Charles Durning
Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor. He best-known films include The Sting (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), True Confessions (1981), Tootsie (1982), Dick Tracy (1990) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He was nominated for... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Good Dick
A fidgety, wisecracking video store clerk develops a fixation on a particularly reclusive customer, a frequent visitor to the pornography section of Cinefile, the video store where he works in Los Angeles.
Deal
As an ex-gambler teaches a hot-shot college kid some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé is his toughest competition.
Unbeatable Harold
A wannabe Elvis meets his true love, the best waitress in the West..
Desperation
When a sheriff arrests a writer, a family, a couple, and a hitchiker and throws them in a jail cell in the deserted town of Desperation, they must fight for their lives.
State and Main
A Hollywood Film unit invades a small Vermont town leading to wholesale abandonment of values and virtue. A smart, warm and funny movie - and not just for movie buffs. Tagline: When a film crew came to Waterford, Vermont - They Shot First And Asked Questions Later.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
O’Brother, Where Art Thou? Is a Coen Brother film roughly based on Homer’s “Odyssey.” Taking place in the deep south in the 1930’s the film tells the story of three escaped prison workers and their journey for a buried treasure. On their journey they come across many comical characters and incredible situations.
A Constant Forge
One of the great mavericks of cinema, John Cassavetes has earned a reputation as the godfather of American independent movies. The actor-turned-filmmaker invented a realist style of unadorned narrative films heavily influenced by documentaries.
Hard Time: The Premonition
Logan McQueen is an ex-cop serving a prison term for a bust that had gone awry. During his stint, he learns of a death row inmate that claims he can predict the details of the next violent act of a serial bomber. Once released from prison, Logan tries to find the identity of the bomber and stop him.
Hard Time: Hostage Hotel
Final story in the Logan McQueen (Burt Reynolds) series finds the ex-cop having to rescue a congressman, his family, and Logan's ex-partner from a kidnapper who has taken the group hostage in an old hotel.
Hard Time
Burt Reynolds plays Logan McQueen, a veteran, tough cop who likes to see justice done by his own ways. Things go bad after McQueen is framed for murder. Now he has to escape from a maximum security prison, and seek, on the deadly streets of a hot and dangerous Miami, for the man who wants him down...
The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists
Littlefoot and his dinosaur pals go in search of a medicinal flower that will cure his ailing grandfather.
Spy Hard
General Rancor is threatening to destroy the world with a missile he is hiding at his secret base. But to complete his goal, he needs a special computer chip, invented by the scientist Prof. Ukrinsky. Special Agent Dick Steele is assigned to the case, in order to prevent the worst.
One Fine Day
Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents.
The Last Supper
A group of five graduate student roommates in Iowa fall into a descent that leads to murder after an accidental meeting leads them to search out extremists in the local community.
Home for the Holidays
After losing her job, making out with her soon to be ex-boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson has to face spending the holiday with her family. She wonders if she can survive their crazy antics.
The Hudsucker Proxy
A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.
In Search of Dr. Seuss
A nosy reporter wants to find out all she can about Dr. Seuss, aka Ted Geisel, and gets told the real facts by several of his characters, with large snippets of his stories and songs interspersed.
I.Q.
Albert Einstein helps a young man who's in love with Einstein's niece to catch her attention by pretending temporarily to be a great physicist.
When a Stranger Calls Back
A retired detective and a crisis center counselor hunt a killer stalking a coed.
The Music of Chance
Two men face the consequences of gambling after playing with men beyond their league.
V.I. Warshawski
Victoria "V.I" Warshawski is a Chicago based private detective who agrees to babysit for her new boyfriend; then he is murdered. Being the detective type, she makes the murder her next case. In doing so she befriends the victim's daughter, Kat, and together they set out to crack the case.
Evening Shade
Evening Shade is an American sitcom television series that aired on CBS from 1990 to 1994. The series stars Burt Reynolds as Wood Newton, an ex-professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who returns to rural Evening Shade, Arkansas to coach a high school football team with a long losing streak.
Dick Tracy
All Tess Trueheart wants is to settle down to a quiet life with her boyfriend, detective Dick Tracy. But there's something pretty rotten going on in town, with someone pretty rotten behind it, and Tracy has his hands full with the likes of villain Big Boy Caprice and with the almost irresistible Breathless Mahoney.
Étoile
An American ballerina arrives in Hungary to enroll in a ballet school and it soon becomes apparent that things are not what they seem.
Cat Chaser
A Miami hotel owner finds danger when be becomes romantically involved with the wife of a deposed general from the Dominican Republic where he fought many years back.
Cop
An obsessive, insubordinate homicide cop is convinced a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood area and disobeys orders in order to catch him.
The Rosary Murders
A priest is put in a dilemma when the serial killer who has been murdering priests and nuns confesses to him.
Happy New Year
Small time crooksters Nick and Charlie have an elaborate plan to rob an exclusive jewelers store. Using a variety of disguises and posing as rich old men and women they begin the set-up, but then Nick falls for the owner of a neighboring antique store and things get a little complicated.
Tough Guys
Two elderly gangsters are released from prison only to find they have trouble fitting in as old men who still take no guff from anyone.
Solarbabies
In a future in which most water has disappeared from the Earth, we find a group of children, mostly teenagers, who are living at an orphanage, run by the despotic rulers of the new Earth. The group in question plays a hockey based game on roller skates and is quite good.
Big Trouble
Insurance agent plots with client to kill her crazy husband.
The Man with One Red Shoe
A man is mistaken as a spy by the CIA when he arrives at the airport with one red shoe.
Stick
After getting out of jail, car thief Ernest "Stick" Stickley witnesses the murder of his friend Rainy during a drug deal. To avoid getting killed by the same people, who work for mobster Chucky, Stick gets a job as a chauffeur for millionaire Barry Braham and lies low.
To Be or Not to Be
A bad Polish actor is just trying to make a living when Poland is invaded by the Germans in World War II. His wife has the habit of entertaining young Polish officers while he's on stage, which is also a source of depression to him.
Scarface
A remake of a classic gangster film of the same name from Howard Hanks in 1932. Scarface tells the rise and fall of the gangster and drug dealer Tony Montana who came to Miami as a refugee from Cuba in the 1980’s. A cult film and one of the most celebrated films of all time.
Tootsie
Desperate, he took a female role and became a star. If only he could tell the woman he loves.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Reynolds is the local sheriff who is more interested in keeping the town's most popular business open than carrying out the letter of the law. Parton is the whorehouse madame who also happens to hold the sheriff's interest.
True Confessions
A cop clashes with his priest brother while investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute
Sharky's Machine
Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Accompanied by an all-star jazz soundtrack, Sharky's new "machine" gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow
A retarded man is unjustly accused of attacking a young girl. Disguised as a scarecrow, he hides in a cornfield, only to be hunted down and shot. Later, after it is revealed he saved the girl from a vicious dog attack, members of the search posse are killed by a mysterious scarecrow.
The Final Countdown
A modern aircraft carrier is thrown back in time to 1941 near Hawaii, just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
When a Stranger Calls
A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then returns seven years later to menace her again.
The Muppet Movie
Kermit the Frog is persuaded by agent Dom DeLuise to pursue a career in Hollywood. Along the way, Kermit picks up Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, and a motley crew of other Muppets with similar aspirations. Meanwhile, Kermit must elude the grasp of a frog-leg restaurant magnate.
Starting Over
After divorcing his ambitious singer wife, a middle-aged man begins a new relationship with a teacher.
The Fury
A government agent is determined to come to his son's rescue, when a sinister official kidnaps him to harness his extremely powerful psychic abilities.
An Enemy of the People
A scientist stands against an entire town when he discovers their medicinal spa is polluted.
Twilight's Last Gleaming
A renegade USAF general, Lawrence Dell, escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana and threatens to provoke World War 3 unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War between Dell and the then President's most trusted advisors.
The Choirboys
A group of Los Angeles cops decide to take off some of the pressures of their jobs by engaging in various forms of after-hours debauchery.
Harry and Walter Go to New York
Two hoplessly out of their class con-men attempt to pull off the largest bank heist of the l9th century. They gain the enmity of the most famous bank Robber in the world and the affection of a crusading newspaperwoman.
The Hindenburg
Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.
Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon is a film based on true events and directed by Sidney Lumet. The film stars Al Pacino as a robber who held a bank hostage in Brooklyn, New York.
Breakheart Pass
At the height of the frontier era, a train races through the Rocky Mountains on a classified mission to a remote army post. But one by one the passengers are being murdered, and their only hope is the mysterious John Deakin, who's being transported to face trial for murder.
The Front Page
The Front Page is a comedy from director Billy Wilder from 1974 starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Susan Sarandon. A journalist named Johnson is suffering from a burn-out-syndrom and wants to finally say goodbye to his office except for the fact that his boss doesn’t like the idea one bit.
The Sting
Set in the 1930's this intricate caper deals with an ambitious small-time crook and a veteran con man who seek revenge on a vicious crime lord who murdered one of their gang.
Sisters
I Walk the Line
Henry Tawes, a middle-aged sheriff in a rural Tennessee town, is usually the first man to criticize others for their bad behavior. Miserable in his marriage, Henry falls in love with teenage Alma, who is the daughter of local criminal.
Hi, Mom!
A Vietnam vet moves into an apartment and views in other people's windows across the street, meets one of the women, and discovers black theater.
Stiletto
A rich, jet-setting playboy has a secret life: he's also a professional Mafia hitman. When he decides it's time to retire from that life, he finds that his former employers don't like the idea that someone who knows so much about them won't be under their control anymore, and decide to send their own hitmen to eliminate him.