has convinced Balthazar to teach him what he knows about tantric healing and sex, in the hope that he can help heal Maria's emotional scars, as well as help himself become a better man. Bliss was the debut feature for writer/director Lance Young. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Sheryl Lee, (more)
Long before she was in Friends, Courteney Cox had to deal with a few enemies in Blue Desert. A rape victim, Cox is given the runaround by the New York police. Fed up with city life, she heads for the wide open spaces of Arizona. Not long afterward, she is propositioned by lowlife Craig Sheffer. She reports this to sympathetic local cop D.B. Sweeney, who replies matter-of-factly that this is not the first time that Sheffer has been accused of a sexual offense. To her amazement, Cox is later visited by Sheffer, who agitatedly warns her not to trust the supposedly sweet-natured Sweeney. Someone is lying about something-and Cox plain doesn't know who to believe. When she finally finds out, it's nearly too late. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Courteney Cox Arquette, D.B. Sweeney, (more)
- 2002
The wealthy designer of the world's first fully computer-automated jetliner summarily fires one of his engineers, a disgruntled computer hacker. In retaliation, the engineer "kidnaps" the high tech jetliner from a hidden location on the ground, and threatens to destroy the plane during its maiden flight. The lives of the passengers, which include a prominent politician and his daughter, rests in the hands of a troubled ex-war hero. First broadcast on Spanish television in an R-rated version in October of 2002, Cabin Pressure "officially" premiered on November 15, 2002, courtesy of the American PAX network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Abruptly cut off from the family fortune by her millionaire tycoon father, a young girl used to the life of luxury sets out on a Bonnie and Clyde style crime spree with her ne'er do well boyfriend in this action film featuring Malcolm McDowell, Anne Archer, and Faye Dunaway. Patricia Barton (Amanda Brooks) was a self-centered heiress used to sailing the sea on her luxury yacht and making $20,000 bank withdrawals when daddy (McDowell) closed her account hoping that she'd learn the true value of a hard-earned dollar. But when even Patricia's sympathetic mother (Dunaway) proves incapable of convincing dad to reconsider, the newly broke debutante and her shiftless boyfriend Pauly (Thomas Ian Nicholas) attempt an ill-conceived bank robbery that quickly spirals out of control. Things only go from bad to worse after the desperate duo hijacks an ambulance carrying notorious drug dealer the Joker (Kurupt), backing the frightened fugitives into a corner and forcing Patricia to stand on her own for the first time in her life. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amanda Brooks, Thomas Ian Nicholas, (more)
Fiona MacKenzie's revenge thriller Deadly Little Secrets begins with the death by steroid overdose of a famous sports star. The athlete's brother, Cole Chamberlain, begins his own investigation and discovers Gordon Childs (Craig Sheffer), a doctor who has been performing lethal experiments with performance-enhancing drugs. As a pair of beautiful sisters brings him closer to the truth, Cole must decide how far he wants to take his revenge. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Dylan Walsh, (more)
- 2000
Ego-driven industrialist Alan Morrisey (Harry VanGorkum) has paid to develop the ultimate mining machine -- a nearly invincible vehicle that uses laser energy to burrow through anything. But the machine's creator, Brian Goodman (Craig Sheffer), knows that it is too good at what it does and could cause repercussions beneath the Earth's core. So he destroys it. Years later, Morrisey has hired another scientist, Allison Saunders (Terry Farrell), to rebuild the machine, and Goodman's predictions of devastation come true. There are earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions around the world, and they're only getting worse. It's up to Goodman and his crack team of subterranean disaster fighters -- Sam Dalton (Bruce McGill) and Rodney Bedecker (Wil Wheaton) -- to save the planet by setting off a series of subterranean nuclear explosions, with Morrisey and Saunders along for the ride. Meanwhile, topside, the sinister Daryl Simmons (James Russo) is planning to sabotage the rescue in order to help the Chinese military. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, James Russo, (more)
The plot of this action film begins in 1996, with Los Angeles in a violence-crazed conflagration. One of the LAPD's most notorious cops, John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), known as "the demolition man," is in hot pursuit of blonde-haired psychopath Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), who is so nasty he even kills sometimes just because he feels cranky. John captures Simon, but not before Simon kills innocent hostages. John is blamed for the deaths of the hostages, and both he and Simon are cryogenically frozen to remove their brand of ultra-violence from a society that is simply just too violent. The film shifts to the future world of 2032, where Los Angeles has become a megalopolis called San Angeles. There is no poverty, Arnold Schwarzenegger was (at one time) president of the United States, and Taco Bell is the sole survivor of the Franchise Wars. Into this peaceful and bland society, Simon is summarily defrosted by reigning benevolent dictator Dr. Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne) to have Simon murder Edgar Friendly (Denis Leary), the leader of a group of underground rebels. But Cocteau bites off more than he can chew when the melted-down Simon proceeds to go on a murder-and-looting spree. Reluctantly, Cocteau defrosts John to hunt down his old adversary. As John adjusts to self-driving cars and having sex wearing helmets, he pairs up with Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), a bored cop with a nostalgic fascination for 20th-century culture. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, (more)
- 1998
- R
In this drama, a popular writer fights for justice after he realizes that he helped convict the wrong man during a murder trial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Costas Mandylor, (more)
- 1997
- R
In this tense political thriller, a CIA agent turns in his credentials after one of his assignments, which involved covering up some embarrassing information for the president, unexpectedly leads to someone's death. However, he's brought back in to help investigate the murder of one of the president's leading advisors, only to find it's all part of a plan to silence those who know too much -- which would also include him. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Eye of the Storm is the eerie and tragic story of two brothers haunted by their past. Steven (Bradley Gregg) witnesses the murder of his parents by robbers. Running from the killers, Steven falls from a window and is blinded. Ten years later, Steven and his brother Ray (Craig Sheffer) are managing the motel, that was owned by their parents. Marvin (Dennis Hopper), a drunken redneck, and his gum-chewing wife Sandra (Lara Flynn Boyle) check in with tragic results for all as their lives become entwined. Despite many implausible plot twists, director Yuri Zeltser puts all this together to produce a compelling thriller and gets strong performances from his cast, particularly Gregg, who is very convincing and poignant as the blind, younger brother. Eye of the Storm, given a theatrical release in Germany but released straight to video in the United States, is a small, well-made thriller, well-worth viewing. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Bradley Gregg, (more)
Clearly inspired by such wall-to-wall action flicks as The Fast and the Furious and XXX, the endearingly mindless TV series Fastlane chronicled the adventures of two tough, hard-driving undercover L.A. cops. Answerable only to their leather-clad superior Billie Chambers (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), officers Van Ray (Peter Facinelli) and Deaqon Hayes (Bill Bellamy) -- the latter was the brother of the former's murdered partner -- made mincemeat of a variety of nasty urban villains. This the heroes were able to do because they had full access to Billie's "Candy Store," a warehouse full of seized stolen goods, ranging from souped-up cars to state-of-the-art weaponry to hyper-sophisticated computer technology. The series was cocreated by McG, the former music-video director who'd helmed the 2001 theatrical feature Charlie's Angels. Played out larger than life and with tongue firmly in cheek, Fastlane proved to be everyone's favorite "guilty pleasure" when the series debuted on September 18, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Facinelli, Bill Bellamy, (more)
One of the most famous real-life UFO abduction cases on record becomes this character-driven drama from sci-fi screenwriter Tracy Torme. D.B. Sweeney stars as Travis Walton, a forestry worker who disappears one night during an encounter with a flying saucer. Authorities treat with skepticism the outrageous story related by the only witnesses to the event, Travis' five co-workers, who include his best friend and future brother-in-law, Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick). A state lawman (James Garner) finds a tabloid newspaper in the crew's pickup truck and quickly ascertains that tensions had arisen between Walton and a surly fellow logger (Craig Sheffer), leading him to conclude that a murder cover-up is underway. However, all of the men pass lie detector tests and the case becomes stalled until the shocking last-minute reappearance of Travis, who tells a literally fantastic story involving his whereabouts for the past week. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, (more)
Two Americans abroad discover how high the price of activism can be in this drama. When a well-known environmental researcher is murdered in the Amazon jungle, an arrogant photojournalist (Craig Sheffer) joins forces with a beautiful young activist (Sandra Bullock) to find out who is responsible. Along they way, they fall in love as they discover the men responsible for the killing would be more than willing to murder again if it will keep them quiet. Fire on the Amazon was filmed in 1990, but it wasn't released until 1993, when Sandra Bullock's appearances in The Thing Called Love and Demolition Man made her a star on the rise. Legend has it that she also used gaffer's tape to insure that her breasts would not be fully exposed during the film's love scenes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandra Bullock, Craig Sheffer, (more)
- 1986
- PG13
A juvenile delinquent falls in love with a beautiful Catholic girl's school student in this fact-based adolescent melodrama set in an Oregon forest. The two meet by accident when the troubled young man is out on a nature hike and sees the lovely girl floating in a small lake as she works on a photography assignment. The two are immediately drawn to each other, but neither of their schools encourages contact with the opposite sex and when their relationship is discovered there is trouble all around, forcing the young lovers to flee. The question then remains: will they be able to evade the law and other authorities long enough to find happiness? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Virginia Madsen, (more)
Suspense and comedy combine in this convoluted tale of a successful Realtor who tries to save his wreck of a daughter from a crazed love-struck suitor. If that weren't enough, the wealthy businessman must also try to avoid the crooks trying to kidnap him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Robert Loggia, (more)
- 1999
- Add From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff to QueueAdd From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff to top of Queue
Michael Chekhov and George Shdanoff were Russian expatriates who came to Hollywood and became two of the best known and most influential acting coaches in the film industry; Chekhov was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in Spellbound, and as a teacher he and his associate Shdanoff helped guide the careers of Leslie Caron, Patricia Neal, Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Marilyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood. From Russia to Hollywood provides a glimpse into their lives and careers as Chekhov flees Russia for Germany after the Communist government expresses its displeasure with his productions for the Moscow Art Theater (Stanislavsky considered Chekhov a genius, but the government considered him ideologically unsound). When the Nazis began to rise to power, Chekhov relocated to the United States, where he taught acting when not busy with his own career on the stage and screen. Here, several of Chekhov and Shdanoff's better known students discuss their work and how their teachings effected a generation of Hollywood actors. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Mala Powers, (more)
A woman finds out how the dead body of your old boyfriend can ruin your whole day in this black comedy. Nathalie (Cameron Diaz) is a lovely young woman with a history of substance abuse problems who is married to George (Harvey Keitel), a circuit court judge who first met her when she was brought before him on a misdemeanor charge (he gave her a break, and they fell in love). Nathalie and George are vacationing at her family's summer cottage in Maine, with Nathalie's longtime friend (and former significant other) Lance (Craig Sheffer) tagging along. One day, while George and Lance are out fishing, Nathalie receives an uninvited and unwelcome visitor, her former boyfriend Kent (Billy Zane). Nathalie regards Kent as a symbol of the past that she's been trying to put behind her, and while he's eager to resume at least the physical side of their relationship, she wants no part of him. After a heated argument, Kent stumbles off to another part of the cottage, and just as George and Lance are about to return, Nathalie discovers that Kent is in her bedroom, naked and very dead. Correctly assuming that the presence of the nude body of her former lover in her bed would cast a bad reflection on her fidelity, Nathalie quickly tries to hide the corpse, with disastrous results. George discovers Kent's body, but since the judge would prefer not to have this sordid affair become a matter of public record, he hatches a plan of his own to get rid of the stiff, which also fails miserably. Head Above Water is a remake of the Norwegian film Hodet over Vannet, which was itself a remake of an earlier film; while released theatrically in Europe, Head Above Water debuted on premium cable networks in the United States. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harvey Keitel, Cameron Diaz, (more)
Supernatural villain Pinhead finds himself on the wrong side of the law in this, the fifth film in the Hellraiser franchise. Joseph (Craig Sheffer) is a detective with the LAPD who one morning discovers he's no longer living in California -- he's been exiled to Hades, and the only way to escape is by solving the mystery of the all-powerful puzzle box. The box is now in the hands of the fearsome demon Pinhead (Doug Bradley), and Joseph finds himself in a life-and-death struggle with the demon for control of the puzzle box. Hellraiser: Inferno also stars Nicholas Turturro as Tony, Sasha Barrese as Daphne, Noelle Evans as Melanie, and James Remar as Dr. Paul Gregory. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Nicholas Turturro, (more)
Actor Ken Olin directed this real-life story of five American Calvary soldiers who took a stand against General Douglas MacArthur and fought his 1930s plan to trade men on horses for tanks. After defying a direct order to destroy their horses, the men find themselves on the wrong side of military law fighting to survive. This made-for-cable movie was filmed on location in New Zealand and Australia. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Johnson, Craig Sheffer, (more)
- 1990
- R
Craig Sheffer stars as Zane, a TV producer looking for romance. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Sheffer, Chelsea Noble, (more)
