Dennis Christopher

Acting

Dennis Christopher

Born 1950-12-02 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Dennis Christopher (born Dennis Carrelli on December 2, 1955) is an American actor. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for playing Dave Stoller in Breaking Away and tragic film buff psychopath Eric Binford in Fade to Black. His Golden Globe-nominated breakthrough role was as Dave Stohler in the coming-of-age classic Breaking Away (1979). Other roles include American track star Charlie Paddock in Chariots of Fire, and Fade to Black, science fiction movies like Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II. He has appeared in nearly 40 movies and made-for-TV movies since 1975. Television roles include "Jack of All Trades" in the Profiler TV series, Eddie Kaspbrak in Stephen King's It, Desmond Floyd in Jake Speed, and in the HBO series Deadwood. Christopher has guest starred in two Star Trek episodes: the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Search (Part II)" and the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Detained". He also guest-starred as the demon-sorcerer Cyvus Vail in three episodes of Angel. Christopher had a reunion with Breaking Away "father" Paul Dooley, again as his son, in an episode of TV's Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The two had first played father and son in Robert Altman's A Wedding. In December 2006 he played Dr. Martin Ruber in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room.

Acting credits

Django Unchained poster
8.2

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Django Unchained

2012

Prisoners poster
8.1

After his six-year-old daughter is abducted, a desperate father takes justice into his own hands when he loses faith in the detective leading the investigation, setting both men on a collision course as the search descends into obsession and moral compromise.

Prisoners

2013

Chariots of Fire poster
6.8

In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.

Chariots of Fire

1981

3 Women poster
7.1

Two co-workers, one a vain woman and the other an awkward teenager, share an increasingly bizarre relationship after becoming roommates.

3 Women

1977

Breaking Away poster
7.1

Dave, nineteen, has just graduated high school, with his three friends: the comical Cyril, the warm hearted but short-tempered Moocher, and the athletic, spiteful but good-hearted Mike. Now, Dave enjoys racing bikes and hopes to race the Italians one day, and even takes up the Italian culture, much to his friends' and parents' annoyance.

Breaking Away

1979

Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II poster
3.5

In the backdrop of Earths polluted future a female FBI agent removes Danner, a pleasure android from an asylum in order to coerce him into helping her hunt down the criminal psychopath Plughead. But Plughead who has tangled with Danner before has his own plans as he is forcing a female scientist to help him manufacture life extending longevity chips which he intends to sell to rich and powerful clients.

Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II

1994

Necronomicon poster
6.0

H.P. Lovecraft anthology is divided into four segments: "The Library" which is the wraparound segment involving Lovecraft's research into the Book of The Dead and his unwitting release of a monster and his writing of the following horror segments "The Drowned", "The Cold", and "Whispers".

Necronomicon

1993

Roma poster
7.3

A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.

Roma

1972

Pennywise: The Story of ‘It’ poster
7.4

Thirty-plus years after its release, the popular two-part miniseries "It" and its infamous villain Pennywise live on in the minds of horror fans around the world. This documentary captures not only the buzz the "It" saga generated in 1990 but also the lasting impact it has had on an entire generation and the horror genre at large. Several years in the making, the film features exclusive interviews with many of the cult classic's key players, from cast members Richard Thomas, Seth Green, and Tim Curry, who portrayed the notorious monster clown Pennywise, to director Tommy Lee Wallace and special effects makeup artist Bart Mixon. The documentary also boasts a wealth of archival material and never-before-seen footage.

Pennywise: The Story of ‘It’

2021

Skeletons poster
4.2

A heart attack moves a Pulitzer winning journalist to leave NY for the peace of a small New England town, but he soon finds himself pulled into a case of a man accused of killing his gay lover with the blade of a shovel. Wanting to keep the case quiet, the town turns against the journalist and his family when he begins digging into its secrets, until finally the accused man is found hanging in his cell and the truth comes out about more than just the killing.

Skeletons

1997

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story poster
6.6

Robert Englund has become one of the most revolutionary horror icons of our generation. This intimate portrait captures the man behind the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise and features interviews with Englund, Lin Shaye, Eli Roth, Tony Todd and more.

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story

2022

Elvis poster
6.9

This biopic traces Elvis Presley’s life from his impoverished childhood to his meteoric rise to stardom to his triumphant conquering of Las Vegas.

Elvis

1979

Jake Speed poster
4.6

Jake Speed (Wayne Crawford) is the lead character in some of the biggest page-turners of the 1940s. A chiseled, heroic action figure, Speed saves lives on paper, but when a young girl is kidnapped and her sister (Karen Kopins) begs the real-life Speed for help, he must find a way to be as gallant as the book hero whose creation he's inspired. Accompanied by the victim's sibling, Speed flies to Africa to see if he's up to the task.

Jake Speed

1986

Doppelganger poster
4.8

After being implicated in a murder, a young woman flees New York City and moves to Los Angeles, where she rents a room from a writer. They begin an affair, but it seems she's been followed by a homicidal duplicate of herself.

Doppelganger

1993

Fade to Black poster
5.6

A lonely film buff embarks on a killing spree against those who browbeat and betray him, all the while stalking a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

Fade to Black

1980

A Wedding poster
6.3

Muffin's wedding to Dino Corelli is to be a big affair. Except the ageing priest isn't too sure of the ceremony, only the families actually turn up as the Corelli Italian connection is suspect, security guards watch the gifts rather over-zealously, and Dino's grandma expires in bed just as the reception starts. Could be quite an occasion.

A Wedding

1978

Boys Life poster
5.0

Each of the three short films in this collection presents a young gay man at the threshold of adulthood. In "Pool Days," Justin is a 17-year old Bethesda lad, hired as the evening life guard at a fitness center. In the course of the summer, he realizes and embraces that he's gay. In "A Friend of Dorothy," Winston arrives from upstate for his freshman year at NYU. He has to figure out, with some help from Anne, a hometown friend, how to build a social life as a young gay man in the city. In "The Disco Years," Tom looks back on 1978, the year in high school that he came out of the closet after one joyful and several painful encounters

Boys Life

1994

Dead Women in Lingerie poster
3.4

A private detective is hired to catch a serial killer who makes immigrant garment workers his victims.

Dead Women in Lingerie

1991

It's My Party poster
6.3

Nick, a gay, HIV-positive architect, begins to display severe symptoms of AIDS and makes preparations to kill himself before he is unable to function normally. He arranges a party to reconnect and say goodbye to his closest friends and his confused parents. But when his ex-partner, Brandon, a television director who left Nick when he was diagnosed with HIV, shows up, what was supposed to be a celebratory event becomes much more difficult for everyone.

It's My Party

1996

Circuitry Man poster
4.9

In a future where most humans have moved underground to escape the pollution, one of the few pleasures left is a kind of narcotic in the form of chips which can be plugged directly into the brain. Lori, a female body guard steals a case of such chips and flees underground Los Angeles with Danner, a pleasure android so that they can smuggle the chips to New York. In pursuit is Plughead, a dangerous criminal so named because of the many sockets and ports which decorate his scalp so that he can test and use the chips that he is after.

Circuitry Man

1990

Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story poster
6.7

A homemaker is driven by jealousy to conspire against the mother of her daughter's rival.

Willing to Kill: The Texas Cheerleader Story

1992

Aurora: Operation Intercept poster
5.3

There have been two mysterious plane crashes in only 48 hours. The aircraft suddenly lose control and crash, killing everyone aboard. A woman of Russian descent, Francesca Zaborszin, the daughter of a slain Federal investigator, claims responsibility for the crashes. She believes her father was killed by the FBI as part of a cover-up operation and wishes to avenge his death by threatening to down more aircraft using the same electromagnetic pulse method. She also intends to crash a stolen military jet into the White House. There's no time to ground the planes: just enough time to try to stop her.

Aurora: Operation Intercept

1995

Dangerous Isolation poster
4.2

A top software engineer and her daughter are kidnapped. The kidnappers want her to decrypt sensitive government information, and they are threatening her and her daughter's life if she doesn't cooperate.

Dangerous Isolation

2006

Tarzan: The Epic Adventures poster
6.6

Tarzan has a tough encounter with arms dealer Nikolai who then kidnaps Colette and wants to sell her in Africa. Tarzan gets captured, escapes and follows Nikolai who has teamed up with netherworld queen Mara and her flesh eaters. Serves as the pilot to the Tarzan: The Epic Adventures television series.

Tarzan: The Epic Adventures

1996