One of Hollywood's most intense supporting and leading actors, James Woods has built a distinguished career on stage, screen, and television. Early in his career, Woods, with his lean body, close-set eyes, and narrow, acne-scarred face, specialized in playing sociopaths, psychopaths, and other crazed villains, but in the 1990s, he added a sizable number of good guys to his resumé.
The son of a military man, Woods was born in Vermal, UT, on April 14, 1947. Thanks to his father's job, he had a peripatetic childhood, living in four states and on the island of Guam. As a young man, he earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; after obtaining a degree in political science, he set out to become a professional actor in New York. While in school he had appeared in numerous plays at M.I.T., Harvard, and with the Theater Company of Boston, as well as at the Provincetown Playhouse on Rhode Island. After working off-Broadway, Woods debuted on Broadway in 1970, appearing in Borstal Boy. Off-Broadway, he earned an Obie for his work in Saved.
In 1971, the actor made his first television appearance in All the Way Home, and the year after that debuted in Elia Kazan's thriller The Visitors (1972). He then played a small part in The Way We Were (1973), but did not become a star until he played a vicious, remorseless cop killer in The Onion Field (1979). Subsequent film appearances quickly established Woods as a scene stealer, and though not among Tinseltown's most handsome actors, he developed a base of devoted female fans who found his rugged, ruthless appearance sexy. This appearance would serve him well throughout his career, notably in one of his first major films, David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983). Cast as the film's morally ambiguous hero, Woods gave a brilliantly intense performance that was further enhanced by his rough-hewn physical attributes.
Throughout the 1980s, Woods continued to turn in one solid performance after another, earning a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of an American journalist in South America in Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986). He gave another remarkable performance as a Jewish gangster in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and in 1989 tried his hand at playing nice in the adoption drama Immediate Family. That same year, he won an Emmy for his portrayal of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson in My Name is Bill W. After beginning the subsequent decade with an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated performance in the title role of the made-for-TV Citizen Cohn (1992), Woods appeared in a diverse series of films, playing a boxing promoter in Diggstown (1992), H.R. Haldeman in Nixon (1995), a drug dealer in Another Day in Paradise (1998), and a vampire slayer in John Carpenter's Vampires. In 1996, he won his second Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Medger Evers' suspected assassin in Ghosts of Mississippi. In 1999, the actor continued to demonstrate his versatility in a number of high-profile films. For The General's Daughter, he played a shady colonel, while he appeared as a newspaper editor in Clint Eastwood's True Crime, the head of an emotionally disintegrating Michigan family in The Virgin Suicides, and a football team orthopedist in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Straw Dogs
Actor |
2011 | |||
|
Too Big to Fail
Actor |
2011 | |||
| 2010 | ||||
|
An American Carol
Actor |
2008 | |||
|
Shark: Season 02
Actor |
2007 | |||
|
Surf's Up
Voice |
2007 | |||
|
Entourage: Aquamom
TV Guest Appearance |
2006 | |||
|
Shark: Season 01
Actor |
2006 | |||
|
Be Cool
Actor |
2005 | |||
|
Buddy
Voice |
2005 | |||
|
End Game
Actor |
2005 | |||
| 2005 | ||||
|
Pretty Persuasion
Actor |
2005 | |||
|
The Easter Egg Adventure
Voice |
2004 | |||
|
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
Interviewee |
2004 | |||
|
Ark
Voice |
2003 | |||
| 2003 | ||||
|
Northfork
Actor, Executive Producer |
2003 | |||
|
This Girl's Life
Actor |
2003 | |||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
|
John Q.
Actor |
2002 | |||
| 2002 | ||||
|
Race to Space
Actor |
2002 | |||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
|
Stuart Little 2
Voice |
2002 | |||
| 2001 | ||||
| 2001 | ||||
|
Riding in Cars With Boys
Actor |
2001 | |||
|
Scary Movie 2
Actor |
2001 | |||
| 2001 | ||||
| 2001 | ||||
| 2001 | ||||
|
Cheating Las Vegas
Voice |
2000 | |||
|
Dirty Pictures
Actor |
2000 | |||
| 2000 | ||||
| 2000 | ||||
| 2000 | ||||
| 2000 | ||||
|
Play It to the Bone
Actor |
2000 | |||
| 2000 | ||||
| 2000 | ||||
|
Any Given Sunday
Actor |
1999 | |||
| 1999 | ||||
|
The General's Daughter
Actor |
1999 | |||
|
The Virgin Suicides
Actor |
1999 | |||
|
True Crime
Actor |
1999 | |||
|
Another Day In Paradise
Actor, Producer |
1998 | |||
|
Vampires
Actor |
1998 | |||
|
Contact
Actor |
1997 | |||
|
Hercules
Voice |
1997 | |||
|
Kicked in the Head
Actor |
1997 | |||
| 1997 | ||||
|
For Better or Worse
Actor |
1996 | |||
|
Ghosts of Mississippi
Actor |
1996 | |||
|
Summer of Ben Tyler
Actor |
1996 | |||
|
Casino
Actor |
1995 | |||
| 1995 | ||||
| 1995 | ||||
|
Nixon
Actor |
1995 | |||
| 1994 | ||||
|
Next Door
Actor |
1994 | |||
|
The Getaway
Actor |
1994 | |||
|
The Specialist
Actor |
1994 | |||
|
Fallen Angels, Vol. 1
Actor |
1993 | |||
|
Chaplin
Actor |
1992 | |||
|
Citizen Cohn
Actor |
1992 | |||
|
Diggstown
Actor |
1992 | |||
|
Straight Talk
Actor |
1992 | |||
|
The Boys
Actor |
1991 | |||
|
The Hard Way
Actor |
1991 | |||
| 1990 | ||||
|
Hollywood on Horses
Actor |
1989 | |||
|
Immediate Family
Actor |
1989 | |||
|
My Name Is Bill W.
Actor |
1989 | |||
|
Saturday Night Live: James Woods
TV Guest Appearance |
1989 | |||
|
True Believer
Actor |
1989 | |||
|
In Love and War
Actor |
1988 | |||
|
The Boost
Actor |
1988 | |||
|
Wildfire
Actor |
1988 | |||
|
Best Seller
Actor |
1987 | |||
|
Cop
Actor, Co-producer |
1987 | |||
|
Love and War
Actor |
1987 | |||
|
Promise
Actor |
1986 | |||
|
Salvador
Actor |
1986 | |||
|
Badge of the Assassin
Actor |
1985 | |||
|
Cat's Eye
Actor |
1985 | |||
|
Echo Park
Songwriter |
1985 | |||
|
Joshua Then and Now
Actor |
1985 | |||
|
Against All Odds
Actor |
1984 | |||
| 1984 | ||||
|
Fast-Walking
Actor |
1982 | |||
|
Split Image
Actor |
1982 | |||
|
Videodrome
Actor |
1982 | |||
|
Eyewitness
Actor |
1981 | |||
| 1979 | ||||
|
The Black Marble
Actor |
1979 | |||
| 1979 | ||||
|
The Onion Field
Actor |
1979 | |||
|
Holocaust
Actor |
1978 | |||
|
The Gift of Love
Actor |
1978 | |||
|
Raid on Entebbe
Actor |
1977 | |||
|
The Choirboys
Actor |
1977 | |||
|
Alex and the Gypsy
Actor |
1976 | |||
| 1976 | ||||
| 1976 | ||||
|
Distance
Actor |
1975 | |||
|
Foster and Laurie
Actor |
1975 | |||
|
Night Moves
Actor |
1975 | |||
| 1975 | ||||
| 1974 | ||||
|
The Gambler
Actor |
1974 | |||
| 1974 | ||||
|
The Way We Were
Actor |
1973 | |||
|
A Great American Tragedy
Actor |
1972 | |||
|
Footsteps
Actor |
1972 | |||
|
Hickey and Boggs
Actor |
1972 | |||
|
The Visitors
Actor |
1972 | |||
|
All the Way Home
Actor |
1971 |





















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