Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen (born February 8, 1953) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. After studying at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, she made her professional acting debut in the Western comedy film Goin' South (1978). Steenburgen went on... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Ragtime
1981
A Man on the Inside
Charles, a retired man, gets a new lease on life when he answers an ad from a Private Investigator, and becomes a mole in a secret investigation inside an Assisted Living Center.
Book Club: The Next Chapter
Four best friends take their book club to Italy for the fun girls' trip they never had. When things go off the rails and secrets are revealed, their relaxing vacation turns into a once-in-a-lifetime cross-country adventure.
Nightmare Alley
An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.
Happiest Season
A young woman's plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family's annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn't yet come out to her conservative parents.
Book Club
Four lifelong friends have their lives forever changed after reading Fifty Shades of Grey in their monthly book club.
Katie Says Goodbye
A kindhearted 17-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.
A Walk in the Woods
After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.
The One I Love
On the brink of separation, Ethan and Sophie escape to a beautiful vacation house for a weekend getaway in an attempt to save their marriage. What begins as a romantic and fun retreat soon becomes surreal, when an unexpected discovery forces the two to examine themselves, their relationship, and their future.
Last Vegas
Three sixty-something friends take a break from their day-to-day lives to throw a bachelor party in Las Vegas for their last remaining single pal.
Outlaw Country
A crime thriller/family drama set against the backdrop of southern organized crime and Nashville royalty where music, love, hope and tragedy collide. Created as a pilot for a TV Series which was not taken up, this has now been aired as a TV Movie.
The Help
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who…
Beastie Boys: Fight for Your Right Revisited
Fight for Your Right Revisited stars Danny McBride, Seth Rogen, and Elijah Wood as the "young" Beastie Boys from the past and Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and Will Ferrell as the "old" Beastie Boys from the future. The story begins where the video for "Fight for Your Right (1987)" ended.
Dirty Girl
It's 1987 and Danielle, the high-school 'Dirty Girl', is running away. With her is chubby, gay Clarke, a bag of flour called Joa and a Walkman full of glorious '80s tunes.
The Proposal
A pushy boss (Sandra Bullock) forces her young assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to keep her Visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada.
In the Electric Mist
A detective in the deep South is led into a series of surreal encounters with a troop of Confederate soldiers.
Did You Hear About the Morgans
In New York City, an estranged couple who witness a murder are relocated to small-town Wyoming as part of a witness-protection program.
Step Brothers
Brennan Huff and Dale Doback might be grown men. But that doesn't stop them from living at home and turning into jealous, competitive stepbrothers when their single parents marry. Brennan's constant competition with Dale strains his mom's marriage to Dale's dad, leaving everyone to wonder whether they'll ever see eye to eye.
Four Christmases
A crafty couple run the Christmas Day gauntlet by racing to visit their divorced parents' four separate households in this Vince Vaughn/Reese Witherspoon comedy that proves the holidays are no time for relaxing.
The Brave One
A woman struggles to recover from a brutal attack by setting out on a mission for revenge.
Numb
Hudson Milbank is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly and strangely finds himself without any emotional feelings. He tries doctor after doctor and shrink after shrink, but nothing works. The Golf Channel, lesbian exercise classes and a dizzying variety of pills get him through the day, but don't quite solve his problem.
Nobel Son
Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother.
The Dead Girl
The clues to a young woman's death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated people begin to intersect.
O Lucky Malcolm!
Actor Malcolm McDowell talks about his life and career. With interviews featuring his friends, family, directors and co-stars.
Inland Empire
An actress's perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
Frank Keane, a baker by trade, has been consumed by grief over his wife's untimely death. But everything changes when he pulls his bread truck over on a rural highway to help a dying stranger entangled in a car wreck, who was on his way to a fateful reunion.
Hope Springs
Colin's a sad-eyed British artist holed up in a rundown hotel in small-town Vermont after being dumped by his fiancée. The hotel owner plays matchmaker and introduces him to a local girl. Romance ensues, though Colin's ex may be looking to reunite
Elf
After finding out that Buddy is actually a human and not an elf, he travels to New York City to find his real father, Walter Hobbs.
Casa de los babys
A brief look into South American family life while showing the hardships surrounding adoption in South America as six woman are forced to stay in the country while awaiting approval of adopting a baby.
Sunshine State
A woman and her new husband returns to her hometown roots in coastal northern Florida, and must deal with family, business, and encroaching real estate development.
Life as a House
When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.
I Am Sam
Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away.
Picnic
The son of the richest man in town wants to marry the town's beauty queen, but she meets a more interesting stranger who just got off the train.
Noah's Ark
Adaptation of the Biblical stories of Noah and Lot and how God destroyed the world due to the wickedness of mankind.
Gulliver's Travels
An Englishman returns after nine years abroad and tells strange stories of the tiny people of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, the flying island Laputa and the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses.
Powder
Harassed by classmates who won't accept his shocking appearance, a shy young man known as "Powder" struggles to fit in. But the cruel taunts stop when Powder displays a mysterious power that allows him to do incredible things. This phenomenon changes the lives of all those around him in ways they never could have imagined.
Nixon
An all-star cast powers this epic look at American President Richard M. Nixon, a man carrying both the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands within. From his victorious presidential election to the shocking Watergate scandal that would seal his doom.
My Family
Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A.
Clifford
When his brother asks him to look after his young son, Clifford, Martin Daniels agrees, taking the boy into his home and introducing him to his future wife, Sarah. Clifford is fixated on the idea of visiting a famed theme park, and Martin, an engineer who helped build the park, makes plans to take him.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Gilbert has care for his brother Arnie and his obese mother, which gets in the way when love walks into his life.
Philadelphia
No one would take his case until one man was willing to take on the system. Two competing lawyers join forces to sue a prestigious law firm for aids discrimination. As their unlikely friendship develops their courage overcomes the prejudice and corruption of their powerful adversaries.
The Butcher's Wife
A clairvoyant woman thinks that she's met her future husband because she's seen him in a dream. They marry and he takes her back to his butcher shop in New York city, where her powers tend to influence everyone she meets while working in the shop. Through her advice, she helps others and eventually finds the true man of her dreams.
Back to the Future Part III
The final installment of amusing time-traveling trilogy Back to the Future sends Marty and his scientist friend Doc Brown back in time to the Old West in the year 1885. Things are rosy until Marty must somehow travel in time to prevent Doc from being shot dead.
Parenthood
Parenthood is the 1989 comedy about a series of interwoven relationships and the chaos that parenting can be. A classic family comedy.
Miss Firecracker
Carnelle wants to escape her dreary life, so she enters a local beauty contest, much to everyone's dismay.
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank
Miep Gies struggles to keep Anne Frank and her family hidden and safe inside the secret annex, as the Nazis turn Amsterdam upside-down.
The Whales of August
Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.
Dead of Winter
A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.
One Magic Christmas
An angel must show a mother the true meaning of Christmas. It's not just presents and materialistic things, but the people she cares about too.
Cross Creek
The portrait of a woman who, at the edge of survival, found a world of meaning.
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A nutty inventor, his frustrated wife, a philosopher cousin, his much younger fiancée, a randy doctor, and a free-thinking nurse spend a summer weekend in and around a stunning - and possibly magical - country house.
Ragtime
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Melvin and Howard
The story of hard-luck Melvin Dummar, who claimed to have received a will naming him an heir to the fortune of Howard Hughes.
Time After Time
The Wildest Chase Of The Century! London 1893 is home to a killer with a macabre nickname... and also to a visionary genius who would write The Time Machine. But what if H.G. Wells' invention wasn't fiction? And what if Jack the Ripper escaped capture fleeing his own time to take refuge in ours - with Wells himself in pursuit?
Goin' South
Henry Moon is captured for a capital offense by a posse when his horse quits while trying to escape to Mexico. He finds that there is a post-Civil War law in the small town that any single or widowed woman can save him from the gallows by marrying him.