Barry Levinson
102 connections found
Filmography
The Humbling 2014 
Wag the Dog 1997 
Disclosure 1994 
Rain Man 1988 
Sphere 1998 
Diner 1982 
Bandits 2001 
Good Morning, Vietnam 1987 
Envy 2004 
The Natural 1984 
Bugsy 1991 
Young Sherlock Holmes 1985 
What Just Happened 2008 
Tin Men 1987 
Rock the Kasbah 2015 
Liberty Heights 1999 
Avalon 1990 
The Bay 2012 
The Survivor 2022 
Toys 1992 
The Alto Knights 2025 
Sleepers 1996 View:
Connections, in both directions
The Accountant² (2025)
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
influenced by Rain Man (1988)
Characters Plot Themes
…there are moments throughout where Christian feels more like Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond from Rain Man rather than the character from The Accountant.
…the movie takes the premise of Rain Man (Reunited Brothers, One Charming, One a Troubled Genius) and the bloody border intrigue of Sicario and asks: Why not both?
…a cross between John Wick and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man…
The Accountant 2 presents an entertaining follow-up to a unique action-crime film, which is part Rain Man and part John Wick.
He sounds vaguely like Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man” by way of Milton the stapler guy from “Office Space.
O’Connor calls this Rain Man on steroids, and maybe it raises awareness of autism, but it also celebrates it as a super-power.
Enola Holmes (2020)
Directed by Harry Bradbeer
influenced by Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
Characters Visuals Plot
If “Enola Holmes” also reminds you at several points, especially in the action scenes, of the work of Steven Spielberg, you may recall that he executive produced the 1985 hit “Young Sherlock Holmes.”
From Robert Downey Jr.’s successful franchise to the BBC adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch to 1985’s mystery-adventure film Young Sherlock Holmes , modern audiences always want more from the world’s most famous detective.
Adapting the first book from 2006, The Case of the Missing Marquess , prolific screenwriter Jack Thorne ( His Dark Materials , Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ) essentially combines Guy Ritchie’s stylised Sherlock Holmes movies with Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), replacing darkness and edginess with fun and feminism.
Written by Jack Thorne (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”) and based on Nancy Springer's young-adult books, “Enola” borrows certain aspects from the recent Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” movies and TV’s popular modern-day “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch, but thankfully it’s not a female-friendly reboot of 1985's “Young Sherlock Holmes.”
For fans of the Holmes character, his countless screen incarnations have also included "Young Sherlock Holmes" and Gene Wilder's comedic "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother."
Armageddon Time (2022)
Directed by James Gray
influenced by Avalon (1990), Tin Men (1987), Diner (1982)
Visuals Themes
The tone is sometimes reminiscent of the one struck by Barry Levinson in his memory films (“Diner,” “Tin Men,” “Avalon”), with Gray, in this case, trying to present his experience of growing up in as genuine a way as possible, as if he were ripping pages from his diary.
When “Armageddon Time” focuses on that story, it’s reminiscent of far better films like Barry Levinson’s “Avalon.”
Critic Owen Gleiberman’s comparison to Barry Levinson’s multigenerational Jewish-American saga Avalon is on target.
It’s a little “Basketball Diaries,” a smidge of “The Graduate” and a heaping helping of Barry Levinson’s far more sentimentalized childhood reverie “Avalon,” which was also built around lots of extended family dinners.
It's like Barry Levinson's Avalon morphing into The 400 Blows.
The tone is sometimes reminiscent of the one struck by Barry Levinson in his memory films (“Diner,” “Tin Men,” “Avalon”), with Gray, in this case, trying to present his experience of growing up in as genuine a way as possible, as if he were ripping pages from his diary.
As he gets older, Brad Pitt looks more and more like Robert Redford, and seeing the two-time People Magazine Sexiest Man Alive in a baseball movie can’t help but bring to mind memories of The Natural.
When Redford was the same age as Pitt is now, he played Roy Hobbs in The Natural (1984).
The unlikely tandem of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill helps drive what is arguably the most compelling and insightful baseball-themed film since Robert Redford launched a homerun into the stadium lights in "The Natural" (1984).
Unlike other inspirational sports stories (Hoosiers, The Blind Side, Miracle, The Natural), Moneyball is totally dependent on its audience's love for America's national pastime.
It starts with Pitt, currently the same age as Robert Redford was when he made The Natural, and filmed with some kind of Redfordian camera lens that, from certain angles, makes him look just like the guy.
It’s therefore disappointing but unsurprising to find Moneyball being analogised to baseball staples like Bang The Drum Slowly and The Natural rather than critics simply asking: is it a good movie?
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Directed by Tyler Nilson
influenced by Rain Man (1988)
Characters Plot Themes
It’s because like Rain Man, Awakenings, Forrest Gump and countless other films featuring a character with cognitive disabilities, Gottsagen plays a childlike innocent, almost a Holy Fool.
We are used to seeing developmentally-able actors playing developmentally-disabled characters, like Sean Penn in I Am Sam , Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape , Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man , Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi in The Other Sister , and John Malkovich in Of Mice And Men , to name just a few.
Like a southern-fried variation on “Rain Man,” Gottsagen’s Zak and LaBeouf’s Tyler have a sweet-and-sour chemistry that propels this curious little road movie further than one would expect.
One picture surely on the creators’ list of inspiration would be Rain Man , which brought awareness to autism, but which also received criticism for casting Dustin Hoffman as the disabled genius.
Gottsagen’s character was specially written for him by Nelson and Schwartz and it proves essential to making this Huckleberry Finn meets Rain Man crossover work.
While “The Peanut Butter Falcon” doesn’t neatly fit into any particular genre, it clearly takes its inspiration from movies like “Rain Man,” putting newcomer Zack Gottsagen front and center as a pair of unlikely amigos undertake a road/salt-water-rafting trip down the coast to Florida.
The Accountant (2016)
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
influenced by Rain Man (1988)
Characters Plot Themes
In the ’80s, that odd-cool couple, the autistic and the math-savant, went on a road-trip as brothers became buddies again in Rain Man; in the ’00s, an autistic math-savant went Holmes with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; now, in The Accountant, a “high-functioning autistic” and math-savant meets the mafia . . .
El de Christian Wolff es un tipo de rol tan excéntrico y llamativo, tierno y letal a partes iguales –una suerte de cruce imposible entre el Dustin Hoffman de Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988) y el Jason Bourne de Matt Damon–, que está por encima de la propia película y es capaz de engullir al propio Affleck.
Simply think "Rain Man" mixed up (and that's certainly the correct term) with a lot of guns and no time to watch Judge Wapner.
“No, really,” they lean in, “it’s Rain Man meets the Bourne movies.”
Parents with autistic children will often complain that, thanks to films such as Rain Man, strangers expect their offspring to have superpowers.
“The Accountant” is a little bit “Rain Man,” a little bit “Good Will Hunting” and a little bit “John Wick.”
At first glance, Jessie Nelson's I Am Sam may seem like a sort of Rain Man part 2, investigating what would happen if a developmentally disabled person were to father a child.
To grasp the shameless, trolling-for-Oscars concept behind "I Am Sam," an insufferably mawkish, mentally-challenged melodrama of self-aggrandizing proportions, just imagine a tear-jerking "Rain Man" sequel with Dustin Hoffman in a custody battle over a button-cute 7-year-old daughter.
I Am Sam learned everything it knows about retardation from Rain Man and Charly.
Reminiscent of so many other films where normal people learn from the mentally-challenged, (Charly, The Second Sister, Rain Man, etc.) Pfeiffer becomes a calmer, more competent attorney and parent as a result of her relationship with the good-hearted Sam (Penn), who bugs her, of course, but ultimately charms her.
There are some who will simply dismiss Penn's phenomenal performance in the title role as just another "Rain Man" but they'll be forgetting that Dustin Hoffman's contributions to that film were actually rather good (as was the film itself).
His performance ranks with that of Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and Leonardo DiCaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."
McKay was clearly inspired by classics in the genre from Dr. Strangelove, which turned nuclear war into comedy, to Network and Wag the Dog among other fondly-remembered gems we now recognize weren’t far off from getting at some real truths.
As well as the aforementioned Strangelove and Armageddon , Don’t Look Up also has echoes of Deep Impact , Network , Wag the Dog , Bob Roberts and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, as banging their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy – and a divided public, some of whom believe it all to be a massive conspiracy theory – takes its toll on the protagonists.
While wildly aware that Don’t Look Up is absolutely a political satire that applies a dash of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Network (1976), and Wag the Dog (1997) with a nice helping of Armageddon (1998), the way in which an extinction-level event serves as the metaphor for climate crisis doesn’t always land because of the ever-present concern of COVID-19 and its variants.
And for those unsure about the film's concept and anarchic spirit, "Bandits" is equal parts "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" with a little bit of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" thrown in for good measure.
All bank robber movies have to deal with the fact that there is a film out there called Bonnie and Clyde, and when a movie reminds you over and over about the infamous duo, it doesn�t help matters.
The film, which seems to combine Jules and Jim with Bonnie and Clyde, gets off to a rough start.
So far, so like Jules and Jim meets Bonnie and Clyde.
In an apparent homage to Rain Man , she’s forced into becoming her sister’s caregiver, planning at first to dump her at the “people pound” but reconsidering when faced with the disapproval of her new love interest (Leslie Odom Jr), a saintly boxing instructor.
Is she secretly a choreographer and songwriter who models herself on Sia? Are her fully realized musical fantasies the product of genius-level observation and emulation by a gifted amateur, like the scene in "Rain Man" when Dustin Hoffman's character goes to Vegas for the first time and cleans out the casino?
Once upon a time, Rain Man and What's Eating Gilbert Grape cast buzzy Hollywood actors as characters with autistic traits: it was another age, when those parts were a shoo-in for Oscar nominations: but the Golden Globes' interest in Music suggests the considerable bubble in which the film was made.
At least there were no splashy production numbers in “Rain Man.”
As co-penned with children's author Dallas Clayton, the scantest of cliche-riddled, Rain Man -esque narratives is used to stitch together ten whimsy-dripping musical numbers — packaged as brightly coloured and costumed insights into the unique way in which the film's titular character sees the world, but really just lavish music videos to new Sia-penned songs performed by the feature's cast.
More often than not, though, it led to tone-deaf and cloying products that made you wince, from "i am sam" and "Rain Man" to "Forrest Gump."
At its best "Don't Think Twice," valentine on one side, cautionary tale on the other, harkens to some unexpected films not explicitly about improv comedy — Paul Mazursky's "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," or Barry Levinson's "Diner" — but very much in the improv spirit, about dreamers living in what Stephen Colbert refers to as a "humorocracy."
Writer-director Martin Brest somehow thought combining the most incongruous elements of "Chasing Amy," "Rain Man" and "Pulp Fiction" was a good idea.
It was probably pitched to studio executives as "Prizzi's Honor" meets "Rain Man," but it has none of the cutting wit of the former and none of the redeeming conviction of the latter.
Having the simple advantage of being a dialogue-dependent film in a summer ocean of monosyllabitis, Gigli would simply be mild potato au gratin if it weren't for the patronizing Rain Man setup and mercenary zeal for jokes made at the expense of the mentally handicapped.
You could think of the film as "Ford Fairlane" meets "Rain Man" meets "Chasing Amy," but that would only scratch the surface.
For the next 40 minutes or so, Gigli and Ricki swap stale banter as the actors feign animosity and Bartha sneaks off with the movie by channeling Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" shtick.
Written and directed by Martin Brest, whose last outing was the equally unbearable "Meet Joe Black," the romance revolves around these two opposing personalities being assigned to keep an eye on each other as they kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a district attorney and threaten harm to the kid (Justin Bartha, whose performance is straight out of a community theater rendition of "Rain Man") if charges aren't dropped against their boss's capo.
Providing echoes of Douglas Sirk melodramas and Hitchcockian thrillers, the film ultimately feels like a subtle addition to those hot button Michael Douglas morality tales that proved such commercial juggernauts in the late 1980s and early 1990sl Fatal Attraction , Disclosure etc.The box-office response to Queen of Hearts might not be in the same league as those, but it has a similar ability to make emotions churn and blood boil.
The group's chemistry evokes the best sad-sack male bonding tales of Barry Levinson (" Diner ," " Tin Men "), and the performances are all superb, particularly Frost, who steals the film with an explosive physicality that's John Goodmanesque.
But he never said we couldn't call it Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Diner, so there you go.
The group's chemistry evokes the best sad-sack male bonding tales of Barry Levinson (" Diner ," " Tin Men "), and the performances are all superb, particularly Frost, who steals the film with an explosive physicality that's John Goodmanesque.
"ATL" is refreshing without going all goody two-shoe, its four friends and their ties to Atlanta not unlike the bunch of guys in Barry Levinson's Baltimore "Diner."
In their confusion over leaving one part of their life to move on to an uncertain future, they could be the kids in "American Graffiti" or "Diner."
"He moves them, inspires them - like Robert Redford in The Natural but in a muscle car equipped with machine guns and napalm."
Forrest Gump (1994)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
influenced by Rain Man (1988)
Themes Characters Music Plot
Skillfully adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth, the story belongs in the company of such sweet classics as "Rain Man" and "Harvey," but for all its conviviality suggests that only a simpleton could miss the erosion in the American national character.
Our Flick of the Week is "Forrest Gump," which begins as yet another case of a Hollywood star doing an Oscar turn playing a mentally disturbed character ("Charly," "Rain Man") but surprisingly turns into a marvelous, whimsical epic of contemporary America.
I did appreciate the focus on Thomas Newman's exceptional score, however, a piece that is as integral to the success of American Beauty in Best Picture lore as Hans Zimmer's is for Rain Man.
Coming after "Being There," "Rain Man" and what seems like every film starring Johnny Depp, "Forrest Gump" is a further example of Hollywood's fascination with the mentally challenged.
Mixing elements of "Rain Man," "The World According to Garp" and Woody Allen's "Zelig," "Forrest Gump" covers 30 years in Gump's life, and reframes recent history by suggesting that one man can leave his stamp -- through blunders, serendipity and simple good will -- on several key historical moments.
Shades of "Rain Man," "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" and hundreds of other noble-simpleton movies.
Between his tree-shaped goatee and military uniform, Steve takes Christmas a little too seriously, running things like he would a military operation, which calls to mind the mismatched Zevo brothers of Barry Levinson's "Toys" (a holiday turkey perhaps only the folks at Aardman are generous enough to love).
For Sphere, he lifted the premise of Tarkovsky's Solaris, in which a physical object - here a mysterious shimmering sphere discovered in a submerged spaceship at the bottom of the ocean - causes those who enter it to give physical form to their inner thoughts.
For example, because this is DreamWorks'/Universal's Oscar tentpole, the running time falls safely in the "adult contemporary holiday respectable" range of 130-145 minutes, and it features a big name actor in a role that requires him to be some combination of mentally disabled ( I Am Sam , Forrest Gump, Rain Man), insane (As Good As It Gets), or that delicate combination of the two: a genius (Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester ).
When Crowe first comes on the screen as the younger Nash, he is wrought with ticks and mannerisms that put me in mind of Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man."
(That’s what Dustin Hoffman did in “Rain Man.”)
Just ask Dustin Hoffman, whose character in 1988’s “Rain Man” had to balance being sharper than a calculator with being an autistic savant.
Yeah, that’s right: Ron Howard’s Rain Man perseverance saga comes readymade with a midpoint rhetorical shift that tries to excuse the schmaltz of John Nash’s (Crowe) fabricated existenz.
It's what I call the Rain Man performance.