Sam Anderson

Acting

Sam Anderson

Born

1947-04-02 (79)

Place of birth

Wahpeton, North Dakota, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

78 titles

Sam Anderson (born April 2, 1947) is an American actor. He is best known for his character roles such as Sam Gorpley on Perfect Strangers, Holland Manners on Angel, dentist Bernard Nadler on Lost, Happy Days-loving Doctor Harad who delivered Phoebe's triplets in Friends' 100th episode, and in film, as the principal in Forrest Gump.

Known for

Film credits

2020s · 3 titles

2010s · 8 titles

Ouija: Origin of Evil poster
6.2

In 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her two daughters add a new stunt to bolster their séance scam business and unwittingly invite authentic evil into their home. When the youngest daughter is overtaken by the merciless spirit, this small family confronts unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

Ouija: Origin of Evil

2016

Water for Elephants poster
6.9

In this captivating Depression-era melodrama, impetuous veterinary student Jacob Jankowski joins a celebrated circus as an animal caretaker but faces a wrenching dilemma when he's transfixed by angelic married performer Marlena.

Water for Elephants

2011

Devil's Due poster
4.7

An unexpected pregnancy takes a terrifying turn for newlyweds Zach and Samantha McCall.

Devil's Due

2014

Breaking the Girls poster
5.3

A naive college student loses a scholarship at the hands of a classmate and makes a pact with a mysterious friend to kill off each other's enemies.

Breaking the Girls

2013

3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom poster
5.7

Frank Bartlett has been tortured, embarrassed, and humiliated by his brother Bruce — usually on film — his entire life. Now that Bruce is finally off drugs and has turned his life around, things should be different. They are not.

3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom

2012

Do You Take This Man poster
4.6

When a gay couple's impending wedding hits a snag, the grooms must rely on their friends and family to see them through.

Do You Take This Man

2017

Song of Back and Neck poster
6.2

A hapless man seeking treatment for his crippling back pain discovers a very unusual talent and unexpected love.

Song of Back and Neck

2018

Maybe Someday poster
NR

Hal Donnelly, a hopeless 20-something slacker, gets his life back on track with the help of a teenage girl claiming to be his daughter from the future

Maybe Someday

2017

2000s · 7 titles

Slackers poster
5.2

Dave, Sam and Jeff are about to graduate from Holden University with honors in lying, cheating and scheming. The three roommates have proudly scammed their way through the last four years of college and now, during final exams, these big-men-on-campus are about to be busted by the most unlikely dude in school. Self-dubbed Cool Ethan, an ambitious nerd with a bad crush, enters their lives one day and everything begins to unravel.

Slackers

2002

The Independent poster
5.5

A notorious B-movie director tries for a comeback by seeking out the film rights to the life story of a serial killer who wants his biography film to be a musical.

The Independent

2000

Sonic Impact poster
5.6

A dangerous criminal hijacks a plane with his fellow prisoners and threatens to crash it into a populated area. The agent who captured him sets out to stop him.

Sonic Impact

2000

Secret Santa poster
5.1

Newspaper reporter Rebecca Chandler, who feels she got no fair chance to prove her worth in her thee years career, looks forward to a Hawaian holiday with her fiancé Ryan, but instead of a ring he brings her- walking orders, he found better. So she accepts again to be the bachelor on duty in the Christmas season, and write the annual romantic non-news feel good-story, once more about the elusive Secret Santa in small-town Hamden, where the Christmas spirit it said to last all year. Bad luck follows her from Indianapolis: her car breaks down, she can only get lodgings in a home for the elderly without Internet, and nobody wants to help her unmask the secret Santa. Soon she guesses it must be the only rich philanthropist, but the popular Mr. John Martin Carter doesn't grant her an interview and isn't tricked either, in fact meets her at the worst repeatedly without her knowing him...

Secret Santa

2003

Perfect Game poster
7.0

An eleven-year-old boy finds a way of overcoming life's obstacles with the help of a grumpy coach who aids him in having the best summer of his life.

Perfect Game

2000

Touched poster
6.2

A devoted nurse falls in love with a formerly comatose patient who has lost his sense of touch.

Touched

2005

Dirty Habit poster
1.0

A crack-addicted prostitute and a nun get stuck on an elevator. One is going to, one is coming from, a meeting with a killer.

Dirty Habit

2006

1990s · 12 titles

Forrest Gump poster
8.5

A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.

Forrest Gump

1994

Dark Angel poster
6.2

Jack Caine is a Houston vice cop who's forgotten the rule book. His self-appointed mission is to stop the drugs trade and the number one supplier Victor Manning. While involved in an undercover operation to entrap Victor Manning, his partner is killed, and a sinister newcomer enters the scene...

Dark Angel

1990

Memoirs of an Invisible Man poster
5.9

After a freak accident, an invisible yuppie runs for his life from a treacherous CIA official while trying to cope with his new life.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

1992

The Pentagon Wars poster
6.9

From the director of “Made In America” and “The Money Pit” comes a hilarious look at one of the most expensive blunders in military history. Over 17 years and almost as many billion dollars have gone into devising the BFV (Bradley Fighting Vehicle). There's only one problem. . . it doesn't work. (Spoiler alert: 25 years later ... it does work.)

The Pentagon Wars

1998

The Puppet Masters poster
5.8

The Midwest USA is invaded by stingray-shaped alien slugs that ride on people's backs and control their minds in order to spread their dominion. Government agency reps Sam Givens, Andrew Nivens, and Mary Sefton must stop the aliens.

The Puppet Masters

1994

NetForce poster
4.9

Set in the year 2005, a division of the FBI, called "NetForce" has been initiated to investigate Internet crime. A Bill Gates-type character finds a loophole in his new web browser which enables him to gain control of the Internet. Net-Force, headed by Kristofferson and Bakula's characters set out to stop him.

NetForce

1999

Permanent Midnight poster
5.9

Juggling increasing career success and a growing heroin habit, a television comedy writer attempts to go down a path of improvement.

Permanent Midnight

1998

A Place to Be Loved poster
5.6

Gregory Kingsley, a boy passed off onto social services by his natural mother and abused by his natural father, finds the foster family he is put into to be the type of family he needs and takes his natural mother to court to have her parental rights revoked so that he can be adopted by the Russes. The story is based on the real case of the boy who really did have to take this action to avoid being sent back into an unacceptable situation.

A Place to Be Loved

1993

The Last Hand poster
3.3

Aging gambler Benny Walsh dies in a suspicious car crash after the biggest poker win of his life. His son, Clyde, comes to the Nevada town in search of answers. He discovers that each of his father's gambling buddies had ample reason to see him dead.

The Last Hand

1997

What I Did for Love poster
5.0

A man falls in love from afar with a woman who has just broken up acrimoniously with her husband and is disgusted with all men except her gay friends.

What I Did for Love

1998

The Man Next Door poster
5.0

Residents of a small town struggle when a paroled rapist moves into the area.

The Man Next Door

1996

The Sleepwalker Killing poster
5.9

Mark Schall kills his mother-in-law and wounds his father-in-law in the middle of the night, then turns himself in. He claims, however, that he cannot remember the crime itself. His defense team finds evidence that suggests the crimes were committed while Mark was sleep walking. They build their defense around this theory.

The Sleepwalker Killing

1997

1980s · 7 titles

Airplane II: The Sequel poster
6.1

A faulty computer causes a passenger space shuttle to head straight for the sun, and man-with-a-past Ted Striker must save the day and get the shuttle back on track – again – all the while trying to patch up his relationship with Elaine.

Airplane II: The Sequel

1982

Critters 2 poster
6.2

Three bounty hunters from space fly back to the town of Grovers Bend, hoping to save local residents from a new batch of Critter eggs.

Critters 2

1988

La Bamba poster
7.3

Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called "Donna" that he wrote for his girlfriend. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother, Bob, and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly.

La Bamba

1987

Movers & Shakers poster
3.9

Studio head Joe Mulholland promises his dying producer and mentor, Saul Gritz, to adapt a popular sex manual into a film, despite his better judgment. Unable to figure out how to turn the nonfiction book into a narrative movie, Mulholland enlists the services of Herb Dorman, a screenwriter of popular romantic films with a bad marriage, and volatile director Sid Spokane to help him create a movie.

Movers & Shakers

1985

Policewoman Centerfold poster
4.6

A policewoman loses her job after she poses naked for an erotic magazine. Based on a true story.

Policewoman Centerfold

1983

Joe Dancer III: The Big Trade poster
7.2

The last of Robert Blake's three "Joe Dancer movies" finds the private investigator framed for manslaughter as he tries to uncover a Hollywood scandal that could ruin a studio and destroy a top star's career.

Joe Dancer III: The Big Trade

1983

The Tragedy of King Lear poster
8.0

King Lear, old and weary, divides his kingdom among his daughters, placing great weight on their declarations of love for him. However, when Cordelia, the youngest and most honest, refuses to flatter the old man in exchange for his favour, he banishes her and seeks support from his remaining daughters. Goneril and Regan, however, harbour no love for him and instead conspire to seize all his power. In a parallel, Lear’s loyal courtier Gloucester favours his illegitimate son Edmund after being deceived by lies about his faithful son Edgar. Tragically, both ill-fated fathers are consumed by madness and experience immense suffering.

The Tragedy of King Lear

1982

Series credits

NCIS poster
7.6

From murder and espionage to terrorism and stolen submarines, a team of special agents investigates any crime that has any connection to Navy and Marine Corps personnel, regardless of rank or position.

NCIS

2003

Grey's Anatomy poster
8.2

Follows the personal and professional lives of a group of doctors at Seattle's Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Grey's Anatomy

2005

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation poster
7.6

A Las Vegas team of forensic investigators are trained to solve criminal cases by scouring the crime scene, collecting irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that solve the mystery.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2000

Bones poster
8.2

Dr. Temperance Brennan and her colleagues at the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal Lab assist Special Agent Seeley Booth with murder investigations when the remains are so badly decomposed, burned or destroyed that the standard identification methods are useless.

Bones

2005

CSI: Miami poster
7.7

The show follows Crime Scene Investigators working for the Miami-Dade Police Department as they use physical evidence, similar to their Las Vegas counterparts, to solve grisly murders. The series mixes deduction, gritty subject matter, and character-driven drama in the same vein as the original series in the CSI franchise, except that the Miami CSIs are cops first, scientists second.

CSI: Miami

2002

NCIS: Los Angeles poster
7.5

The exploits of the Los Angeles–based Office of Special Projects (OSP), an elite division of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that specializes in undercover assignments.

NCIS: Los Angeles

2009

Hawaii Five-0 poster
7.7

Steve McGarrett returns home to Oahu, in order to find his father's killer. The governor offers him the chance to run his own task force (Five-0). Steve's team is joined by Chin Ho Kelly, Danny "Danno" Williams, and Kono Kalakaua.

Hawaii Five-0

2010

Castle poster
8.0

After a serial killer imitates the plots of his novels, successful mystery novelist Richard "Rick" Castle receives permission from the Mayor of New York City to tag along with an NYPD homicide investigation team for research purposes.

Castle

2009

Friends poster
8.4

Six young people from New York City, on their own and struggling to survive in the real world, find the companionship, comfort and support they get from each other to be the perfect antidote to the pressures of life.

Friends

1994

The X-Files poster
8.4

The exploits of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens and the paranormal while Scully, a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries that debunk Mulder's work and thus return him to mainstream cases.

The X-Files

1993

Lost poster
8.0

Stripped of everything, the survivors of a horrific plane crash must work together to stay alive. But the island holds many secrets.

Lost

2004

Grimm poster
8.3

After Portland homicide detective Nick Burkhardt discovers he's descended from an elite line of criminal profilers known as "Grimms," he increasingly finds his responsibilities as a detective at odds with his new responsibilities as a Grimm.

Grimm

2011

Grimm poster
8.3

After Portland homicide detective Nick Burkhardt discovers he's descended from an elite line of criminal profilers known as "Grimms," he increasingly finds his responsibilities as a detective at odds with his new responsibilities as a Grimm.

Grimm

2011

Diagnosis: Murder poster
7.1

Dr. Mark Sloan is a good-natured, offbeat physician who is called upon to solve murders.

Diagnosis: Murder

1993

Diagnosis: Murder poster
7.1

Dr. Mark Sloan is a good-natured, offbeat physician who is called upon to solve murders.

Diagnosis: Murder

1993

Star Trek: The Next Generation poster
8.4

Follow the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

1987

Rugrats poster
7.6

Focuses on a group of toddlers, most prominently Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica, and their day-to-day lives, usually involving common life experiences that become adventures in the babies' imaginations. Adults in the series are almost always unaware of what the children are up to; however, this only provides more room for the babies to explore and discover their surroundings.

Rugrats

1991

The West Wing poster
8.3

The West Wing provides a glimpse into presidential politics in the nation's capital as it tells the stories of the members of a fictional presidential administration. These interesting characters have humor and dedication that touches the heart while the politics that they discuss touch on everyday life.

The West Wing

1999

ER poster
7.8

ER explores the inner workings of an urban teaching hospital and the critical issues faced by the dedicated physicians and staff of its overburdened emergency room.

ER

1994

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Without a Trace poster
7.2

The series follows the ventures of a Missing Persons Unit of the FBI in New York City.

Without a Trace

2002

This Is Us poster
8.2

Follows the lives and families of three adults living and growing up in the United States of America in present and past times. As their paths cross and their life stories intertwine in curious ways, we find that several of them share the same birthday - and so much more than anyone would expect.

This Is Us

2016

Malcolm in the Middle poster
8.5

A gifted young teen tries to survive life with his dimwitted, dysfunctional family.

Malcolm in the Middle

2000

CSI: NY poster
7.3

Follow the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers identified as "Crime Scene Investigators".

CSI: NY

2004

Scandal poster
7.2

Everyone has secrets and Olivia Pope has dedicated her life to protecting and defending the public images of the elite by keeping those secrets under wraps. Pope and her team are at the top of their game when it comes to getting the job done for their clients, but it becomes apparent that these "gladiators in suits," who specialize in fixing the lives of other people, have trouble fixing those closest at hand -- their own.

Scandal

2012

Boston Legal poster
7.9

Alan Shore and Denny Crane lead a brigade of high-priced civil litigators in an upscale Boston law firm in a series focusing on the professional and personal lives of brilliant but often emotionally challenged attorneys. A spin-off of long-running series The Practice.

Boston Legal

2004

Magnum, P.I. poster
7.3

A private investigator who works when he wants, lives in a beachfront estate in Hawaii, drives a posh Ferrari, runs up an unlimited tab at a swank bar, and charms attractive women in peril - that's the lifestyle of Thomas Magnum, aka Magnum, P.I.

Magnum, P.I.

1980

Melrose Place poster
5.9

Follow the lives of a group of young adults living in a brownstone apartment complex on Melrose Place, in Los Angeles, California.

Melrose Place

1992

Everybody Loves Raymond poster
6.8

Ray Barone is a successful sportswriter living on Long Island with his wife Debra, daughter Ally, and twin sons, Geoffrey and Michael. Ray's meddling parents, Frank and Marie, and brother, Robert, live directly across the street.

Everybody Loves Raymond

1996

Medium poster
7.5

Allison Dubois works in the District Attorney’s office using her natural intuition about people and her ability to communicate with the dead to help to solve crimes. Her dreams often give her clues to the whereabouts of missing people.

Medium

2005

How to Get Away with Murder poster
7.8

A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor. They become entangled in a murder plot and will shake the entire university and change the course of their lives.

How to Get Away with Murder

2014

Station 19 poster
8.2

A group of heroic firefighters at Seattle Fire Station 19—from captain to newest recruit—risk their lives and hearts both in the line of duty and off the clock. These brave men and women are like family, literally and figuratively, and together they put their own lives in jeopardy as first responders to save the lives of others.

Station 19

2018

Chicago Hope poster
7.2

Chicago Hope is an American medical drama television series, created by David E. Kelley. It ran on CBS from September 18, 1994, to May 4, 2000. The series is set in a fictional private charity hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago Hope

1994

L.A. Law poster
7.0

L.A. Law is an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it contained many of Bochco's trademark features including a large number of parallel storylines, social drama and off-the-wall humor. It reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights, homophobia, sexual harassment, AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflected social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff. The show was popular with audiences and critics, and won 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.

L.A. Law

1986

Angel poster
7.9

The vampire Angel, cursed with a soul, moves to Los Angeles and aids people with supernatural-related problems while questing for his own redemption. A spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Angel

1999

A Million Little Things poster
7.2

A group of friends from Boston who feel stuck in life experience an unexpected wake-up call after one of their friends dies unexpectedly.

A Million Little Things

2018

St. Elsewhere poster
5.7

St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series starred Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd and William Daniels as teaching doctors at a lightly-regarded Boston hospital who gave interns a promising future in making critical medical and life decisions.

St. Elsewhere

1982