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Confessions of a Sociopath (2002)
Character: Himself
Confessions of a Sociopath is an autobiographical film on digital video and Super 8 film, conceived as a real-life version of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. In this film, Joe Gibbons plays a fictionalized version of himself as he discovers a roomful of Super 8 footage from his own life, detailing events he can no longer recall. This footage shows his earlier film experiments, his descent into destructive behavior, and his “bottoming out” on drugs and alcohol. At a certain point, the films are replaced by random photos, police records, and psychiatric hospital records.
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Double Lunar Dogs (1984)
Character: N/A
Based on Robert Heinlein’s 1941 story “Universe,” Double Lunar Dogs presents a vision of post-apocalyptic survival aboard a “spacecraft,” travelling aimlessly through the universe, whose passengers have forgotten the purpose of their mission. As a metaphor for the nature and purpose of memory, the two main characters (portrayed by Jonas and Spalding Gray) play games with images of their past; but their efforts to restore their collective memories are futile, and they are reprimanded by the “Authority” for their attempts to recapture their past on a now-destroyed planet Earth.
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Our Town (1989)
Character: Stage Manager
This classic American play, performed on an almost-bare stage, is about the mundane but rather pleasant lives of the Gibbs family, the Webb family, and their neighbors in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, early in the 20th century.
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Anybody's Woman (1981)
Character: N/A
The goings-on around a porn theater in New York’s East Village, interspersed with actors recounting experiences with extreme sexualities and a description of a scene from the pre-code Dorothy Arzner film of the same name.
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Prisoner's Dilemma (1974)
Character: Spalding Gray
A two-part tape of a video performance done on January 22, 1974, at 112 Greene Street (as part of the Video Performance Exhibition), structured on a problem in game theory, a non-zero-sum game, in which both players can win or lose at the same time, one can win more than the other, and one can win at the others expense. Serra and Bell have used game theory as a way of dealing with genres of commercial TV: cops and robbers in the first part, and a quiz program in the second.
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Love-In '72 (1970)
Character: Radical at Party
A man must decide whether to flee the U.S. draft and go to Canada or stay or go fight for his country in Vietnam.
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Sex and Death to the Age 14 (1982)
Character: Himself
Monologue created and performed by Spalding Gray, who takes us through his childhood recollections of growing up in a Christian Science household in Barrington, Rhode Island, in the 1950s.
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A Personal History of the American Theater (1982)
Character: Himself
An autobiographical monologue in which Spalding Gray randomly draws cards for titles of the plays in which he performed in the 1960s. He proceeds to tell stories that came out of the experiences with each play.
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Rumstick Road (2014)
Character: Self (archive footage)
A video reconstruction of the 1977 Wooster Group production Rumstick Road, an experimental theater performance created by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte after the suicide of Gray's mother. Archival recordings are combined with photographs, slides, and other materials to recreate the original production.
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Real Life (1986)
Character: Earl Culver
Documentary made on the set of David Byrne's 1986 film TRUE STORIES.
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What You Mean We? (1986)
Character: Talk show host
WHAT YOU MEAN WE is a surreal short film by experimental artist Laurie Anderson.
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Hard Choices (1985)
Character: Terry Norfolk
A teenaged boy goes for a ride with his brother and the brother's friends, who proceed to rob a store and murder the clerk. They are caught and, despite the young boy's protestations, he is convicted of murder and sent to prison. A female social worker assigned to the boy's case not only believes him, but begins to fall in love with him, and determines to either help him prove his innocence or escape.
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Yesterday's Tomorrows (1999)
Character: Self
Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related series of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the third of the six films, "Yesterday's Tomorrows," filmmaker Barry Levinson delves into what we, as Americans, thought the future would be as we traveled through the 20th century. Houses and cars of the future, the promise of technology, and the other hopes and dreams of the early part of the century gave way to the fears and anxieties brought about by the atomic age and the Hollywood disaster films that followed. Soon we wondered if we could control technology, or if it would control us. This film is by turns light-hearted and thoughtful, and rare historical and archival film, produced by government and industry, alternates with on-screen interviews with people as diverse as consumer advocate Ralph Nader, cartoonist Matt Groening, futurist Alvin Toffler, comedienne Phyllis Diller, and actor Martin Mull.
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Almost You (1985)
Character: Travel Agent
Alex and Erica Boyer are a young couple in crisis. Alex, despite his loving wife, beautiful home and high-paying job, feels trapped. When Erica has an accident that leaves her temporarily confined to a wheelchair and requiring the services of a private nurse, the beautiful Lisa enters the Boyers' lives. A complicated situation develops as Alex sees Lisa as the cure for his own problems as well as his wife's.
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To Save a Child (1991)
Character: N/A
A doctor and his pregnant young wife move into a small New Mexico town. At first the locals are friendly and pleased to see them, but soon the wife begins to suspect that their new neighbors' motives are more than just hospitality.
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Clara's Heart (1988)
Character: Peter Epstein
David is a teenager whose parents are in a deteriorating marriage after their infant daughter dies. Clara is a chambermaid at a Jamaican resort who's hired to be a housekeeper. She and David develop a close bond, opening his eyes and heart to new experiences, and eventually leading to a disturbing secret in Clara's past.
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Zelda (1993)
Character: Sayre
Famous 1920s modernist writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his eccentric Flapper socialite wife Zelda Sayre's relationship began quite passionately, but he slowly fell into alcoholism and she was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.
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Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
Character: Spalding Gray
Spalding Gray sits behind a desk throughout the entire film and recounts his exploits and chance encounters while playing a minor role in the film 'The Killing Fields'. At the same time, he gives a background to the events occurring in Cambodia at the time the film was set.
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The Image (1990)
Character: Frank Goodrich
When career-focused journalist's investigation indirectly causes a suicide, he questions his own methods and life in general.
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Twenty Bucks (1993)
Character: Priest
A story about the life of a twenty dollar bill as it weaves in and out of the various lives of several people.
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Heavy Petting (1989)
Character: Self
Celebrities and creatives -- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- recall their earliest sexual experiences.
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Straight Talk (1992)
Character: Dr. Erdman
Honest and straightforward small-town Shirlee Kenyon chucks her boyfriend and heads for Chicago. Accidentally having to host a radio problem phone-in show, it is clear she is a natural and is hired on the spot. But the station insists she call herself Doctor, and as her popularity grows a local reporter starts digging for the truth. Problem is, the more he is around her the more he fancies her.
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Seven Minutes in Heaven (1986)
Character: Dr. Rodney
Natalie allows her classmate Jeff, who ran away from home after a fight with his stepfather, to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip. Natalie soon starts dating Jeff's friend James Casey, who isn't as faithful as she thinks, while her best friend Polly falls in love with baseball player Zoo Knudsen.
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Monster in a Box (1992)
Character: Self
Monologuist Spalding Gray talks about the great difficulties he experienced while attempting to write his first novel, a nearly 2,000-page autobiographical tome concerning the death of his mother. Among his many asides, Gray discusses his problems in dealing with the Hollywood film industry, recounts the trips he took around the world in order to avoid dealing with his writer's block and describes his ambivalence about acting as stage manager for a Broadway production of "Our Town."
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The Killing Fields (1984)
Character: U.S. Consul
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
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The Pickle (1993)
Character: Doctor
Harry Stone always dreamed of making "The Great American Movie." Instead he made The Pickle - a teenage sci-fi flick about a flying cucumber. Harry just wanted to get out of debt; now everyone he's ever known, loved and neglected is standing in line for tickets.
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Julie Johnson (2001)
Character: Mr. Tom Miranda
A New Jersey housewife is dissatisfied with her everyday life because she is smarter than she or anyone else knows. While taking a computer class, Julie discovers her abilities and finds the courage to make dramatic life changes. This is a story of realizing one's potential and being willing to turn one's life upside down to take a chance on finding happiness. Claire, Julie's best friend, goes along with Julie's secret quest and eventually moves in with her. Both women are on a search to realize their dreams and come to terms with their love for each other.
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Beyond Rangoon (1995)
Character: Jeremy Watt
Dr. Laura Bowman is a young widow who's unwittingly drawn into political turmoil while vacationing in Burma in the late 1980s. Bowman initially left San Francisco with her sister in an attempt to escape painful memories of her husband and son's violent deaths. But her fight to escape to Thailand could prove just as harrowing.
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Coming Soon (1999)
Character: Mr. Jennings
Privileged teenage friends Jenny, Nell and Stream spend their senior year on a quest to rid Stream of her virginity. However, Stream wants more than just her first sexual experience. She wants to have an orgasm -- but achieving this proves problematic, as the boys she meets are hardly sensitive enough to provide her the release she seeks. When it becomes clear that Nell and Jenny have never experienced an orgasm either, all three set out to get one.
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King of the Hill (1993)
Character: Mr. Mungo
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
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Bliss (1997)
Character: Alfred
On his wedding day, Joseph nervously admits that his wife is not quite like other women. But his beautiful bride is more than just the "impulsive, compulsive, obsessive" woman he thinks he knows. And when Joseph discovers she is hiding troubling secrets, it sends them both on a sexual odyssey that will either destroy or redeem their relationship.
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How High (2001)
Character: Prof. Jackson
Multi-platinum rap superstars Redman and Method Man star as Jamal and Silas, two regular guys who smoke something magical, ace their college entrance exams and wind up at Harvard. Ivy League ways are strange but Silas and Jamal take it in a stride -- until their supply of supernatural smoke runs dry. That's when they have to start living by their wits and rely on their natural resources to make the grade.
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Diabolique (1996)
Character: Simon Veatch
The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.
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True Stories (1986)
Character: Earl Culver
A small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters, celebrates its sesquicentennial and converge on a local parade and talent show.
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Bad Company (1995)
Character: Walter Curl
CIA operative Nelson Crowe is tasked with a deadly assignment: infiltrate a highly secret industrial espionage firm. Once inside, he teams with Margaret Wells, a master spy and seductive manipulator, in a plot to overthrow the organization's sinister president, which leads them into a darkly mysterious web of intrigue -- and shocking murder!
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Revolution #9 (2002)
Character: Scooter McCrae
A handsome and successful young man with a lovely fiancée, James Jackson seems to have everything going for him, but his life begins to unravel when he develops an acute sense of paranoia. At first, he notices little things at his office that he takes as signs that people are out to get him, but soon things escalate, with Jackson convinced that a perfume ad on television holds sinister messages aimed at him. Is Jackson losing his mind, or are the threats real?
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The Paper (1994)
Character: Paul Bladden
Henry Hackett is the workaholic editor of a New York City tabloid. He loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. Also, publisher Bernie White faces financial straits, and has hatchet-man Alicia Clark—Henry's nemesis—impose unpopular cutbacks.
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Drunks (1997)
Character: Louis
At the beginning of a nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim seems particularly troubled. His sponsor encourages him to talk that night, the first time in seven months, so he does - and leaves the meeting right after. As Jim wanders the night, searching for some solace in his old stomping grounds, bars and parks where he bought drugs, the meeting goes on, and we hear the stories of survivors and addicts - some, like Louis, who claim to have wandered in looking for choir practice, who don't call themselves alcoholic, and others, like Joseph, whose drinking almost caused the death of his child - as they talk about their lives at the meeting
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Beaches (1988)
Character: Dr. Richard Milstein
A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.
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Gray's Anatomy (1996)
Character: Spalding Gray
The film documents, in an often dramatic and humorous fashion, Gray's investigations into alternative medicine for an eye condition (Macular pucker) he had developed.
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Kate & Leopold (2001)
Character: Dr. Geisler
When her scientist ex-boyfriend discovers a portal to travel through time -- and brings back a 19th-century nobleman named Leopold to prove it -- a skeptical Kate reluctantly takes responsibility for showing Leopold the 21st century. The more time Kate spends with Leopold, the harder she falls for him. But if he doesn't return to his own time, his absence will forever alter history.
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Glory Daze (1995)
Character: Jack's Dad
Jack, a soon-to-be graduate, finds he's having a difficult time letting go of the college life -- and decides maybe he doesn't have to. Also questioning whether there's life after college are Jack's roommates: Rob, who fears domestication; comic-strip artist Mickey, who's shy around girls; intellectual party animal Slosh; and perpetual student Dennis.
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And Everything Is Going Fine (2010)
Character: Self (archive footage)
From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance.
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Variety (1985)
Character: Obscene Phone Caller (voice)
A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patrons of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.
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Variety (1985)
Character: Voice on answering machine (voice)
A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patrons of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.
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Stars & Bars (1988)
Character: Reverend T.J. Cardew
A British art expert leaves New York to buy a long-lost Renoir from a Georgia eccentric.
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The Farmer's Daughters (1976)
Character: George
After the farmer's daughters attack the farm hand Fred, three escaped convicts arrive and have their way with members of the family. Fred surprises the convicts, only to replace them in the family's victimization.
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Maraschino Cherry (1978)
Character: Penny's Client with Beard (uncredited)
The madame of a high-class new York brothel teaches her younger sister all about the business.
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