Barry Levinson
Birthdate: Apr 6, 1942
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Barry Levinson (birthname: Barry Lee Levinson) is a diverse and veteran director/screenwriter/producer, making a wide range of comedies and dramas (several starring or co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, and Robin Williams) which were especially successful in the 1980s and 1990s, starting with his acclaimed filmmaking debut, Diner (1982), for MGM/UA, launching several acting careers including those of Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly and Ellen Barkin, and grossing over $14 million on a $5 million budget.
Levinson parlayed this success into his acclaimed directorial baseball movie for TriStar Pictures, The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey and Richard Farnsworth, and nominated for four Oscars.
Levinson was director of the hit Amblin Entertainment/Paramount Pictures movie, Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), the first feature movie to feature a fully computer-generated character, starring Nicholas Rowe, Alan Cox, Anthony Higgins, and Sophie Ward, taking in a strong $63.7 million. Levinson directed and produced the second in his three-movie series set in his hometown of Baltimore, Tin Men (1987), starring Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito, and Barbara Hershey, produced by Touchstone Pictures/Silver Screen Partners II and released by Buena Vista Distribution.
Barry Levinson was director of one of his biggest hits that same year, Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), starring the Oscar-nominated Robin Williams, with Forest Whitaker, Tung Thanh Tran, Chintara Sukapatana, and Bruno Kirby, and grossing $124 million for Buena Vista/Touchstone. Levinson as director won his only Oscar and had one of his greatest successes (again with his producing partner Mark Johnson) with the Berlin Golden Bear-winning and four Oscar-winning (including Best Picture) Rain Man (1988), co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, and Valeria Golino, and grossing $359 million against $25 million costs.
Levinson’s next two pictures were backed by Tri-Star Pictures/Sony: Avalon (1990), for which he was director/writer/producer (via his Baltimore Pictures production company), marking the final movie in his “Baltimore tetralogy” and co-starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elizabeth Perkins, Joan Plowright, and Aidan Quinn, nominated for four Oscars but failing at the box office; and quickly after this, Levinson was director/producer of the period crime biopic about gangster Bugsy Siegel (played by star-producer Warren Beatty), Bugsy (1991), with Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley and Joe Mantegna, winning two of ten Oscar nominations, and grossing a poor $49 million.
Levinson directed, co-wrote (with Valerie Curtin), and co-produced (once again with Mark Johnson) the surreal dark comedy, Toys (1992), starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, and LL Cool J, but garnering negative reviews and poor box office for distributor 20th Century Fox.
Barry Levinson was director/writer/co-producer (with Mark Johnson) of the box-office bomb for Paramount Pictures, Jimmy Hollywood (1994), with Joe Pesci, Christian Slater, and Victoria Abril, but then the same year Levinson turned around and had one of his biggest successes as a director/producer with the Michael Crichton drama, Disclosure (1994), which Crichton produced from his novel, and co-starred Michael Douglas, Demi Moore and Donald Sutherland, and delivered a robust return for Warner Bros. with $214 million. Levinson as director/writer/producer matched that hit for Warners with another for the same studio two years later with the legal drama, Sleepers (1996), starring Kevin Bacon, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Bruno Kirby, Jason Patric, Brad Pitt and Minnie Driver, and grossing over $165 million worldwide.
Levinson made as director/producer his second movie in a row with stars Dustin Hoffman (nominated for the Best Actor Oscar) and Robert De Niro (who also produced) with the Presidential satire, Wag the Dog (1997), co-written by David Mamet and Hilary Henkin (Oscar-nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay), and co-starring Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson, Andrea Martin, Kirsten Dunst and William H. Macy, and earning a solid $64.3 million for New Line Cinema.
Levinson acted with Warner Bros for his next two, and very different, projects: as director/producer of the sci-fi thriller based on co-producer Michael Crichton’s novel, Sphere (1998), co-starring Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson, grossing a flat $73.4 million; and then director/writer/producer Levinson returned to his native Baltimore for his fourth movie set in the city, the semi-autobiographical Liberty Heights (1999), co-starring Adrien Brody, Bebe Neuwirth, Joe Mantegna, Ben Foster and Orlando Jones, but losing money with a $3.7 million return on $11 million costs.
Barry Levinson was director/producer (partnering again with Mark Johnson) of one of his biggest money-losers with the Northern Ireland-set comedy, An Everlasting Piece (2000), written by and starring Barry McEvoy, with Brian F. O’Byrne, Anna Friel, and Billy Connolly, and while costing $14 million for Columbia Pictures, earned a mere $75,000 for distributors DreamWorks Pictures/Columbia TriStar International.
Levinson was again director/producer of another money-loser, the Harley Peyton-written crime comedy, Bandits (2001), starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett, grossing an underwhelming $68 million gross for MGM, followed by director/producer Levinson’s next financial flop, the buddy comedy Envy (2004), starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Rachel Weisz, Amy Poehler and Christopher Walken, produced once again via Columbia and released to poor returns ($14.5 million return on $40 million costs) for DreamWorks Pictures/Columbia TriStar Distributors International.
Levinson as director/writer broke his string of box-office duds with the Robin Williams-starring comedy-drama, Man of the Year (2006), with Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Jeff Goldblum, and Lewis Black, produced by Morgan Creek Productions for $20 million and returning over $41 million in grosses for Universal Pictures.
Levinson was director/producer of his second satire starring Robert De Niro (and first not released by a major studio) based on Art Linson’s non-fiction takedown of Hollywood, What Just Happened (2008), with Catherine Keener, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Moon Bloodgood, Kristen Stewart and Bruce Willis, produced for $25 million by De Niro’s TriBeCa Productions and Todd Wagner’s and Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment but grossing a poor $6.7 million for distributor Magnolia Pictures after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
Barry Levinson was director/co-writer/producer of his next indie production and first mockumentary-horror movie, The Bay (2012), co-produced by horror meister Jason Blum, with Will Rogers and Kristen Connolly, but failing to even match its small $2 million with a $1.6 million box office for Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions after a Toronto Film Festival premiere.
Levinson directed and co-produced (with a group of producers including star Al Pacino) the Buck Henry-written comedy-drama adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2009 novel, The Humbling (2014), co-starring Greta Gerwin, Dianne Wiest, Nina Arianda, Dylan Baker, Charles Gordon, Billy Porter and Kyra Sedgwick, but which tanked at the box office with a return under $ ½ million for Millennium Entertainment after premiering out of competition in the Venice Film Festival.
Levinson was director only for the first time in decades in his feature career for the widely panned and commercial dud, the Bill Murray-starring comedy, Rock the Kasbah (2015), with Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride, Scott Caan, and Bruce Willis, and released by Open Road Films to a very poor $3.4 million gross. Levinson was away from feature filmmaking for a decade until he returned as director/producer to major studio production (Warner Bros., via Winkler Films) with the mobster drama starring Robert De Niro, The Alto Knights (2025), written by Nicholas Pileggi, with Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis and Michael Rispoli.
Barry Levinson departed from the crime drama as director/producer of the dramatic biopic of one of the leaders of the Rajneesh movement in the 1980s, Sheela (date to be announced), starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Levinson has been a producer or executive producer on several movies he did not direct or write, including A Little Princess (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Home Fries (1998), The Perfect Storm (2000), Possession (2002), Analyze That (2002) and American Sweatshop (2025).
Personal life
Barry Levinson was born and raised in the Forest Park community in Baltimore, Maryland, by parents Violet and Irvin Levinson (furniture, and appliance salesman). Levinson graduated from Forest Park Senior High School and then attended Baltimore City Community College. Levinson then transferred to American University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in Broadcast Journalism at the university’s School of Communication.
Levinson graduated and moved to Los Angeles, where he began a career in acting, writing, and standup comedy. Levinson was married to writer/actor Valerie Curtin from 1977 to 1982 when they divorced; Levinson has been married to Diana Rhodes since 1983; the couple has four children, Michelle, Patrick, Jack (actor), and Sam (film and television director/writer/producer). Levinson’s height is 5’ 11”. Levinson’s estimated net worth is $150 million.
Known For
Rain Man
(1988)
Bugsy
(1991)
Wag the Dog
(1997)
The Wizard of Lies
(2017)
Barry Levinson Movies
director
Previous (2)
- 2025 |
The Alto Knights
Two of New York City's most notorious organized crime bosses vie for control of the city's streets. Once best friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals set them on a deadly collision course.
- 2015 |
Rock the Kasbah
A down-on-his-luck music manager discovers a teenage girl with an extraordinary voice while on a music tour in Afghanistan and takes her to Kabul to compete on the popular television show, Afghan Star.
actor
Previous (66)
producer
Previous (1)
- 1983 |
Possession
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.
Facts About Barry Levinson
TV Before Movies: Barry Levinson was a television writer for twelve years before his feature debut, Diner, as a staff writer for comedy shows, including 73 episodes of The Carol Burnett Show from 1973-1976, as well as The Tim Conway Show and The ABC Comedy Hour.
Screenwriting Before Movies: Levinson was, for a brief time, a screenwriter before he turned to directing, debuting with the script for the thriller, Street Girls (1975), which he wrote with director Michael Miller; followed by two Mel Brooks-directed movies, Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977); then Levinson co-wrote (with Valerie Curtin) the script for the Norman Jewison-directed courtroom drama starring Al Pacino, And Justice for All (1979) and also director Jewison’s comedy, Best Friends (1982), as well as another comedy co-written with Curtin, their remake version of Preston Sturges’ classic comedy, Unfaithfully Yours (1984); and Levinson during this period was also an uncredited writer (with co-writers Larry Gelbart, Don McGuire, and Murray Schisgal) on the Sydney Pollack-directed comedy, Tootsie (1982).
TV Classics: Barry Levinson holds a unique place in television history as being both a key staff writer on one of the greatest comedy shows ever produced—The Carol Burnett Show—and also as a lead producer-partner with creator Tom Fontana on two of the best crime dramas ever made for television: Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999) and HBO’s Oz (1997-2003).
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