Ed Wood

September. 28,1994      R
Rating:
7.8
Trailer Synopsis Cast

The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.

Johnny Depp as  Ed Wood
Martin Landau as  Bela Lugosi
Sarah Jessica Parker as  Dolores Fuller
Patricia Arquette as  Kathy O'Hara
Jeffrey Jones as  Criswell
Bill Murray as  Bunny Breckinridge
Lisa Marie as  Vampira
Jim Myers as  Tor Johnson
G. D. Spradlin as  Reverend Lemon
Vincent D'Onofrio as  Orson Welles

Similar titles

Go
Starz
Go
Grocery store clerk Simon occasionally sells drugs from his cash register at work, so when soap opera actors Adam and Zack come looking for Ecstasy on a quiet Christmas Eve, they are surprised to find Ronna covering his shift. Desperate for money, Ronna decides to become an impromptu drug dealer, unaware that Adam and Zack are secretly working for obsessed narcotics officer Burke.
Go 1999
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Prime Video
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid 1982
Celebrity
Paramount+
Celebrity
The career and personal life of writer Lee are at a standstill, so he divorces his bashful wife, Robin, and dives into a new job as an entertainment journalist. His assignments take him to the swankiest corners of Manhattan, but as he jumps from one lavish party to another and engages in numerous empty romances, he starts to doubt the worth of his work. Meanwhile, top TV producer Tony falls for Robin and introduces her to the world of celebrity.
Celebrity 1998
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Prime Video
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
The Angels are charged with finding a pair of missing rings that are encoded with the personal information of members of the Witness Protection Program. As informants are killed, the ladies target a rogue agent who might be responsible.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle 2003
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
Prime Video
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
When megalomaniacal White Goodman, the owner of a trendy, high-end fitness center, makes a move to take over the struggling local gym run by happy-go-lucky Pete La Fleur, there's only one way for La Fleur to fight back: dodgeball. Aided by a dodgeball guru and Goodman's attorney, La Fleur and his rag-tag team of underdogs launch a knock-down, drag-out battle in which the winner takes all.
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story 2004
The Bone Collector
Starz
The Bone Collector
Rookie cop, Amelia Donaghy reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme – formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury – to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed 'The Bone Collector'. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes.
The Bone Collector 1999
Charlie Bartlett
Prime Video
Charlie Bartlett
Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.
Charlie Bartlett 2008
Kitchen Stories
Kitchen Stories
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Kitchen Stories 2004
The Majestic
The Majestic
Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son.
The Majestic 2001
Riding in Cars with Boys
Prime Video
Riding in Cars with Boys
In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.
Riding in Cars with Boys 2001

You May Also Like

Edward Scissorhands
Prime Video
Edward Scissorhands
A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.
Edward Scissorhands 1990
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Prime Video
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, a.k.a Sweeney Todd, who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the hit Broadway musical.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 2007
Arizona Dream
Arizona Dream
An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles
Arizona Dream 1994
Sleepy Hollow
Prime Video
Sleepy Hollow
Ichabod Crane, an eccentric investigator, is determined to stop the murderous Headless Horseman.
Sleepy Hollow 1999
Nick of Time
Prime Video
Nick of Time
An ordinary man is suddenly forced into a plot to kill a politician in exchange for his kidnapped daughter's freedom.
Nick of Time 1995
Finding Neverland
Max
Finding Neverland
During a writing slump, playwright J.M. Barrie meets a widow and her four children, all young boys—who soon become an important part of Barrie’s life and the inspiration that lead him to create his masterpiece. Peter Pan.
Finding Neverland 2004
From Hell
Max
From Hell
Frederick Abberline is an opium-huffing inspector from Scotland Yard who falls for one of Jack the Ripper's prostitute targets in this Hughes brothers adaption of a graphic novel that posits the Ripper's true identity.
From Hell 2001
Dead Man
Max
Dead Man
A fatally wounded white man is found by an outcast Native American who prepares him for the afterlife.
Dead Man 1996
Mars Attacks!
Prime Video
Mars Attacks!
A fleet of Martian spacecraft surrounds the world's major cities and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim, "come in peace." U.S. President James Dale receives assurance from science professor Donald Kessler that the Martians' mission is a friendly one. But when a peaceful exchange ends in the total annihilation of the U.S. Congress, military men call for a full-scale nuclear retaliation.
Mars Attacks! 1996
Benny & Joon
Prime Video
Benny & Joon
A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.
Benny & Joon 1993

Reviews

Cubussoli
1994/09/28

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

... more
Comwayon
1994/09/29

A Disappointing Continuation

... more
Voxitype
1994/09/30

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

... more
Ezmae Chang
1994/10/01

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

... more
slightlymad22
1994/10/02

Continuing my plan to watch every Johnny Depp movie in order, I come to Ed Wood (1994) This is one of the best movies of 1994 for me. Depp's performance of the title character is so enthusiastic, you can't help but like him. His enthusiasm is contagious. He should have received his second Oscar nomination here, as it was, he was ignored again, and remained without a single nomination for several more years. Depp is superbly backed up by a ridiculously talented cast. Martin Landau is simply superb as Bella Lagousi, Bill Murray was also deserving of an Oscar nod, but like Depp he was ignored. Sarah Jessica Parker, Mike Starr, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones and Lisa Marie all stand out too. There is not a weak link in the cast.The heart of the movie is not between Ed Wood and one of his women but his relationship with Bella Lagousi. A man he truly adores.The movie won two Oscars. One for Martin Landau in the Best Supporting Actor category and one for Best Make Up and opened to great reviews but was a box office bomb. Grossing only $6 million against an $18 million budget. Was it the fact it was released in black and white?? Was it that it was released one week after Don Juan Demarco, the subject matter??? Whatever it was that turned audiences off, it's a real shame, as it's a great movie filled with great performances.

... more
mark.waltz
1994/10/03

There's something adorable about the pathetic character of Edward D. Wood Jr., at least here played by Johnny Depp at his height. From bio's I've read about him, he wasn't somebody you'd see outside a neighborhood pub, and from the dreck he produced late in his life, not somebody I'd sit down to interview. But the first decade of his career in Hollywood, as unglamorous as it was, gave him a legendary status that only a cult director like Tim Burton can understand. "We don't have a license! Run!", he says while in drag, shooting a scene for "Glen or Glenda". That's the touching, almost childlike innocence of his character we see here, wide-eyed and sensitive, ambitious yet untalented, and at least three of his films (all those featuring Bela Lugosi) have ended up in a canon of the best of the bad movies. To say that this is a valentine to the worst director of all times is an understatement. It is a love letter to anybody who tried to break into the Hollywood mainstream and failed, giving a "fantasia" to the best of his bad movies "Plan 9 From Outer Space" with a supposed premiere at the Pantages (of all places) who wouldn't show an A list horror film from Universal let alone an independently produced film so bad that like the producer at Warner Brothers one would think was made as a joke. Painted hubcaps, sets that shake, and refrigerators as part of laboratory equipment are just among the bad props, all ending with "a big explosion" and stock footage so unrelated to everything else going on that it has to be seen to be believed.There are two standout performances in this film: Johnny Depp as Wood himself and veteran actor Martin Landau who captures every essence of Bela Lugosi yet makes him somebody I'd still want to sit down with, even if he was smoking those cheap Hungarian cigars. Bela Lugosi may not have cursed or slammed Boris Karloff like he does here (according to his own son), but that only comes very briefly, and out of a sudden fit of temperament event the worst of actors can have if the ego strikes. I, too, prefer Lugosi over Karloff, and have everyone of his movies, and even in his Monogram films, there is something about him where you can't take your eyes off of him. Lugosi could be funny, as seen in dealing with the likes of Joe E. Brown, W.C. Fields, Burns and Allen and later Abbott and Costello (not to mention the Martin and Lewis knock-offs (Duke Mitchell, Sammy Petrillo), and Landau instills every level of Lugosi's personality. His winning of an Oscar was also a win for the long dead Lugosi who gained a new generation of admirers thanks to this film.Depp, with his wide eyed innocent smile, false teeth, slight speech impediment, fascination for angora and the mouthing of his own words as he watches his finished movie on the silver screen, is adorable, and in spite of the obviousness of his bad movies, you can't help but cheer him on, even if knowing he fails. Wood made more movies than the three shown here in production, but this could be almost a Hope and Crosby "Road" movie as it focuses on the oddball pairing of a young wannabee and an elderly has-been who come to adore each other, rely on each other, and ultimately use each other for their desire to keep their dream going. The supporting cast is fine, almost parody like, with Sarah Jessica Parker's growing frustration over boyfriend Wood making her a volcanic eruption waiting to happen, Bill Murray's effeminate transgender wannabe both touching and heartbreaking, and Jeffrey Jones' Criswell a master in fraud. George "The Animal" Steele is dead on as Tor Johnson, and Lisa Marie's Vampira perfection in cold creepiness. Juliet Landau, as the "innocent young lady new in town" who funds "Bride of the Monster" with $300 and lands the leading role is perfection in sly child-like manipulation, and Patricia Arquette touching as the young girl Ed meets while caring for a hospitalized Lugosi and ends up staying with him as his wife for the remainder of his life. When I first saw this in the movie theater, the Century City California audience seemed to be filled with those in the business who laughed hysterically from the time Jones opened his coffin to give the opening speech to the film credits that utilized plot developments and props from the three movies here (the octopus attacking the spaceship and getting "the shock" of its life and the gravestones utilized as revealing the actors in the film), all throughout the lower Santa Monica Blvd. locations of Z grade movie studios, the theft of the giant octopus and Landau's hysterics as he fights with the unmoving rubber creature while drenched. The DVD includes some interesting bonus footage, most memorably scenes cut out, some of which I can understand why they didn't make it, and others that might have added some additional character development. References to the original "Dracula" and Wood's obsession with Orson Welles (a meeting with him as depicted here apparently never happened), but that's the fantasia of life in Hollywood for some who do not make it: they have dreams of meeting their idols, and while Wood did meet Lugosi, it's obvious that meeting Welles would have been the shining star on his movie career that may not have been a shining one, but has kept his name on the minds of cult movie lovers of all ages.

... more
elie-music
1994/10/04

If you are a Burton/Depp fan this is the one for you to enjoy! I won't spoil anything of the movie i'll just say that I really enjoy this movie, it has fun parts, dark humor everything to enjoy a good dramatic-comedy biography movie. I think its one of Burton's best treasure of his filmography and one of best Depp performance ever.

... more
martin-alejandro
1994/10/05

A brilliantly made drama film, that plays impactful with the feelings of the audience. It has no comedy, just a few sparkling of laughs. The film tells about the biography of the "worst director of all time," Ed Wood (Played by Johnny Depp) and his journey of making films that he believed to be a success. For Wood, you feel sorry for him because the audience knows that each of his films will be considered the worst. However, the acting of the whole cast allows the audience to remain in their seats and hope that a miracle can happen. As an audience, you wish that for only once, one of Wood's films can turn out to be a success. During the scene of the premiere of his film "Plan 9 from Outer Space," is the only moment where the audience can feel some relief as Wood can be seeing that he has accomplished his vision. Unfortunately, we know what the outcome will be.This drama film is strongly well made that you want every single character to triumph. The acting is brilliant and genuine that you feel what each character is going through. Ed Wood is very optimistic and has high hopes that every film that he makes will be a success. Martin Landau, who perfectly brings Bela Lugosi back to life, steals the show as his character makes the audience to feel his pain, loneliness, loss of fame and bankruptcy. Nevertheless, Landau's character never loses hope on Wood's films and actually feels grateful to be back in the big screen. If you are a fan of Bela Lugosi or Ed Wood, then this outstanding Tim Burton film, will make you remember them.

... more