Billy Ray

Writing

Billy Ray

Born 1971-09-21 · Los Angeles, California, USA

Billy Ray (born 1962) is an American screenwriter and film director. He began writing for television and movies in 1994 with Color of Night. He has written numerous films, including the first Hunger Games film (2012), Richard Jewell (2019), and Captain Phillips (2013), earning an Oscar nomination for the latter. Description above from the Wikipedia article Billy Ray (screenwriter), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Capturing Captain Phillips poster
6.7

A vast and detailed look into the behind the scenes of Captain Phillips (2013). Paul Greengrass, Tom Hanks, cast and crew members of the film takes us to a tour inside the ship and its actual location, the concept and creation of the film's most intense and dramatic sequences, and as usual, stories about the making the film which also highlights the four newcomers who played the important parts of the Somali pirates.

Capturing Captain Phillips

2014

The World Is Watching: Making the Hunger Games poster
8.5

A feature length, eight part documentary that covers everything from pre-production to adapting the source novel to casting to shooting to post and marketing. This is an amazing in-depth piece and it's notable how many women were involved in this production, from several Lionsgate executives to novelist Suzanne Collins herself. Jennifer Lawrence talks about her "hypocrisy" in not wanting to do a big budget blockbuster after having devoted herself to indies (despite X-Men, which she seems to discount somewhat). There's also a nice sequence on the strength and weight training the actors went through and the stunts that are so notable in the film, as well as having to dance around the violence implicit in the story due to the planned PG-13 rating the filmmakers were aiming for.

The World Is Watching: Making the Hunger Games

2012

Tales from the Script poster
6.6

Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon"), John Carpenter ("Halloween"), Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption"), William Goldman ("The Princess Bride"), Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), and dozens of other Hollywood screenwriters share hilarious anecdotes and penetrating insights in "Tales from the Script," the most comprehensive documentary ever made about screenwriting. By analyzing their triumphs and recalling their failures, the participants explain how successful writers develop the skills necessary for toughing out careers in one of the world's most competitive industries. They also reveal the untold stories behind some of the greatest screenplays ever written, describing their adventures with luminaries including Harrison Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Joel Silver, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. The film was produced in tandem with the upcoming HarperCollins book of the same name.

Tales from the Script

2009

The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter Billy Ray poster
NR

BILLY RAY has written or co-written the screenplays for Color of Night, Volcano and Hart's War and also created the sci-fi series Earth 2. In 2003, Ray wrote and directed Shattered Glass, which was based on the true story of fraudulent journalist Stephen Glass. Most recently, he found himself back in the writer/director role for Breach, a story based on real-life FBI agent-turned-Soviet spy Robert Hanssen. In this intriguing interview, listen as Ray touches on his inspiration from movie soundtracks, taking acting classes, genius by osmosis and writing for the Jetsons.

The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter Billy Ray

2007

Behind the camera

Terminator: Dark Fate poster
6.4

Decades after Sarah Connor prevented Judgment Day, a lethal new Terminator is sent to eliminate the future leader of the resistance. In a fight to save mankind, battle-hardened Sarah Connor teams up with an unexpected ally and an enhanced super soldier to stop the deadliest Terminator yet.

Terminator: Dark Fate

2019

The Hunger Games poster
7.2

In a dystopian society where the Capitol forces each district to send two young tributes to fight to the death in a televised spectacle, a girl volunteers to take her sister’s place, setting the stage for a struggle of survival and defiance.

The Hunger Games

2012

Gemini Man poster
6.3

Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.

Gemini Man

2019

Overlord poster
6.7

On the eve of D-Day, a team of American paratroopers crash behind enemy lines and come face-to-face with a Nazi threat unlike any the world has ever seen.

Overlord

2018

Flightplan poster
6.4

Flying at 40,000 feet in a state-of-the art aircraft that she helped design, Kyle Pratt's 6-year-old daughter Julia vanishes without a trace. Or did she? No one on the plane believes Julia was ever onboard. And now Kyle, desperate and alone, can only count on her own wits to unravel the mystery and save her daughter.

Flightplan

2005

Volcano poster
6.0

An earthquake shatters a peaceful Los Angeles morning and opens a fissure deep into the earth, causing lava to start bubbling up. As a volcano begins forming in the La Brea Tar Pits, the director of the city's emergency management service, working with a geologist, must then use every resource in the city to try and stop the volcano from consuming LA.

Volcano

1997

Captain Phillips poster
7.5

The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.

Captain Phillips

2013

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping poster
NR

Return to the world of Panem 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping

2026

State of Play poster
6.8

When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington, D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the Representative, his old college friend.

State of Play

2009

Richard Jewell poster
7.4

Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.

Richard Jewell

2019

Breach poster
6.6

Eric O'Neill, a low-level surveillance expert with the FBI, believes he is accomplishing his dream of becoming a full-fledged agent, with his unexpected promotion and assignment to clerk for Robert Hanssen, a renowned senior agent with 25 years in the FBI. However, he soon learns the reason for his promotion is to gain Hanssen's trust and find proof that he is a traitor to the country. Determined to draw the suspected double-agent out of deep cover, O'Neill finds himself in a lethal game of spy vs. spy, where nothing is as it seems.

Breach

2007

Breach poster
6.6

Eric O'Neill, a low-level surveillance expert with the FBI, believes he is accomplishing his dream of becoming a full-fledged agent, with his unexpected promotion and assignment to clerk for Robert Hanssen, a renowned senior agent with 25 years in the FBI. However, he soon learns the reason for his promotion is to gain Hanssen's trust and find proof that he is a traitor to the country. Determined to draw the suspected double-agent out of deep cover, O'Neill finds himself in a lethal game of spy vs. spy, where nothing is as it seems.

Breach

2007

Color of Night poster
5.8

A color-blind psychiatrist is stalked by an unknown killer after taking over his murdered friend's therapy group and becomes embroiled in an intense affair with a mysterious woman who may be connected to the crime.

Color of Night

1994

Hart's War poster
6.4

When Col. William McNamara is stripped of his freedom in a German POW camp, he's determined to keep on fighting even from behind enemy lines. Enlisting the help of a young lieutenant in a brilliant plot against his captors, McNamara risks everything on a mission to free his men and change the outcome of the war.

Hart's War

2002

Secret in Their Eyes poster
6.4

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Secret in Their Eyes

2015

Secret in Their Eyes poster
6.4

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Secret in Their Eyes

2015

Suspect Zero poster
5.5

A killer is on the loose, and an FBI agent sifts through clues and learns that the bloodthirsty felon's victims of choice are other serial killers.

Suspect Zero

2004

Shattered Glass poster
7.0

Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.

Shattered Glass

2003

Shattered Glass poster
7.0

Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.

Shattered Glass

2003

The Shooter poster
4.8

A CIA agent gets caught up in political intrigue after he gets brought in to solve the murder of a Cuban ambassador.

The Shooter

1995

Chasing Ice poster
7.5

When National Geographic photographer James Balog asked, “How can one take a picture of climate change?” his attention was immediately drawn to ice. Soon he was asked to do a cover story on glaciers that became the most popular and well-read piece in the magazine during the last five years. But for Balog, that story marked the beginning of a much larger and longer-term project that would reach epic proportions.

Chasing Ice

2012

Animals poster
NR

When the son of an L.A. mayoral candidate is kidnapped, he and his wife have a few hours to come up with the ransom payment. With most of their money spent on his political campaign, they have to get their hands dirty and expose a side of their lives they never intended to see the light of day.

Animals

2026

The Breakup Girl poster
4.0

Three estranged sisters deal with the death of their father.

The Breakup Girl

2015

No artwork available
NR

A film about the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, considered the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War.

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