Roger Spottiswoode

Directing

Roger Spottiswoode

Born

1945-01-05 (81)

Place of birth

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Known for

Directing

Credits

34 titles

Roger Spottiswoode (born January 5, 1945) is a Canadian-born film director and writer, who began his career as an editor in the 1970s. He was born in Ottawa, Ontario. He has directed a number of notable films and television productions, including Under Fire (1983) and the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies starring Pierce Brosnan. Spottiswoode was one of the writing team responsible for 48 Hrs. starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte. In 2000, he directed the science fiction action thriller The 6th Day starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Known for

The 6th Day poster
6.0

A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.

The 6th Day

2000

Tomorrow Never Dies poster
6.4

A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium.

Tomorrow Never Dies

1997

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot poster
5.4

A tough police sergeant's mother comes to visit him, and promptly starts trying to fix up his life, much to his embarrassment. For his birthday she buys him a machine gun out of the back of a van, and begins to further interfere with his job and love life, eventually helping him with a case he's on.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

1992

A Street Cat Named Bob poster
7.9

James Bowen, a homeless busker and recovering drug addict, has his life transformed when he meets a stray ginger cat.

A Street Cat Named Bob

2016

48 Hrs. poster
6.7

A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer.

48 Hrs.

1982

Turner & Hooch poster
6.3

Detective Scott Turner has three days left in the local police department before he moves to a bigger city to get some 'real' cases—not just misdemeanors. When Amos Reed is murdered, Scott sets himself on the case, but the closest thing to a witness to the murder is Reed's dog, Hooch, which Scott has to take care of—to avoid Hooch being 'put to sleep'.

Turner & Hooch

1989

Film credits

Behind the camera

The 6th Day poster
6.0

A world of the very near future in which cattle, fish, and even the family pet can be cloned. But cloning humans is illegal - that is until family man Adam Gibson comes home from work one day to find a clone has replaced him. Taken from his family and plunged into a sinister world he doesn't understand, Gibson must not only save himself from the assassins who must destroy him to protect their secret, but uncover who and what is behind the horrible things happening to him.

The 6th Day

2000

Tomorrow Never Dies poster
6.4

A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium.

Tomorrow Never Dies

1997

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot poster
5.4

A tough police sergeant's mother comes to visit him, and promptly starts trying to fix up his life, much to his embarrassment. For his birthday she buys him a machine gun out of the back of a van, and begins to further interfere with his job and love life, eventually helping him with a case he's on.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

1992

A Street Cat Named Bob poster
7.9

James Bowen, a homeless busker and recovering drug addict, has his life transformed when he meets a stray ginger cat.

A Street Cat Named Bob

2016

48 Hrs. poster
6.7

A hard-nosed cop reluctantly teams up with a wise-cracking criminal temporarily paroled to him, in order to track down a killer.

48 Hrs.

1982

Turner & Hooch poster
6.3

Detective Scott Turner has three days left in the local police department before he moves to a bigger city to get some 'real' cases—not just misdemeanors. When Amos Reed is murdered, Scott sets himself on the case, but the closest thing to a witness to the murder is Reed's dog, Hooch, which Scott has to take care of—to avoid Hooch being 'put to sleep'.

Turner & Hooch

1989

And the Band Played On poster
6.4

The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.

And the Band Played On

1993

Under Fire poster
6.7

Three U.S. journalists get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.

Under Fire

1983

The Best of Times poster
5.7

A small-town loser determines to have one more shot at the big time by winning a football game.

The Best of Times

1986

Terror Train poster
5.8

A masked killer targets six college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier and who are currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train.

Terror Train

1980

Ripley Under Ground poster
5.6

Now living a quiet, luxurious life at his French estate—funded by past crimes and his marriage to an heiress—Tom Ripley finds that an art scam he supports—selling forged paintings by a supposedly living artist named Derwatt—beginning to collapse. An inquisitive American collector suspects his Derwatt painting is fake and demands answers. As the situation escalates, Ripley turns to murder and elaborate identity deception to protect his reputation.

Ripley Under Ground

2007

The Beach House poster
6.3

Cara Rudland thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind, but returns to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers after losing her job in Chicago. There, she reconnects with her mother Lovie, who has been caring for her young, pregnant friend Toy in her charming beach house.

The Beach House

2018

Air America poster
5.8

Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.

Air America

1990

Shoot to Kill poster
6.6

When a cunning murderer vanishes into the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest, pursuing FBI agent Warren Stantin must exchange familiar city streets for unknown wilderness trails. Completely out of his element, Stantin is forced to enlist the aid of expert tracker Jonathan Knox. It's a turbulent yet vital relationship they must maintain in order to survive... and one that becomes increasingly desperate when Knox's girlfriend Sarah becomes the killer's latest hostage!

Shoot to Kill

1988

The Children of Huang Shi poster
6.7

About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.

The Children of Huang Shi

2008

Midnight Sun poster
5.8

In northern Canada, a young boy sets a goal for himself to to reunite an abandoned polar bear cub with its mother. Goran Visnjic joins the cast as Muktuk, a half Inuit and half Canadian, who knows the terrain where the polar bears live and who agrees to help the boy.

Midnight Sun

2014

The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper poster
5.4

A speculation on the fate of the famous hijacker who parachuted with his ransom and disappeared in the mountains. Has Cooper succeeded in following a meticulous plan to disappear into anonymity despite the best efforts of a dogged cop?

The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper

1981

Shake Hands with the Devil poster
7.2

In 1993, Canadian Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire was sent by the United Nations to Rwanda as commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Its mission, to ensure the ceasefire, is underfunded, excessively bureaucratized and made up of military units which come from dozens of countries and which each have a very different program... These are Lt Gen Dallaire's efforts to stop the madness of the Rwandan Genocide, despite the complete indifference of his superiors.

Shake Hands with the Devil

2007

The Matthew Shepard Story poster
5.6

In a senseless act of hatred, openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998. This critically-acclaimed, moving film recounts the final days of Matthew's killers' trial—and the weeks leading to Matthew's death—with unnerving detail. Stockard Channing delivers an unforgettable, Emmy® Award-winning performance as Matthew's grieving mother, Judy, in a story of a murder that moved a nation to action. Also starring Law & Order's Sam Waterston.

The Matthew Shepard Story

2002

Murder Live! poster
6.4

Frank takes Pia Postman hostage on live TV, threatening to execute her after she accepts the blame for his daughter's suicide.

Murder Live!

1997

The Renegades poster
6.6

In this drama, undercover investigators are recruited from the streets to prevent arms smugglers from getting their weapons to street gangs.

The Renegades

1982

Ice Bound poster
5.3

Physician Jerri Nielsen finds herself stranded at the Amundsen-South Pole Research Station along with a tiny staff of researchers and technicians. Though there is at first little love lost between the somewhat aloof Nielsen and her more down-to-earth colleagues, a strong bond develops among them as the extreme winter progresses.

Ice Bound

2003

Noriega: God's Favorite poster
5.3

The story of Panamanian general Manuel Antonio 'Tony' Noriega, whose meteoric career, from utter poverty, as a soldier and CIA informant who also served as source to various other powers and even the Colombian drug mafia he claims to fight valiantly to please CIA director and later U.S. president Bush Sr., starts when he confesses to a priest, reminiscing how he has experienced such luck that he believes himself to be God's favorite- each time he takes more risks people tell him he went too far, but always seems to get away with it.

Noriega: God's Favorite

2000

Third Degree Burn poster
4.6

A down-and-out private eye (Treat Williams) gets too close to the wife (Virginia Madsen) of a rich man (Richard Masur) soon found dead.

Third Degree Burn

1989

The Last Innocent Man poster
5.3

A retired criminal lawyer is persuaded to take on one more case and becomes involved with his client's wife.

The Last Innocent Man

1987

Spinning Boris poster
6.1

Russian political elite hires American consultants to help with President Yeltsin's re-election campaign when his approval rating is down to single digits.

Spinning Boris

2003

Either Side of Midnight poster
NR

Four stories collide over one Friday night in Manhattan in this lyrical snapshot and celebration of the manic, intoxicating diversity of New York City.

Either Side of Midnight

2021

Hiroshima poster
8.3

Hiroshima is a 1995 Japanese / Canadian film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode about the decision-making processes that led to the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II. Except as actors, no Americans took part in the production. The three-hour film was made for television and evidently had no theatrical release, but is available on DVD for home viewing. A combination of dramatisation, historical footage, and eyewitness interviews, the film alternates between documentary footage and the dramatic recreations. Both the dramatisations and most of the original footage are presented as sepia-toned images, serving to blur the distinction between them. The languages are English and Japanese, with subtitles, and the actors are largely Canadian and Japanese.

Hiroshima

1995

Mesmer poster
6.0

A biography of the eighteenth century Viennese physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who used unorthodox healing practices based on his theory of "animal magnetism."

Mesmer

1994

Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness poster
6.2

A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide struggles to forgive the man who killed her children. A victim’s daughter strikes up an unusual friendship with the ex-IRA bomber who killed her father. And two men—one Israeli, one Palestinian—form a bond after tragedies claim their daughters.

Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness

2012

Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness poster
6.2

A survivor of the Rwandan Genocide struggles to forgive the man who killed her children. A victim’s daughter strikes up an unusual friendship with the ex-IRA bomber who killed her father. And two men—one Israeli, one Palestinian—form a bond after tragedies claim their daughters.

Beyond Right & Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness

2012

Time Flies When You're Alive poster
NR

Time Flies When You're Alive is a gripping one-man show. Paul Linke recounts, in no small detail the highs and lows of his marriage, specifically around his wife's losing struggle with breast cancer. Solemn as the topic is, Linke finds ample opportunity to lighten the mood and even crack honest, respectable jokes. The 79-minute production is well worth the watch!

Time Flies When You're Alive

1989