Movies by Martin Ritt
As part of the cast:
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The Slugger's Wife (1985)
Cast: Michael O'Keefe, Rebecca De Mornay, Martin Ritt …
Directed by: Hal Ashby
Darryl Palmer (Michael O'Keefe) is a major league baseball player who meets and pursues an attractive singer (Rebecca De Mornay). After some setbacks, the two are married and sent on an…
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Awake and Sing! (1972)
Cast: Walter Matthau, Leo Fuchs, Felicia Farr …
The Bergers, a blue-collar Jewish family living in an overstuffed tenement and undone by the Depression, struggle through hard times and dream of a better future in this 1972 production of…
As a director:
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Stanley & Iris (1990)
Cast: Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Swoosie Kurtz …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Stanley (Robert De Niro) is a hardworking man who can't read; Iris (Jane Fonda) is a newly widowed woman who, to pay the bills, takes on a low-paying job at the bakery where Stanley…
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Nuts (1987)
Cast: Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, Maureen Stapleton …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
When high-class call girl Claudia Draper (Barbra Streisand) kills a customer in self-defense, her parents (Karl Malden and Maureen Stapleton) attempt to have her declared mentally incompetent…
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Murphy's Romance (1985)
Cast: Sally Field, James Garner, Corey Haim …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Trying to start over, feisty divorcée Emma Moriarty and her son, Jake, move to a small Arizona town, where widowed druggist Murphy Jones befriends the new arrivals. But things get…
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Cross Creek (1983)
Cast: Mary Steenburgen, Peter Coyote, Alfre Woodard …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Based on the protagonist's real-life memoirs, frustrated newspaper reporter Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Mary Steenburgen) abandons her career and moves to a Florida bayou to concentrate on…
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Back Roads (1981)
Cast: Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Keith …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
In a fleabag hotel in Alabama, a hooker (Sally Field) -- who's just been evicted from her apartment but nonetheless exhibits plenty of joie de vivre -- is picked up by an equally…
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Norma Rae (1979)
Cast: Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
In an Oscar-winning performance, Sally Field is unforgettable as Norma Rae Webster, the real-life Southern millworker who revolutionizes a small town and discovers a power within herself that…
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Casey's Shadow (1978)
Cast: Walter Matthau, Alexis Smith, Robert Webber …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Inspired by the short story "Ruidoso," penned by writer John McPhee, this film tells the story of down-and-out horse trainer Lloyd Bourdelle (Walter Matthau), who, against all odds, becomes…
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The Front (1976)
Cast: Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy) is a successful television writer whose political views have left him blacklisted from every major network in the McCarthy-era 1950s. Desperate to keep…
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Pete 'n' Tillie (1972)
Cast: Walter Matthau, Carol Burnett, Geraldine Page …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
This bittersweet look at life and love chronicles the relationship of middle-aged couple Pete (Walter Matthau, in an award-winning performance) and Tillie (Carol Burnett), from their rocky…
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Sounder (1972)
Cast: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield both earned Academy Award nominations for their performances in director Martin Ritt's poignant drama about the trials and tribulations of a family of…
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The Great White Hope (1970)
Cast: James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Lou Gilbert …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
After defeating the reigning champ, boxer Jack Jefferson (James Earl Jones) becomes the world's first black heavyweight champion. But the celebration is short-lived, as Jack is arrested…
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The Molly Maguires (1970)
Cast: Sean Connery, Richard Harris, Samantha Eggar …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
In 19th-century Pennsylvania, Detective James McParlan goes undercover to infiltrate a group of rebellious Irish American miners -- the Molly Maguires -- who resort to terrorist tactics to…
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The Brotherhood (1968)
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Alex Cord, Irene Papas …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
It might be best to view this 1968 Martin Ritt-directed movie about the Cosa Nostra as a slightly less effective precursor to Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy. Kirk Douglas is…
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Hombre (1967)
Cast: Paul Newman, Fredric March, Richard Boone …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Paul Newman stars as a half-Indian shunned by his fellow stagecoach passengers until a holdup forces them to trust him as he finds a way out of the desert. More 1960s than 1860s, this Western…
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The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)
Cast: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Alec Leamas (Richard Burton), a British Intelligence agent getting ready to retire, must undertake a final dangerous assignment before he can "come in from the cold," so he poses as a drunk…
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The Outrage (1964)
Cast: Paul Newman, William Shatner, Edward G. Robinson …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
When outlaw Juan Carrasco (Paul Newman) stands trial for the rape of a settler woman (Claire Bloom) and the murder of her husband (Laurence Harvey), three conflicting accounts of the crime…
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Hud (1963)
Cast: Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt successfully transforms a Larry McMurtry novel into a contemporary Western set on a Texas ranch where Cadillacs, cattle and transistor radios threaten to displace time-honored…
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Adventures of a Young Man (1962)
Cast: Paul Newman, Susan Strasberg, Jessica Tandy …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Richard Beymer portrays the titular young man, and Paul Newman turns in a stunning cameo as a punch-drunk pugilist in this atmospheric adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's…
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Five Branded Women (1960)
Cast: Silvana Mangano, Jeanne Moreau, Vera Miles …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Four Yugoslavian women (Silvana Mangano, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jeanne Moreau and Carla Gravina) who've slept with a Nazi officer (Steve Forrest) -- and one woman who's merely accused…
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The Black Orchid (1959)
Cast: Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, Peter Mark Richman …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Two lonely souls find each other, fall in love and face life's challenges in this romance. Troubled by the notion that she caused her gangster husband's death, florist Rose (Sophia…
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The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Cast: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
Director Martin Ritt combines two William Faulkner stories into a smoldering drama starring Paul Newman as Ben Quick, a wandering handyman who arrives in Frenchman's Bend, Miss., where…
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Edge of the City (1957)
Cast: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden …
Directed by: Martin Ritt
When Axel Nordmann (John Cassavetes) deserts the Army and goes to work at the New York rail yards, he hits it off with freight car loader Tommy Tyler (Sidney Poitier), but their interracial…