Sydney Pollack Movies
by BaxterCallow | created - 01 Jun 2017 | updated - 01 Jun 2017 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Slender Thread (1965)
Passed | 98 min | Drama
College volunteer Alan is working alone at the crisis center one evening when he receives a telephone call from suicidal caller Inga Dyson.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill
Votes: 2,477
Supercharged with emotion and dramatic overtones.
2. This Property Is Condemned (1966)
Unrated | 110 min | Drama, Romance
The dramatic love story of small-town Mississippi girl Alva Starr and railroad official Owen Legate, set during the Great Depression.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson, Kate Reid
Votes: 6,309
Derived from a Tennessee Williams one-acter, the production is adult without being sensational, touching without being maudlin.
3. The Scalphunters (1968)
Not Rated | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Western
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas, Ossie Davis
Votes: 4,375
Some movies are masterpieces, and most movies are not, and sometimes you get a movie that can best be described as 'interesting.' By that I mean it falls short of excellence but nevertheless has something that makes it worth seeing.
4. The Swimmer (1968)
M/PG | 95 min | Drama
A man spends a summer day swimming as many pools as he can all over a quiet suburban town.
Directors: Frank Perry, Sydney Pollack | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Tony Bickley
Votes: 13,737
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance.
5. Castle Keep (1969)
R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his remote 10th Century castle hoping a battle there against the advancing Germans will not lead to its destruction and all the heritage within.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Peter Falk
Votes: 3,481
Apparent efforts to insert a fresh side of war by concentrating on some of its grim humor act more as a deterrent than a booster to interest.
6. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
M | 129 min | Drama
The lives of a disparate group of contestants intertwine in an inhumanely grueling dance marathon.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young
Votes: 20,828 | Gross: $12.60M
The material is simple and irresistible, and Sydney Pollack stages it well (though without transcending the essential superficiality of his talent).
7. Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
GP | 108 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by the Crow tribe and proves to be a match for their warriors in single combat on the early frontier.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Delle Bolton, Josh Albee
Votes: 34,955 | Gross: $47.74M
Director Sydney Pollack has given a skilled, observant mounting as he carefully allows the man to grow in experience and knowhow.
8. The Way We Were (1973)
PG | 118 min | Drama, Romance
During post-WWII McCarthyism, a diametrically opposed couple come together only to find out that genuine friendship and physical attraction is not enough to overcome fundamental societal beliefs.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Bradford Dillman, Lois Chiles
Votes: 27,437
It's easy to forgive the movie a lot because of Streisand. She's fantastic.
9. The Yakuza (1974)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Drama
American private-eye Harry Kilmer returns to Japan to rescue a friend's kidnapped daughter from the clutches of the Yakuza.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Eiji Okada, Herb Edelman
Votes: 10,436
A superior action movie, but all the same, it's for audiences that have grown accustomed over the last few years to buckets of blood, disembowelments and severed hands flying through the air.
10. Three Days of the Condor (1975)
R | 117 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A bookish CIA researcher in Manhattan finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Votes: 62,445 | Gross: $41.51M
This post-Watergate thriller captures the paranoid tenor of the times, thanks to Syndey Pollack's taut direction and excellent performances from Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
11. Bobby Deerfield (1977)
PG | 124 min | Drama, Romance
Bobby Deerfield, a famous American race car driver on the European circuit, falls in love with the enigmatic Lillian Morelli, who is terminally ill.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Al Pacino, Marthe Keller, Anny Duperey, Walter McGinn
Votes: 4,653 | Gross: $9.30M
A brilliantly unusual love story, told in a European fashion which makes the Sydney Pollack film at first irritating, then intriguing, finally most rewarding and emotionally satisfying.
12. The Electric Horseman (1979)
PG | 121 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A rodeo star past his prime steals his company's horse and rides into the desert, accompanied by a feisty reporter.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Valerie Perrine, Willie Nelson
Votes: 10,290 | Gross: $61.80M
The Electric Horseman is the kind of movie they used to make.
13. Absence of Malice (1981)
PG | 116 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
When a prosecutor leaks to a Miami reporter that a liquor wholesaler is suspected in the murder of a union head, the man's life begins to unravel.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon
Votes: 14,745 | Gross: $40.72M
I not only liked this movie despite its factual and ethical problems -- I'm not even so sure they matter so much to most viewers.
14. Tootsie (1982)
PG | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Michael Dorsey, an unsuccessful actor, disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a trashy hospital soap.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 114,537 | Gross: $177.20M
It turns out to be a touching love story, after all -- so touching that you may be surprised how moved you are at the conclusion of this comedy.
15. Out of Africa (1985)
PG | 161 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen
Votes: 86,251 | Gross: $87.10M
Though lensed with stunning cinematography and featuring a pair of winning performances from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Out of Africa suffers from excessive length and glacial pacing.
16. Havana (I) (1990)
R | 144 min | Drama, Romance, War
In 1950s Cuba, a professional gambler falls for a woman heavily involved in the revolution movement.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Lena Olin, Alan Arkin, Tomas Milian
Votes: 8,502 | Gross: $9.24M
Director Sydney Pollack and star Robert Redford have lost their normally dependable quality touch as they slog through a notably uncompelling $45 million-plus tale of a gringo caught up in the Cuban revolution.
17. The Firm (1993)
R | 154 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook
Votes: 147,551 | Gross: $158.35M
The movie is extremely long (two hours and 34 minutes) and so slow that by the end you feel as if you've been standing up even if you've been sitting down.
18. Sabrina (1995)
PG | 127 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An ugly duckling having undergone a remarkable change, still harbors feelings for her crush: a carefree playboy, but not before his business-focused brother has something to say about it.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear, Nancy Marchand
Votes: 44,389 | Gross: $53.67M
Sydney Pollack directs with the sort of polish that was easy to take for granted two decades ago but almost looked like classicism in 1995.
19. Random Hearts (1999)
R | 133 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
Police Sergeant Dutch Van Den Broek (Harrison Ford) and U.S. Representative Kay Chandler (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) lose their spouses in a plane crash, and they soon discover that their spouses were having an affair with each other.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt
Votes: 23,410 | Gross: $31.05M
Even Harrison Ford could not save the dull plot and the slow pacing of the movie.
20. The Interpreter (2005)
PG-13 | 128 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Political intrigue and deception unfold inside the United Nations, where a U.S. Secret Service agent is assigned to investigate an interpreter who overhears an assassination plot.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen
Votes: 110,881 | Gross: $72.71M
A polished and intelligent thriller, though marred by plot implausibilities.
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