Dean’s List: The Films of Dean Stockwell

Programmed by Allen Kessman

Dean Stockwell made magic, converting trivial roles into triumphs, and leading turns into a legacy. In an astounding eight-decade career—from child acting days in Joseph Losey’s anti-conformity film The Boy with Green Hair to a scene-stealing short stint in Robert Altman’s The Player and an Oscar-nominated role in Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob—Stockwell leapt from smile to snarl, thriller to comedy, and hero to villain. He sparred with the likes of Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas, always a captivating complement to anyone lucky enough to share his screen.

In honor of what would have been Stockwell’s 90th birthday as well as the fifth anniversary of his death, revel in the work of a beloved but still criminally unsung actor with a nine-movie odyssey through a defining career in American cinema.