Tom Waits

Acting

Tom Waits

Born 1949-12-07 · Pomona, California, USA

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from blues, rock, vaudeville, and experimental genres. Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in Whittier, California. Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit as a young boy. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1972, where he worked as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums were the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), which reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. He repeatedly toured the United States, Europe, and Japan, and attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), Blue Valentine (1978), and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's film One from the Heart (1981), and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films. In 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, split from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. With Brennan's encouragement and frequent collaboration, he pursued a more experimental and eclectic musical aesthetic influenced by the work of Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. This was reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in films, notably starring in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986), and also made theatrical appearances. With theatre director Robert Wilson, he produced the musicals The Black Rider (1990) and Alice (1992), first performed in Hamburg. Having returned to California in the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he switched to the record label ANTI-, which released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011). Despite a lack of mainstream commercial success, Waits has influenced many musicians and gained an international cult following, and several biographies have been written about him. In 2015, he was ranked at No. 55 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Acting credits

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs poster
7.1

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

2018

The Dead Don't Die poster
5.4

In the sleepy town of Centerville, the lives of a number of interconnected characters are disrupted by the undead.

The Dead Don't Die

2019

Bram Stoker's Dracula poster
7.4

Count Dracula, a 15th-century prince, is condemned to live off the blood of the living for eternity. Young lawyer Jonathan Harker is sent to Dracula's castle to finalise a land deal, but when the Count sees a photo of Harker's fiancée, Mina, the spitting image of his dead wife, he imprisons him and sets off for London to track her down.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

1992

Licorice Pizza poster
6.9

The story of Gary Valentine and Alana Kane growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.

Licorice Pizza

2021

The Outsiders poster
7.2

In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their struggle for survival and redemption exposes the fragile innocence and enduring bonds of youth on the wrong side of town.

The Outsiders

1983

The Book of Eli poster
6.8

A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.

The Book of Eli

2010

Seven Psychopaths poster
6.8

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

Seven Psychopaths

2012

Wildwood poster
NR

Prue and her classmate Curtis are drawn into a magical forest filled with enchanted creatures, loyal allies, and formidable adversaries as they embark on a desperate quest to rescue Prue’s abducted baby brother from a murder of crows led by a mysterious woman named Alexandra.

Wildwood

2026

Coffee and Cigarettes poster
6.9

An anthology of eleven vignettes featuring star-studded casts of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

Coffee and Cigarettes

2004

Motherless Brooklyn poster
6.7

New York City, 1957. Lionel Essrog, a private detective living with Tourette syndrome, tries to solve the murder of his mentor and best friend, armed only with vague clues and the strength of his obsessive mind.

Motherless Brooklyn

2019

Short Cuts poster
7.2

Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.

Short Cuts

1993

The Fisher King poster
7.3

Two troubled men face their terrible destinies and events of their past as they join together on a mission to find the Holy Grail and thus to save themselves.

The Fisher King

1991

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus poster
6.4

After a carnival troupe saves his life, a man agrees to help its immortal leader collect five souls and win a bet with the devil.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2009

Father Mother Sister Brother poster
6.4

Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.

Father Mother Sister Brother

2025

Wild Horse Nine poster
NR

Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris and Lee are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their bureau chief, MJ. Amongst the Island's iconic statues, and as the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, Chris's newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways.

Wild Horse Nine

2026

Mystery Men poster
5.9

When Champion City's hero Captain Amazing is kidnapped by the recently paroled supervillain Casanova Frankenstein, a trio of average, everyday superheroes -- Mr. Furious, the Shoveler and the Blue Raja -- assemble a new super team to save him.

Mystery Men

1999

Rumble Fish poster
7.0

Absent-minded street thug Rusty James struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation, and longs for the days of gang warfare.

Rumble Fish

1983

The Cotton Club poster
6.5

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

The Cotton Club

1984

Mystery Train poster
7.3

In Memphis, Tennessee, over the course of a single night, the Arcade Hotel, run by an eccentric night clerk and a clueless bellboy, is visited by a young Japanese couple traveling in search of the roots of rock; an Italian woman in mourning who stumbles upon a fleeing charlatan girl; and a comical trio of accidental thieves looking for a place to hide.

Mystery Train

1989

Domino poster
5.9

The story of the life of Domino Harvey, who abandoned her career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter.

Domino

2005

Paradise Alley poster
5.9

Three Italian-American brothers, living in the slums of 1940's New York City, try to help each other with one's wrestling career using one brother's promotional skills and another brother's con-artist tactics to thwart a sleazy manager.

Paradise Alley

1978

One from the Heart poster
5.9

In a dazzling, dreamlike Las Vegas, longtime couple Hank and Frannie break up on their fifth anniversary and each pursue the fantasy of new love over one neon-soaked night—he with a free-spirited acrobat, she with a seductive musician. But as illusion and reality blur, both must decide whether passion or devotion truly defines the heart.

One from the Heart

1982

Ray Gunn poster
NR

In Metropia, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Raymond Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder, and a multimedia star named Venus Nova.

Ray Gunn

2026

Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen poster
7.5

A film where anything can happen - the hero and the heroine changes their faces, age, look, names, and so on. The only same thing: The love between man and woman... in an archetypical love story cut from 500 classics from all around the world.

Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen

2012

Behind the camera