Movies directed by Alexander Payne
When you're young, you live your life looking forward. The future looms larger and more full of promise than the past, and everyone not afflicted with incurable pessimism believes that the best is yet to come. But all things age, and die, and wit...
U.S. Release Date: 2002-12-20
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Nudity)
Genre: DRAMA/COMEDY
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, ...
The average movie about the abortion debate tends to be preachy, melodramatic, and unbearably solemn. So, it comes as something of a shock that the latest venture to the front line of the pro-life/pro-choice battle is actually a comedy. Director/...
U.S. Release Date: 1995-12-13
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: COMEDY
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kurtwood Smith, ...
The Descendants may be director Alexander Payne's finest outing to date. The man who began his career behind the camera with withering satires (Citizen Ruth, Election) has moved into dramatic comedies (About Schmidt, Sideways) that simultaneously ...
U.S. Release Date: 2011-11-18
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity)
Genre: DRAMA/COMEDY
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, ...
For a movie about small people, Downsizing certainly thinks big…too big, perhaps. Director/co-writer Alexander Payne has done such a good job of world-building that there are far too many ideas, subplots, and opportunities for one two-hour f...
U.S. Release Date: 2017-12-22
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content, Brief Nudity)
Genre: Fantasy/Drama
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, ...
Election becomes the first droplet in the recent deluge of teen comedies to score a palpable hit. In the wake of Can't Hardly Wait, She's All That, Never Been Kissed, and about a dozen others, Election arrives like a desperately needed cool breez...
U.S. Release Date: 1999-04-23
MPAA Rating: "R" (Sexual Content, Profanity)
Genre: COMEDY
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, ...
At the heart of The Holdovers lies a cliché – something about life-lessons imparted and accepted from a mismatched companion – but the manner in which director Alexander Payne and writer David Hemingson approach this familiar trope imbues it ...
U.S. Release Date: 2023-10-27
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing, especially when a director tweaks it and plays with it. With Nebraska, Alexander Payne, working from a screenplay credited to Bob Nelson, targets a very specific slice of Americana that has often been romanticize...
U.S. Release Date: 2013-11-22
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: DRAMA/COMEDY
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, ...
Sideways is from Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt), whose films simultaneously satirize and observe life in America. Unlike David Lynch, who uses saws and butcher knives to dissect the American dream, Payne prefers a scalpel. Lynch often ri...
U.S. Release Date: 2004-10-20
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Situations, Nudity)
Genre: COMEDY/DRAMA
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Hayden Church, Virginia Madsen, ...