What does it mean to call a movie “Altmanesque”? For critic Sean Fennessey, host of “The Big Picture” podcast, the term stands for “the undoing of everything we expect from a Hollywood movie.” In the following introduction, Fennessey explores Altman’s early roots in television, his innovative use...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1975 • United States
Starring Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Shelley Duvall

This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman is a panoramic view of the country’s political and cultural landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital. NASHVILLE weaves the...

Directed by Robert Altman • 2006 • United States
Starring Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan

Based on Garrison Keillor’s beloved radio program of the same name, Robert Altman’s deeply moving final film invites audiences to the fictional “closing night” of the fabled show. As the rain pours...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1970 • United States
Starring Bud Cort, Shelley Duvall, Sally Kellerman

Brewster McCloud (Bud Cort) lives deep underneath the Houston Astrodome, but his dreams rise much higher. He aims to fly. Not in a plane, but with strapped-on wings he’s designing—encouraged by a ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1980 • United States
Starring Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall, Paul L. Smith

Robert Altman brought his exuberantly chaotic experimental sensibility to this live-action version of the classic comic strip, featuring spot-on performances by Robin Williams and Shelley Duva...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1971 • United States
Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, René Auberjonois

This unorthodox dream western by Robert Altman may be the most radically beautiful film to come out of the New American Cinema. It stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie as two newcomers to ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1977 • United States
Starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Janice Rule

In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, a naive southern waif, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate and “thoroughly modern” Mill...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1967 • United States
Starring James Caan, Joanna Moore, Robert Duvall

Robert Altman’s second credited feature film as director—though he was fired from the production for his then-radical use of overlapping dialogue—is a space-race drama lent extra authenticity thanks...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1973 • United States
Starring Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden

Robert Altman updates Raymond Chandler for the liberated, hedonistic 1970s in this brilliantly idiosyncratic adaptation of one of the writer’s most renowned novels. Elliott Gould brings a ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1976 • United States
Starring Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy

Robert Altman directs a dynamic ensemble cast—including Paul Newman, Geraldine Chaplin, Harvey Keitel, Burt Lancaster, and Shelley Duvall—in this subversive revisionist western. Although Buffalo Bill...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1992 • United States
Starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward

A Hollywood studio executive with a shaky moral compass (Tim Robbins) finds himself caught up in a criminal situation that would be right at home in one of his movie projects, in this biting industry ...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1985 • United States
Starring Sam Shepard, Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton

Built around explosive performances from Sam Shepard and Kim Basinger, Robert Altman’s adaptation of Shepard’s play is a simmering drama of forbidden love set amid a dreamlike vision of the Am...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1990 • Netherlands, United Kingdom, France
Starring Tim Roth, Paul Rhys, Kitty Courbois

The struggle between madness and genius takes its toll on the brothers Van Gogh in Robert Altman’s brilliantly inspired exploration of fevered creativity and tormented family bonds...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1970 • United States
Starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt

Robert Altman’s distinctive genius first announced itself with this innovative, smash-hit black comedy in which a pair of irreverent surgeons (Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould) at a mobile...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1974 • United States
Starring George Segal, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss

Robert Altman’s distinctive brand of loose-limbed naturalism reached sublime heights with this freewheeling buddy comedy. Elliott Gould and George Segal make for one of the most delightfully offbe...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1984 • United States
Starring Philip Baker Hall

Sequestered in his home, a disgraced President Richard Milhous Nixon arms himself with a bottle of scotch and a gun to record memoirs that no one will hear. He is surrounded by the silent portraits of Lincoln, Eisenhower...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1979 • United States
Starring Paul Newman, Brigitte Fossey, Bibi Andersson

One of director Robert Altman’s most divisive works, this stark, hypnotic science-fiction experiment takes place after a nuclear holocaust has thrown the world into another ice age. A man named...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1979 • United States
Starring Paul Dooley, Marta Heflin, Titos Vandis

An endearing, underseen oddity made at the end of director Robert Altman’s dazzling 1970s creative run, this offbeat (even by Altman standards) romantic comedy explores the mysterious nature of love...

Directed by Robert Altman • 2000 • United States
Starring Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett

Robert Altman assembles a typically virtuosic ensemble cast for this sly, satirical take on the screwball comedy. Richard Gere is the titular Dallas physician, a wealthy and successful gynecologist...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1969 • United States, Canada
Starring Sandy Dennis, Michael Burns, Susanne Benton

Though often overshadowed by its follow-up, MASH, Robert Altman’s third directorial effort was in many ways an artistic breakthrough for him: the first in which his experimental, iconocl...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1982 • United States
Starring Cher, Sandy Dennis, Karen Black

Twenty years after James Dean’s death, a group of former superfans in rural Texas—not far from where the movie star shot his final film, GIANT—gather in an old Woolworth’s five-and-dime store to celebrate h...

Directed by Robert Altman • 1994 • United States
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Anouk Aimée

Something like a NASHVILLE for the ’90s, Robert Altman’s deliciously catty fashion-industry satire zigzags, in inimitable Altman style, between the swarm of reporters, designers, models, pow...

Directed by Robert Altman • 2003 • United States
Starring Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell, James Franco

Robert Altman applies his ever-expansive vision to the intricate inner workings of a ballet company in this almost documentary-like backstage saga. Made in collaboration with Chicago’s renowne...