Jonathan Banks

Acting

Jonathan Banks

Born 1947-01-31 · Washington, D.C., USA

Jonathan Ray Banks (born January 31, 1947) is an American character actor in film and television. Banks dropped out of Indiana University to join a touring company as a stage manager. He went to Australia with the company and stayed on working in theatre there. In 1974, he moved to Los Angeles and performed on stage before picking up bit parts on television. Probably his best-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. In 48 Hrs. he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain, beginning the lead characters' story. In Beverly Hills Cop, he plays a villain who kills the lead characters' friend and begins his story. Other movie roles include appearances in Armed and Dangerous, Freejack, Flipper, Airplane!, Gremlins, Murder Me, Murder You, and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. His biggest break on television, came with the series Wiseguy, in which he played Frank McPike for four years, a role which led to an Emmy award nomination. Although his character was primarily the hero's mentor, stories occasionally featured McPike as hero. In 1981 he appeared as Dutch Schultz on the NBC series the Gangster Chronicles. He also starred on the short-lived science fiction TV series Otherworld, as Kommander Neveen Kroll and in the sitcom Fired Up. Banks has also made guest appearances on TV shows including Alias, CSI, Day Break, Highlander: The Series, Matlock, SeaQuest DSV, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Women of the House and Walker Texas Ranger. Most recently, Banks appeared in the final Season Two episodes of Dexter, and in episodes of ER, Cold Case, and Shark, Modern Family. In the second season finale of Breaking Bad, Banks appeared as a mysterious character named Mike. Banks was made a series regular for the third season.

Acting credits

Incredibles 2 poster
7.5

Elastigirl springs into action to save the day, while Mr. Incredible faces his greatest challenge yet – taking care of the problems of his three children.

Incredibles 2

2018

Beverly Hills Cop poster
7.2

Fast-talking, quick-thinking Detroit street cop Axel Foley has bent more than a few rules and regs in his time, but when his best friend is murdered, he heads to sunny Beverly Hills to work the case like only he can.

Beverly Hills Cop

1984

Airplane! poster
7.3

An ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning.

Airplane!

1980

Gremlins poster
7.1

After receiving an exotic small animal as a Christmas gift, a young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet, which unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous creatures on a small town.

Gremlins

1984

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie poster
7.1

In the wake of his dramatic escape from captivity, Jesse Pinkman must come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

2019

Horrible Bosses 2 poster
6.2

Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.

Horrible Bosses 2

2014

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory poster
5.9

A passenger train has been hijacked by an electronics expert and turned into an untraceable command center for a weapons satellite. He has planned to blow up Washington DC and only one man can stop him, former Navy SEAL Casey Ryback.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

1995

The Commuter poster
6.4

A businessman, on his daily commute home, gets unwittingly caught up in a criminal conspiracy that threatens not only his life but the lives of those around him.

The Commuter

2018

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

Identity Thief poster
5.8

When a mild-mannered businessman learns his identity has been stolen, he hits the road in an attempt to foil the thief -- a trip that puts him in the path of a deceptively harmless-looking woman.

Identity Thief

2013

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension poster
6.0

Adventurer/surgeon/rock musician Buckaroo Banzai and his band of men, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, take on evil alien invaders from the 8th dimension.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

1984

Reign Over Me poster
7.2

A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.

Reign Over Me

2007

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles poster
5.2

After settling in the tiny Australian town of Walkabout Creek with his significant other and his young son, Mick "Crocodile" Dundee is thrown for a loop when a prestigious Los Angeles newspaper offers his honey a job. The family migrates back to the United States, and Croc and son soon find themselves learning some lessons about American life -- many of them inadvertent

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles

2001

Freejack poster
5.5

Time-traveling bounty hunters find a doomed race-car driver in the past and bring him to 2009 New York, where his mind will be replaced with that of a terminally ill billionaire.

Freejack

1992

Stir Crazy poster
6.5

New Yorkers Skip Donahue and Harry Monroe have no jobs and no prospects, so they decide to flee the city and find work elsewhere, landing jobs wearing woodpecker costumes to promote the opening of a bank. When their feathery costumes are stolen and used in a bank robbery, they no longer have to worry about employment — they're sent to prison.

Stir Crazy

1980

Dark Blue poster
6.2

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Dark Blue

2002

The Cheap Detective poster
6.3

A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife.

The Cheap Detective

1978

Catwoman: Hunted poster
5.8

Catwoman's attempt to steal a priceless jewel puts her squarely in the crosshairs of both a powerful consortium of villains and the ever-resourceful Interpol, not to mention Batwoman.

Catwoman: Hunted

2022

Armed and Dangerous poster
5.7

After policeman Frank Dooley is framed for theft and loses his job on the force, he joins a security guard agency and teams up with inept former defense lawyer Norman Kane. When the two botch a job guarding a local warehouse, they begin to uncover corruption within the company and their union.

Armed and Dangerous

1986

Ike poster
6.8

Eisenhower the military man is the focus of this mini-series, his relationships with the other wartime leaders, and, very discreetly, his personal relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby.

Ike

1979

Coming Home poster
7.0

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

Coming Home

1978

Term Life poster
6.0

If Nick Barrow can stay alive for 21 days, he'll die happy. Everyone Nick knows wants him dead; Mob bosses, contract killers, and dirty cops. Performing the last act of a desperate man, Nick takes out a million dollar insurance policy on himself, payable to his estranged daughter. The problem? The policy doesn't take effect for 21 days. Nick knows they'll be lucky to be alive for twenty-one hours.

Term Life

2016

Outlaw Justice poster
6.4

In the tradition of THE WILD BUNCH and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN comes this fast paced, action filled western with unforgettable performances by an all star cast: Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt and Waylon Jennings. All hell breaks loose in this riveting story when a group of former outlaws with bad attitudes teams up to catch a killer with murder and revenge on his mind. After Tobey(Jennings), a retired member of the group, is brutally gunned down by a former member and killer, Clinton Reese, our band of reformed gunslingers, Lee (Nelson, Tarence (Kristofferson), and Dalton (Tritt), sets out on Clinton's Trail. They are joined by Tobeys reluctatant young son Bryce (Willett).

Outlaw Justice

1999

Boiling Point poster
4.9

Red is an aging scam-artist who's just been released from prison together with Ronnie, a young and not-so-bright hoodlum who is easily manipulated. Their new business is to organize fake-money sales and then kill the buyer to take his money; but when Ronnie kills an undercover secret service agent, his partner Jimmy Mercer vows revenge and is given one week to catch the killers before being transferred.

Boiling Point

1993