F. Murray Abraham

Actors

F. Murray Abraham (born Murray Abraham; October 24, 1939) is an American actor. He made his film debut in They Might Be Giants (1971), with George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. Other films in the 1970s include an uncredited part in Sidney Lumet’s Serpico (1973), with Al Pacino; Melvin Frank’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), with Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, and Gene Saks; and The Herbert Ross’s Sunshine Boys (1975), with George Burns, Walter Matthau, and Richard Benjamin; Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976), with Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, and Jason Robards; Richard Lester’s The Ritz (1976), with Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, Paul B. Price, and Treat Williams; and Jeremy Kagan’s The Big Fix (1978), with Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Anspach, Bonnie Bedelia, and John Lithgow.

He became widely known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor as Antonio Salieri in Miloš Forman‘s Amadeus (1984), with Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, and Charles Kay. Other notable films of the 1980s include Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983), with Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Robert Loggia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose (1986), with Sean Connery, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., William Hickey, Michael Lonsdale, Ron Perlman, Christian Slater, and Valentina Vargas; Pasquale Squitieri’s The Third Solution (1988), with Willams and Danny Aiello; Steven Lisberger’s Slipstream (1989), with Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, Bob Peck, Kitty Aldridge, Robbie Coltrane, and Ben Kingsley; Beyond the Stars (1989), with Martin Sheen, Slater, Sharon Stone, and Olivia d’Abo; Jack Smight’s The Favorite (1989), with Maud Adams, Francesco Quinn, and Amber O’Shea; and Peter Yates’s An Innocent Man (1989), with Tom Selleck, Laila Robins, David Rasche, Richard Young, Badja Djola, Dennis Burkley, Todd Graff, M.C. Gainey, and Philip Baker Hall.

Films in the 1990s include an uncredited appearance in Cadence (1990), with Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen (who also directed), Laurence Fishburne, Michael Beach, and Ramon Estevez; The Battle of the Three Kings (1990), with Massimo Ghini, Ángela Molina, Ugo Tognazzi, Fernando Rey, Claudia Cardinale, Irene Papas, and Harvey Keitel; an uncreated appearance in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, and Morgan Freeman; Mobsters (1991), with Slater
Patrick Dempsey, Richard Grieco, Costas Mandylor, Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael Gambon, Anthony Quinn, Robert Z’Dar, Frank Collison, Joe Viterelli, and Titus Welliver; Steven Hilliard Stern’s Money (1991), with Eric Stoltz, Christopher Plummer, and Maryam d’Abo; By the Sword (1991), with Eric Roberts, Mia Sara, and Christopher Rydell; ndrew V. McLaglen’s Eye of the Widow (1991), withBen Cross, Annabel Schofield, Mel Ferrer, and Patrick Macnee; National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), with Emilio Estevez, Peter Jackson, Kathy Ireland, Frank McRae, Jon Lovitz, Tim Curry, and William Shatner; John McTiernan’s Last Action Hero (1993), with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Art Carney, Charles Dance, Tom Noonan, Robert Prosky, Quinn, Mercedes Ruehl, and Austin O’Brien; an uncredited role in Boaz Yakin’s Frssh (1994), with Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Jackson, and N’Bushe Wright; Ernest R. Dickerson’s Surviving the Game (1994), withIce-T, Rutger Hauer, Charles S. Dutton, John C. McGinley, William McNamara, and Gary Busey; and Nostradamus (1994), with Tchéky Karyo, Amanda Plummer, Julia Ormond, Assumpta Serna, Anthony Higgins, Diana Quick, Michael Gough, Maia Morgenstern, and Hauer.

Films in the mid to late 1990s include Mighty Aphrodite (1994), with Woody Allen (who also directed), Claire Bloom, Helena Bonham Carter, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Rapaport, Mira Sorvino, David Ogden Stiers, Jack Warden, and Peter Weller; Dillinger & Capone (1995), with Martin Sheen, Michael Oliver, Catherine Hicks, and Don Stroud; Peter Duncan’s Children of the Revolution (1996), with Judy Davis, Sam Neill, Richard Roxburgh, Rachel Griffiths, and Geoffrey Rush; Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic (1997), with Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, and Charles S. Dutton; Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes (who also directed), Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Donna Murphy, and Anthony Zerbe; Muppets from Space (1999), with Steve Whitmire, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, Bill Barretta, Frank Oz, Jeffrey Tambor, David Arquette, Josh Charles, Ray Liotta, and Andie MacDowell; and The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in “For Love or Mummy” (1998), with Bronson Pinchot and Gailard Sartain.

Films in the early to mid 2000s include Gus Van Sant‘s Finding Forrester (2000), with Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, Michael Pitt, Glenn Fitzgerald, April Grace, Busta Rhymes, and Charles Bernstein; Pup Avati’s The Knights of the Quest (2001), with Edward Furlong, Raoul Bova, Thomas Kretschmann, Marco Leonardi, Stanislas Merhar, Edmund Purdom, Yorgo Voyagis, and Carlo Delle Piane; Thirteen Ghosts (2001), with Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Alec Roberts, and Rah Digga; Joshua (2002), with Tony Goldwyn, Kurt Fuller, Stacy Edwards, Giannini, and Colleen Camp; Renzo Martinelli’s Five Moons Square (2003), with Donald Sutherland, Stefania Rocca, Giannini, Greg Wise, Nicola Di Pinto, and Philippe Leroy; Rua Alguem 5555: My Father (2003), with Kretschmann and Charlton Heston; Lina Wertmüller’s Too Much Romance… It’s Time for Stuffed Peppers (2004)., with Sophia Loren; and Mary McGuckian’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004), with Robert De Niro, Pilar López de Ayala,, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Émilie Dequenne, and Keitel.

Films in the mid to late 2000s include The Stone Merchant (2006), with Keitel, Jane March, and Jordi Molla; The Inquiry (2006), with Daniele Liotti, Dolph Lundgren, Mónica Cruz, Hristo Shopov, Ornella Muti, Max von Sydow, and Anna Kanakis; Blood Monkey (2007), with Prapimporn Kanjunda, Matt Ryan, Amy Manson, Freishia Bomanbehram, Matt Reeves, Sebastian Armesto, and Laura Aikman; Carnera: The Walking Mountain (2008), with Andrea Iaia, Anna Valle, Paolo Seganti, Burt Young, Paul Sorvino, Bruno Bilotta, Eleonora Martinelli, Nino Benvenuti, Joe Capalbo, Antonio Cupo, and Kasia Smutniak; Perestroika (2009), with Sam Robards and Ally Sheedy; and Barbarossa (2009), with Hauer and Raz Degan.

Films in the early to mid 2010s include Peter Greenway’s Goltzius and the Pelican Company (2012), with Ramsey Nasr and Giulio Berruti; The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683 (2012), with Enrico Lo Verso, Andrea Iaia, Alicja Bachleda, and Jerzy Skolimowski; Niels Arden Oplev’s Dead Man Down (2013), with Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper, Terrence Howard, Armand Assante, and Isabelle Huppert; Joel & Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), with Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver; Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), with Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Keitel, and Jude Law; Louis Nero’s The Mystery of Dante (2014), with Taylor Hackford, Franco Zeffirelli, Christopher Vogler, and Valerio Manfredi; and A Little Game (2014), with Ralph Macchio, Janeane Garofalo, Fatima Ptacek, Oona Laurence, Makenna Ballard, Rachel Dratch, and Dukakis.

Films in the mid to late 2010s include a voice role in Isle of Dogs (2018), with Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Norton, Liev Schreiber, Murray, Bob Balaban,Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Kunichi Nomura, Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Akira Ito, Greta Gerwig, Akira Takayama, Frances McDormand, Yojiro Noda, Fisher Stevens, Mari Natsuki, Nijiro Murakami, Yoko Ono, Keitel, and Frank Wood; Robin Hood (2018), with Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Tim Minchin and Jamie Dornan; a voice role in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), with Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, and Kit Harington; and Lady and the Tramp (2019), with voices of Tessa Thompson, Justin Theroux, Janelle Monáe, and Sam Elliott, with live action roles byThomas Mann, Kiersey Clemons, Yvette Nicole Brown, Adrian Martinez, and Ken Jeong.

Films in the 2020s include Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini’s Things Heard & Seen (2021), with Amanda Seyfried, James Norton, Natalia Dyer, Alex Neustaedter, Rhea Seehorn, Michael O’Keefe, Karen Alllen, Jack Gore, and James Urbania; The Magic Flute (2022), with Jack Wolfe, Iwan Rheon, Stéfi Celma, eanne Goursaud, Niamh McCormack, and Amir Wilson; Mother, Couch (2023), with Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans, Taylor Russell, Lara Flynn Boyle, Lake Bell, and Ellen Burstyn; and The Phoenician Scheme (2025), with Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Hanks, Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Dafoe, and Murray.

He received two Primetime Emmy Award Nominations f(Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series) on the series Homeland ((2011-2020), with Claire Danes, Damien Lewis, Mandy Parinkin, Rupert Friend, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, and Tracy Letts; a third Emmy Nomination (Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance) for the MCU tv series Moon Knight (2022), with Isaac, May Calamawy, and Ethan Hawke; a a fourth Emmy Nominaton (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drams Series) for season 2 of Mike White’s anthology series The White Lotus (2021-), with Jennifer Coolidge, Adam DiMarco, Meghann Fahy, Beatrice Grannò, John Gries, Tom Hollander, Sabrina Impacciatore, Michael Imperioli, Theo James, Aubrey Plaza, Haley Lu Richardson, Will Sharpe, Simona Tabasco, and Leo Woodall.

TV movies and miniseries include Marco Polo (1982-1983), with Kenneth Marshall, Denholm Elliott, Tony Vogel, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, John Houseman, Burt Lancaster, Tony Lo Bianco, Ian McShane, Leonard Nimoy, David Warner, James Hong, and Ying Ruocheng; Dream West (1986), with Richard Chamberlain, Ben Johnson, and Rip Torn; A Season of Giants (1990), with Mark Frankel, John Glover, Muti, Ian Holm, Steven Berkof, and Jonathan Hyde: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1993), with Farrah Forke, Tim Russ, Jeffrey Nordling, John Neville, and Fabiana Udenio; Dead Man’s Walk (1996), with Keith Carradine, Patricia Childress, Brian Dennehy, Joaquim de Almeida, Edward James Olmos, Chris Penn, Eric Schweig, Harry Dean Stanton, David Arquette, Johnny Lee Miller, Jennifer Garner, and Tim Blake Nelson; Excellent Cadavers (1999), with Chazz Palminteri; Esther (2000), with Louise Lombard, Jürgen Prochnow, Kretschmann, Muti, Natasha Williams; Shark Swarm (2008), with Daryl Hannah; Chimerica (2019), with Alessandro Nivola, Cherry Jones, Sophie Okonedo, Terry Chen, Katie Leung, and Vera Chok; and White House Plumbers (2023), with Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux, Domhnall Gleeson, Kiernan Shipka, Lena Headey, Judy Greer, Kim Coates, and Toby Huss.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • They Might Be Giants (1971) – directed by Anthony Harvey
  • Nightside (1973) – directed by Richard Donner – TV movie
  • Serpico (1973) – directed by Sidney Lumet – uncredited
  • The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) – directed by Melvin Frank
  • The Sunshine Boys (1975) – directed by Herbert Ross
  • All the President’s Men (1976) – directed by Alan J. Pakula
  • The Ritz (1976) – directed by Richard Lester
  • Sex and the Married Woman (1977) – directed by Jack Arnold – TV movie
  • The Big Fix (1978) – directed by Jeremy Kagan
  • Madman (1978) – directed by Dan Cohen
  • Scarface (1983)** – directed by Brian De Palma
  • Amadeus (1984) – directed by Miloš Forman
  • The Name of the Rose (1986) – directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
  • The Third Solution (1988) – directed by Pasquale Squitieri – aka Russicum – I giorni del diavolo and Russicum
  • Slipstream (1989) – directed by Steven Lisberger
  • Beyond the Stars (1989) – directed by David Saperstein
  • The Favorite (1989) – directed by Jack Smight – aka Intimate Power
  • An Innocent Man (1989) – directed by Peter Yates
  • Galileo Galilei (1989) – directed by Ivo Barnabò Micheli – TV movie
  • Performance Pieces (1989) – directed by Tom Abrams – short
  • Cadence (1990) – directed by Martin Sheen – uncredited aka Stockade
  • A Season of Giants (1990) – directed by Jerry London – TV movie
  • The Little Match Girl (1990) – directed by Michael Sporn – short
  • The Battle of the Three Kings (1990) – directed by Souheil Ben-Barka & Uchkun Nazarov – aka Bitva tryokh koroley, La battaglia dei tre tamburi di fuoco, La batalla de los tres reyes, and Drums of Fire
  • The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) – directed by Brian De Palma – uncredited
  • Largo Desolato (1990) – directed by Jiri Ziska – TV movie
  • Money (1991) – directed by Steven Hilliard Stern
  • Mobsters (1991) – directed by Michael Karbelnikoff
  • Eye of the Widow (1991) – directed by Andrew V. McLaglen – aka SAS : L’Œil de la veuve
  • By the Sword (1991) -directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan
  • Die Zauberflöte (1991) – directed by Brian Large – TV movie
  • Through an Open Window (1992) – directed by Eric Mendelsohn – short
  • The Final Circle (1992) – directed by Sheldon Larry – TV movie
  • National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) – directed by Gene Quintano
  • Journey to the Center of the Earth (1993) – directed by William Dear – TV movie
  • Sweet Killing (1993) – directed by Eddy Matalon
  • Last Action Hero (1993) – directed by John McTiernan
  • Il caso Dozier (1993) – directed by Carlo Lizzani – TV movie
  • Fresh (1994) – directed by Boaz Yakin – uncredited
  • L’affaire (1994) – directed by Sergio Gobbi – aka The Case
  • Surviving the Game (1994) – directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
  • Nostradamus (1994) – directed by Roger Christian
  • Jamila (1994) – directed by Monica Teuber
  • Dillinger and Capone (1995) – directed by Jon Purdy
  • Mighty Aphrodite (1995) – directed by Woody Allen
  • Children of the Revolution (1996) – directed by Peter Duncan
  • Baby Face Nelson (1996) – directed by Scott P. Levy
  • Einstein Revealed (1996) – directed by Peter Jones – TV documentary
  • Mimic (1997) – directed by Guillermo del Toro
  • Color of Justice (1997) – directed by Jeremy Kagan – TV movie
  • Eruption (1997) – directed by Gwyneth Gibby
  • Vacation in Hell (1997) – directed by Tonino Valerii – aka Una vacanza all’inferno
  • Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)* – directed by Jonathan Frakes
  • Esther (1999) – directed by Raffaele Mertes – TV movie
  • Muppets from Space (1999)* – directed by Tim Hill
  • The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in ‘For Love or Mummy’ (1999) – directed by John R. Cherry III & Larry Harmon
  • Excellent Cadavers (1999) – directed by Ricky Tognazzi – TV movie
  • The Darkling (2000) – directed by Po-Chih Leong – TV movie
  • Finding Forrester (2000) – directed by Gus Van Sant
  • The Greatest Gift (2000) – directed by Maurizio Zaccaro – aka Un dondo semplice and Return to Bangalore – TV movie
  • David Proshker (2000) – directed by Larry Eisenberg – short
  • The Knights of the Quest (2001) – directed by Pupi Avati – aka I Cavalieri
  • Thirteen Ghosts (2001) – directed by Steve Beck
  • Joshua (2002) – directed by Jon Purdy
  • The Higher: Ticker (2002) – directed by Joe Carnahan – short
  • Five Moons Square (2003) – directed by Renzo Martinelli – aka Piazza delle Cinque Lune, Five Moons Plaza, and Piazza Of The Five Moons
  • Rua Alguem 5555: My Father (2003) – directed by Egidio Eronico
  • Pompeii: The Last Day (2003) – directed by Peter Nicolson – TV movie
  • Another Way of Seeing Things (2004) – directed by Cory Taylor – short
  • Too Much Romance… It’s Time for Stuffed Peppers (2004) – directed by Lina Wertmüller – aka Peperoni ripieni e pesci in faccia
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004) – directed by Mary McGuckian
  • Dead Lawyers (2004) – directed by Paris Barclay – TV movie
  • The Stone Merchant (2006) – directed by Renzo Martinelli – aka Il mercante di pietre
  • The Inquiry (2006) – directed by Giulio Base – aka The Final Inquiry and L’inchiesta
  • Wine and Kisses (2007) – directed by Illaria Borrelli – aka Come le formiche
  • Blood Monkey (2007) – directed by Robert Young – straight to video
  • Shark Swarm (2008) – directed by James A. Contner – TV movie
  • Carnera: The Walking Mountain (2008) – directed by Renzo Martinelli – aka Carnera – Il campione più grande
  • Language of the Enemy (2008) – directed by Mitch Davis – aka A House Divided
  • Ballerina (2008) – directed by Rosario Errico – short
  • Perestroika (2009) – directed by Slava Tsukerman
  • Barbarosa (2009) – directed by Renzo Martinelli – aka Sword of War
  • The Unseen World (2010) – directed by Liana Marabini
  • Goltzius and the Pelican Company (2012) – directed by Peter Greenaway
  • The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683 (2012) – directed by Renzo Martinelli – aka Settembre 1683, Bitwa pod Wiedniem, and Siege Lord 2: Day of the Siege
  • Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Tale (2012) – directed by Yves Simoneau – TV movie
  • Dead Man Down (2013) – directed by Niels Arden Oplev
  • Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)* – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
  • The Gambler Who Wouldn’t Die (2013) – directed by Giancarlo Giannini – aka Ti ho cercata in tutti i necrologi
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)* – directed by Wes Anderson
  • The Mystery of Dante (2014) – directed by Louis Nero – aka Il mistero di Dante
  • A Little Game (2014) – directed by Evan Oppenheimer
  • 411 (2015) – directed by Oliver Power – short
  • Isle of Dogs (2018)* – directed by Wes Anderson
  • Robin Hood (2018) – directed by Otto Bathurst
  • How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)* – directed by Dean DeBlois
  • Lady and the Tramp (2019) – directed by Charlie Bean
  • Things Heard and Seen (2021) – directed by Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
  • The Magic Flute (2022) – directed by Florian Sigl
  • Double Soul (2023) -directed by Valerio Esposito
  • Mother, Couch (2023) – directed by Niclas Larsson
  • The Phoenician Scheme (2025)* – directed by Wes Anderson
  • Out of This World (2026) – directed by Albert Serra