James Cromwell Movies
Long-time character actor James Cromwell has spent much of his career on stage and television, only occasionally appearing in feature films until the early '90s, when his film work began to flourish. The tall, spare actor first became known to an international audience with his role as the taciturn but kindly Farmer Hoggett, the owner of a piglet that wants to be a sheepdog, in the smash... (read more) hit Babe (1995). His work in the film earned Cromwell an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as well as numerous opportunities for steady work in Hollywood.
The son of noted director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson, he originally aspired to become a mechanical engineer, attending both Vermont's Middlebury College and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). But after a summer spent on a movie set with his father, the acting bug bit, and Cromwell decided to become an actor. He started out in regional theater, acting and directing in a variety productions for ten years, and he was a regular performer at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Cromwell made his television debut in the recurring role of "Stretch" Cunningham on All in the Family in 1974, and he subsequently spent the rest of the decade and much of the 1980s on television, as a regular on such shows as Hot L Baltimore and The Last Precinct. Cromwell also appeared in such miniseries as NBC's Once an Eagle and in such made-for-television movies as A Christmas Without Snow (1980).
Cromwell made his feature film debut in the comedy Murder By Death (1976). His film work was largely undistinguished until Babe; following the film's success, he began appearing in more substantial roles in a number of popular films, including The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996), in which he played Charles Keating; Star Trek: First Contact (1996), which cast him as the reluctant scientist responsible for Earth's first contact with alien life forms; and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which he gave a marvelously loathsome performance as a crooked police captain. Adept at playing nice guys and bottom-dwelling scum alike, Cromwell next earned strong notices for his portrayal of a penitentiary warden in The Green Mile (1999).
The respected character actor continued strongly into the next decade with appearances in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys as well as the live-on-TV production of Fail Safe in 2000. He enjoyed a recurring role on E.R. in 2001. He played the president in the 2002 Jack Ryan movie The Sum of All Fears. In 2003 he took on a recurring role in the respected HBO drama Six Feet Under, and also appeared in the award-winning HBO adaptation of Angels in America.
In 2006 he acted opposite Helen Mirren playing Prince Philip in The Queen, and played another head of state for Oliver Stone when he portrayed George Herbert Walker Bush in the biopic W. In 2011 he was the loyal butler to the main character in the Best Picture Oscar winner for that year, The Artist.
~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Hide Away
PG13 2011
A man takes to the water as he tries to make sense of his life in this independent drama from director Chris Eyre. A successful businessman who is struggling to come to...
The Artist
PG13 2011
Michel Hazanavicius' stylistically daring, dialogue-free comedy-drama The Artist stars Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, a matinee idol in Hollywood before the dawn of...
A Lonely Place for Dying
NR 2010
A KGB informant hiding out in a derelict prison on the U.S./Mexico border fights for his life against the CIA hitman who has been sent to silence him forever. The year is 1972....
Secretariat
PG 2010
A housewife with little knowledge of horse-racing fosters one of the greatest race horses of all time as the story of the 1973 Triple Crown winner comes to the screen in this...
Surrogates
PG13 2009
The filmmaking trio behind the hit sci-fi sequel Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines re-team to explore a future in which humans live in isolation while only communicating...
W.
PG13 2008
Josh Brolin stars as George W. Bush in this Oliver Stone biopic that traces the head of state's rise to power from a privileged alcoholic to a born-again Christian...
Tortured
R 2008
An FBI agent in the midst of a crucial undercover investigation resorts to extreme measures in order to prove himself in this crime thriller starring Cole Hauser, James...
Your Mommy Kills Animals
2007
At a time in history when the FBI has deemed animal-rights activists the number-one domestic terrorist threat to the U.S., filmmaker Curt Johnson sets out to explore exactly...
Dante's Inferno
2007
Director Sean Meredith's animated entry into the 2007 Newport Beach Film Festival details one man's curious voyage into the deepest depths of the underworld. Upon awakening...
Becoming Jane
PG 2007
Events from the life of the author Jane Austen inspired this romantic historical drama, which speculates of a romance that may have had a significant impact on her life...
24: Season 06
2007
At the end of Season 5, Jack Bauer was kidnapped, beaten, and taken captive in retribution for his involvement in a raid on the Chinese Consulate eighteen months earlier. Now,...
Masters of Science Fiction: Watchbird
2007
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Spider-Man 3
PG13 2007
Your friendly neighborhood web-slinger is back, only this time his sunny outlook has become partially overcast in the third chapter of director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man saga....
King Leopold's Ghost
PG13 2006
Filmmakers Pippa Scott and Oreet Rees explore the reprehensible legacy of Belgium's King Leopold II in this documentary adaptation of Adam Hochschild's best-selling...
Avenger
2006
Oscar nominated filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen executive produced this TNT/Warner Brothers co-production concerning a small-town lawyer and one-time Special Forces operative...
The Queen
PG13 2006
The British prime minister and the Royal Family find themselves quietly at odds in the wake of a national tragedy in this drama from director Stephen Frears. On August 31,...
Six Feet Under: Season 05
2005
The Fisher clan suffers, suffers some more, and eventually begins to heal in the fifth and final season of HBO's Six Feet Under. As the season begins, Nate (Peter...
Pope John Paul II
2005
One of several dramatized tributes to the late pontiff to be telecast in 2005, the two-part CBS biopic Pope John Paul II is a remake of a popular Italian miniseries, and...
The Longest Yard
PG13 2005
One of the toughest and best-remembered sports movies of the 1970s gets a humorous makeover in this comedy. Paul "Wrecking" Crewe (Adam Sandler) was once a famous...
Six Feet Under: Season 04
2004
The mysterious death of Lisa Fisher (Lili Taylor) -- revealed in the third-season finale, "I'm Sorry, I'm Lost" -- casts a dark shadow across the entire fourth season...