Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains. Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of Timothy Ryan and his wife Mabel Bushnell Ryan. He graduated from Dartmouth College in... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
The Outfit
A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death in this drama based on a novel by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake). Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother.
Lolly-Madonna XXX
In the early 1970s, a young woman passing through rural Tennessee unintentionally gets caught in a feud between two local neighboring clans, the Feathers and the Gutshalls.
La course du lièvre à travers les champs
A crook on the run hooks up with a criminal gang to commit a kidnapping. However, things don't go quite as planned.
Lawman
A lawman from Bannock arrives in Sabbath to arrest all the cattlemen whose wild celebration the year before resulted in the accidental death of an old man.
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is one of the best representations of the Western genre; A group of outlaws is in battle with the law and with modern society.
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
Some survivors of a drowning ship are rescued by Captain Nemo and his submarine crew. They are taken to an underwater city, where they may be trapped for the rest of their lives.
Lo sbarco di Anzio
American troops land unopposed on Italian beaches during World War II, but instead of pushing on to Rome, they dig in and the Germans fight back ferociously.
Un minuto per pregare, un istante per morire
A famous gunman decides to change his life around and turn himself in when amnesty is declared by the new governor of the New Mexico Territory, but a vindictive sheriff sets out to stop him from reaching the Territory.
The Dirty Dozen
Classic World War II action drama about a group of 12 American military prisoners, who are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.
Hour of the Gun
Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton-gang in a fight. In revenge Clanton's thugs kill the marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt Earp starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.
Custer of the West
The story of U.S. Army commander George Armstrong Custer, a flamboyant hero of the Civil War who later fought and was exterminated with his entire command by warring Sioux and Cheyenne tribes at the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.
The Professionals
The Professionals is a 1966 American Western film directed by Richard Brooks. A kidnap-rescue adventure set in about 1917, it features a small group of experts heading into Mexico to free the Mexican-born wife of a wealthy Texan from several hundred bandits. The film is based on the novel A Mule for the Marquesa by Frank O'Rourke.
Battle of the Bulge
A dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II.
The Longest Day
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach.
Billy Budd
Billy is an innocent, naive seaman in the British Navy in 1797. When the ship's sadistic master-at-arms is murdered, Billy is accused and tried.
King of Kings
Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.
Odds Against Tomorrow
An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.
Lonelyhearts
Burdened by a family secret, Adam White lands a job as a newspaper advice columnist. Little does he realize that it's all part of a nasty desire by cynical editor William Shrike to crush the souls of his underlings.
God's Little Acre
A dirt-farmer lets his family fall apart while he hunts for his grandfather''s buried gold.
Men in War
During the Korean War, a battle-worn lieutenant and his platoon are behind enemy lines, and have orders to march to Hill 465 for possible relief.
The Proud Ones
Robert Ryan plays an aging sheriff responsible for law and order in a frontier cattle town. Virginia Mayo plays his fiancee. As if handling wild cattle drovers isn't enough, a crooked casino operator from Ryan's past comes to town. An early scuffle in the casino leaves Ryan with vision problems that interfere with his duties.
Back from Eternity
A South American plane loaded with an assortment of characters crash lands in a remote jungle area in the middle of a storm. The passengers then discover they are in an area inhabited by vicious cannibals and must escape before they are found.
The Tall Men
Two brothers discharged from the Confederate Army join a businessman for a cattle drive from Texas to Montana where they run into raiding Jayhawkers, angry Sioux, rough terrain and bad weather.
House of Bamboo
Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals. They use their muscle to take over Tokyo's pachinko racket and commit a series of train robberies, targeting deliveries of military ammunition.
Escape to Burma
A fugitive in British Burma hides on a tea plantation, thanks to a mutual attraction with owner Gwen Moore.
Bad Day at Black Rock
A one handed stranger comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible past they want to keep secret, by violent means if necessary.
Alaska Seas
The owner of a salmon cannery in Alaska hires a man who had formerly been his partner, and comes to regret it.
The Naked Spur
Stewart is a bounty hunter in Colorado territory after killer Robert Ryan. Stewart's efforts to bring in Ryan and collect the reward are compromised by the presence of Ryan's loyal girl friend Janet Leigh and Stewart's two disreputable sidekicks, wily prospector Millard Mitchell and disgraced Union-officer Ralph Meeker.
Inferno
A spoiled and alcoholic millionaire, Robert Ryan, breaks his leg falling off of a horse, and is left to die in the desert by his cheating wife, Rhonda Fleming, and her lover, William Lundigan.
City Beneath the Sea
Two adventures dive for treasure off the coast of Jamaica.
On Dangerous Ground
A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.
Horizons West
Brothers Dan and Neil Hammond return to Texas after the Civil War. Ambitious Dan turns to rustling and then shady land deals to build an empire. Being held for a murder, he is rescued from a lynch mob by Neil, who is now the Marshal, but there is eventually a falling out between the brothers, good triumphing over evil.
Clash by Night
An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband's best friend.
Beware, My Lovely
A psychopath on the run takes a job as a handyman at the house of a lonely widow.
The Racket
In New York, two honest cops try to hinder a crime syndicate from moving into the precinct and also to prevent the mob's plan of electing a corrupt prosecutor to a judgeship.
Flying Leathernecks
Major Daniel Kirby takes command of a squadron of Marine fliers just before they are about to go into combat. While the men are well meaning, he finds them undisciplined and prone to always finding excuses to do what is easy rather than what is necessary. The root of the problem is the second in command, Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin.
The Woman on Pier 13
Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
The Secret Fury
The wedding of Ellen and David is halted by a stranger who insists that the bride is already married to someone else. Though the flabbergasted Ellen denies the charge, the interloper produces enough evidence that his accusation must be investigated. Ellen and David travel to the small coastal town where her first wedding allegedly occurred.
Born to Be Bad
An ambitious girl steals a rich husband but keeps her lover on the side.
The Set-Up
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Caught
It was her childhood dream come true. She had married a man worth millions. But her innocent dream became a tormented nightmare once she realized the truth about her husband. He was more than a millionaire, he was absolutely insane!
The Boy with Green Hair
This parable looks at public reaction when the hair of an American war orphan mysteriously turns green.
Return of the Bad Men
When part of Oklahoma Territory becomes officially part of the U.S., Vance Cordrell is forced to deal with some of the most infamous outlaws of the Old West.
Berlin Express
Robert Ryan leads a group of Allied agents fighting an underground Nazi group in post-war Europe.
Act of Violence
An embittered veteran tracks down a POW camp informer.
Trail Street
Bat Masterson (Randolph Scott) cleans up Liberal, Kansas. Ray Enright's 1947 western also stars Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, Steve Brodie, George "Gabby" Hayes and Billy House.
The Woman on the Beach
A sailor suffering from post-traumatic stress becomes involved with a beautiful and enigmatic seductress married to a blind painter.
Crossfire
This unusual and worthwhile black-and-white film noir was one of the first movies to deal with issues of anti-Semitism.
Behind the Rising Sun
A Japanese publisher urges his American-educated son to side with the Axis.
The Ghost Breakers
After intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located off the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle.
North West Mounted Police
Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation.