Movies by Lee Grant

Calling the Shots

Calling the Shots

Documentary about women in the film industry. Numerous notable actresses and female directors share their thoughts.

Ransom for a Dead Man

Ransom for a Dead Man

A brilliant attorney gets rid of her boring husband by faking his kidnapping and keeping the ransom. The FBI may be fooled, but not Columbo.

Killian & the Comeback Kids

Killian & the Comeback Kids

Forced to return to his struggling hometown after an expensive college degree, Killian gathers former childhood friends to audition for a music festival coming to their once prosperous steel town.

Airport '77

Airport '77

Flight 23 has crashed in the Bermuda Triangle after a hijacking gone wrong. Now the surviving passengers must brave panic, slow leaks, oxygen depletion, and more while attempting a daring plan, all while 200 feet underwater.

An Affair of the Skin

An Affair of the Skin

A neurotic woman, her unhappy husband and three other New Yorkers share a complicated relationship.

Valley of the Dolls

Valley of the Dolls

In New York City, bright but naive New Englander Anne Welles becomes a secretary at a theatrical law firm, where she falls in love with attorney Lyon Burke. Anne befriends up-and-coming singer Neely O'Hara, whose dynamic talent threatens aging star Helen Lawson and beautiful but talentless actress Jennifer North. The women experience success and failure in love and work, leading to heartbreak, addiction and tragedy.

Pie in the Sky

Pie in the Sky

Rural runaway finds himself in Manhattan.

The Willmar 8

The Willmar 8

Risking jobs, friends, family and the opposition of church and community, eight unassuming women begin the longest bank strike in American history.

She Said No

She Said No

A successful career woman is raped by a prominent lawyer. However, when she takes the case to court, it results in a hung jury. When the DA's office declines to retry the case, the lawyer opts to sue the woman for malicious prosecution and slander leaving her feeling raped again.

When Women Kill

When Women Kill

When Women Kill is a poignant documentary exploring the shocking violence that seven women fell victim to at the hands of men. The program profiles the battered women who speak frankly about the cruel abuse, threats, and fears, and the overassertive men who led them down a one-way path to death and destruction. The film features in-prison footage, including a segment depicting a confession by a follower of the notorious Charles Manson, Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted of two killing sprees and committed to life in prison.

Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light

Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light

Actor/director Sidney Poitier discusses his life and career. He tells of his upbringing in Jamaica; the difficulties he encountered in New York City at the start of his career; his involvement in the US civil-rights movement; and efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. Friends and acquaintances, as well as other performers, give their insights about what makes him so special.

Partners in Crime

Partners in Crime

A retired judge who opens a private detective agency and her ex-con associate try to track down $750,000 in bank robbery loot.

TVTV Looks at the Oscars

TVTV Looks at the Oscars

Made in 1976, TVTV's close-up look at Hollywood's annual awards ritual mixes irreverent documentary with deadpan comedy. TVTV's cameras go behind the scenes to follow major Hollywood figures (including Steven Spielberg, Michael Douglas, Lee Grant, Jack Nicholson, and many others), capturing them in candid moments—inside their limousines, dressing for the ceremony, backstage at the awards.

A Crime to Fit the Punishment

A Crime to Fit the Punishment

This fascinating making-of documentary investigates the controversy and political atmosphere surrounding the production of Salt of the Earth, movingly chronicling the filmmakers' defiance of the blacklist. (BAM) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

Poor Liza

Poor Liza

A beautiful peasant girl is romanced and abandoned by a young nobleman.

For Ladies Only

For Ladies Only

An aspiring young actor moonlights as a male stripper while looking for work in the theatre.

Arriving Tuesday

Arriving Tuesday

Monica arrives back from her big overseas experience to find her boyfriend Nick unchanged. Although Nick styles himself an artist, he is really something of a cultural redneck, and when the couple head up north for a break, and they meet up with Riki, a poet, who is rather less shallow and charming.

The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro

The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro

The story of the hijacking of the Itallian liner Achille Lauro by four militants of the Palestine Liberation Front, in 1985, who demanded the release of several Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisoners. On their hands, lies the fate of several passengers, many Americans included and among them, Jewish American businessman Leon Klinghoffer.

Hal

Hal

Hal Ashby's obsessive genius led to an unprecedented string of Oscar®-winning classics, including Harold and Maude, Shampoo and Being There. But as contemporaries Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg rose to blockbuster stardom in the 1980s, Ashby's uncompromising nature played out as a cautionary tale of art versus commerce.