Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 neo-noir black comedy crime film written and directed by Guy Ritchie. It follows a heist involving a confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three-card brag, prompting him to pay off his debts by enlisting his friends to help him rob a small-time gang operating out of the apartment next door. It stars an ensemble cast featuring Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham, Steven Mackintosh, Vinnie Jones, and Sting.
Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor. Portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), Dinklage won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times. He also received a Golden Globe Award in 2011 and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2020 for the role. Dinklage has a common form of dwarfism, known as achondroplasia, and stands 4 ft 5 in (1.35 m) tall. He has used his celebrity status to raise social awareness of dwarfism.
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is best known for making big-budget, high-concept action films characterized by fast cutting, stylistic cinematography and visuals, and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions. The films he has directed include Bad Boys (1995) and its sequel Bad Boys II (2003), The Rock (1996), Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), the first five films in the Transformers film series, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016), 6 Underground (2019), and Ambulance (2022). His films have grossed over US$7.8 billion worldwide, making him one of the most commercially successful directors in history.
Jeffrey Duncan Jones is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus (1984), Edward R. Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), Dr. Skip Tyler in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Eddie Barzoon in The Devil's Advocate (1997), and A.W. Merrick in both Deadwood (2004–2006) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019). His career started in Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and advanced to London and Broadway. In film and television, Jones has had many roles which capitalized on his deadpan portrayal of characters in unusual situations, often to comic effect. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in Amadeus and a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the ensemble cast of Deadwood.
Speakeasy is a 2002 film about two men who become unlikely friends after a minor traffic accident. Written and directed by Brendan Murphy, Speakeasy was a runner-up to become the first movie produced for Project Greenlight, a documentary series about the making of an independent film. After Pete Jones's Stolen Summer was chosen for Project Greenlight instead, the show's founders, LivePlanet and Miramax, decided to produce Speakeasy apart from the documentary series.
Project Greenlight is an American documentary television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film. It was created by Alex Keledjian, developed by Eli Holzman and produced by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Sean Bailey, and Chris Moore through their production company LivePlanet, along with Miramax Films. Project Greenlight first aired on HBO for two seasons before moving to Bravo for season three in 2005. The series returned in 2015 for a fourth season airing on HBO. On July 26, 2016, the series was canceled. In May 2021, HBO Max picked up the series with an 8-episode order and will be produced by Issa Rae through her production company Hoorae Media. The revival titled Project Greenlight: A New Generation premiered on July 13, 2023.
Head Office is a 1985 American satirical black comedy film, produced by HBO Pictures in association with Silver Screen Partners. It stars Judge Reinhold, Eddie Albert, Lori-Nan Engler, Jane Seymour, Richard Masur, Michael O'Donoghue, Ron Frazier, and Merritt Butrick and was directed and written by Ken Finkleman. It is also the first film to be composed by James Newton Howard.
Honeymoon in Vegas is a 1992 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Andrew Bergman and starring James Caan, Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Hollywood Shuffle is a 1987 American satirical comedy film about the racial stereotypes of African Americans in film and television. The film tracks the attempts of Bobby Taylor to become a successful actor and the mental and external roadblocks he encounters, represented through a series of interspersed vignettes and fantasies. Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, the film is semi-autobiographical, reflecting Townsend's experiences as a black actor when he was told he was not "black enough" for certain roles.
Truman is a 1995 American biographical drama television film directed by Frank Pierson and written by Thomas Rickman, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1992 book, Truman. Starring Gary Sinise as Harry S. Truman, the film centers on Truman's humble beginnings, his rise to the presidency, World War II, and his decision to use the first atomic bomb. The film's tagline is "It took a farmer's hand to shape a nation." The film aired on HBO on September 9, 1995.
The Last Metro is a 1980 historical drama film, written and directed by François Truffaut, that stars Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.
Leave It to Beaver is a 1997 American comedy film based on the eponymous television series. Many in-jokes and sub-plots relating to the series are adapted for the film. It features many of the original regular characters, most played by new actors, with some cameos by the original TV cast. Universal Pictures released it on August 22, 1997.
Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Written and directed by Amy J. Berg, it won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to An Inconvenient Truth. The title of the film refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer.
Pete Biagi is a cinematographer. His work includes numerous short films and eighteen feature-length films. He has also shot local commercials and national commercials. He won Intercom's Best Cinematography Award, an AICP Award, and an Indy Award. He was featured in the first season of HBO's Project Greenlight while working as the cinematographer for the film Stolen Summer.
Turning Green is a 2005 black comedy film written and directed by Michael Aimette and John G. Hofmann. The script was a runner-up in the original Project Greenlight on HBO. Donal Gallery stars as James Powers, a displaced American teenager living in Ireland in 1979 who discovers girlie magazines on a random trip to London. He illegally imports magazines, changing his fortunes and perspective on life in Ireland. The tagline for the film is "Turning Green. The tale of a boy, a country, and a box of porn."
Andrew Haigh is an English filmmaker. He is best known for writing and directing the films Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015), Lean on Pete (2017), and All of Us Strangers (2023). He also wrote and produced the HBO series Looking (2014–2015) and its film sequel Looking: The Movie (2016), as well as the BBC Two limited series The North Water (2021).
American actor Matt Damon made his film debut with a small role in Mystic Pizza (1988), after which he played several supporting roles. His first leading role was in the legal drama film The Rainmaker (1997). His breakthrough came later that year when he played the title role of an unrecognized genius in Good Will Hunting, which he also co-wrote with Ben Affleck. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Damon was nominated for Best Actor. He followed it by playing the title roles of a soldier in Steven Spielberg's war drama Saving Private Ryan (1998) and of the criminal Tom Ripley in the thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), both of which gained critical and commercial success. Damon and Sean Bailey worked on the television series Project Greenlight since 2000, helping newcomers make their first film.
Tom Donahue is an American film director, producer, and co-showrunner. His work as writer, director, and showrunner includes the Paramount Plus Original docuseries Murder of God's Banker and the upcoming six-part docuseries Mafia Spies, based on the 2019 book by Thomas Maier about the CIA-Mafia assassination plots against Fidel Castro.
The Leisure Class is a 2015 black comedy farce television film by HBO Films about a man who is trying to marry into a wealthy family and his unpredictable brother. The film was directed by Project Greenlight season four contest winner, Jason Mann, written by Mann and Project Greenlight season one winner Pete Jones, and produced by Effie T. Brown and Marc Jouburt. It is based on a 2012 short film produced and co-written by Mann that premiered at the 2013 Raindance Film Festival. Season 4 of Project Greenlight aired on HBO as a documentary series chronicling the selection of Mann and the production of the film. The film premiered in Los Angeles in August 2015 and aired on HBO on November 2, 2015 to universal negative reception with a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Panic is an American teen drama television series created and written by Lauren Oliver based on her 2014 novel of the same name. The series stars Olivia Welch, Mike Faist, and Jessica Sula. The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on May 28, 2021. In August 2021, the series was canceled after one season.
