Robert Wise — Director
by mariojacobs | created - 17 Oct 2021 | updated - 09 Jan 2023 | PublicRobert Wise (1914 – 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor.
Wise achieved critical success as a director in a striking variety of film genres: horror, noir, western, war, science fiction, musical and drama, with many repeat successes within each genre.
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1. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,216 | Gross: $43.66M
2. The Sound of Music (1965)
G | 172 min | Biography, Drama, Family
A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn
Votes: 261,114 | Gross: $163.21M
3. The Andromeda Strain (1971)
G | 131 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Top scientists work feverishly in a secret, state-of-the-art laboratory to discover what killed the citizens of a small town and how the deadly contagion can be stopped.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Olson, Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid
Votes: 40,449 | Gross: $3.42M
4. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
G | 143 min | Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi
When an alien spacecraft of enormous power is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk resumes command of the overhauled USS Enterprise in order to intercept it.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan
Votes: 96,631 | Gross: $82.26M
5. The Sand Pebbles (1966)
PG-13 | 182 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
In 1926, a U.S. Naval engineer gets assigned to a gunboat on a rescue mission in war-torn China.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen
Votes: 16,432
6. The Body Snatcher (1945)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Thriller
A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater
Votes: 10,191
7. Born to Kill (1947)
Approved | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with the hotheaded murderer romancing her foster sister.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry
Votes: 6,084
8. The Set-Up (1949)
Approved | 73 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Sport
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter
Votes: 10,086
9. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
G | 92 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
An alien lands in Washington, D.C. and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe
Votes: 85,780
10. Destination Gobi (1953)
Approved | 90 min | Adventure, Drama, War
In 1944, US Navy specialists run a weather station in the Gobi desert where they are harassed by Japanese warplanes but aided by local Mongol nomads.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Richard Widmark, Don Taylor, Max Showalter, Murvyn Vye
Votes: 1,130
11. This Could Be the Night (1957)
Approved | 104 min | Comedy
A school teacher takes a secretarial job in a nightclub. The two club owners quibble about a lot, including her. Unfortunately, she develops an interest for the partner who disapproves of her employment at the club.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, Julie Wilson
Votes: 885
12. Run Silent Run Deep (1958)
Approved | 93 min | Action, Drama, War
A U.S. sub commander, obsessed with sinking a certain Japanese ship, butts heads with his first officer and crew.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, Brad Dexter
Votes: 13,114
13. I Want to Live! (1958)
Approved | 120 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A prostitute, sentenced to death for murder, pleads her innocence.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent, Theodore Bikel
Votes: 7,350
14. The Haunting (1963)
G | 112 min | Horror
Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 42,495 | Gross: $2.62M
15. The Hindenburg (1975)
Approved | 125 min | Adventure, Drama, History
A chronicle of the Hindenburg disaster in which a zeppelin burst into flames.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton, Roy Thinnes
Votes: 6,588 | Gross: $27.95M
16. Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Passed | 113 min | Biography, Drama, Sport
Boxer Rocky Graziano's biopic, based on his autobiography, from childhood to his World Middleweight Championship title win at age 28 in 1947.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart
Votes: 9,022
17. So Big (1953)
Approved | 101 min | Drama, Romance, Western
In the late 1890s, a young widow becomes a successful farmer and can send her son, nicknamed 'So Big', to college. After graduating, he finds a job as an architect, but forgoes his dream in favor of an immediate financial success.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Jane Wyman, Sterling Hayden, Nancy Olson, Steve Forrest
Votes: 820
18. Two Flags West (1950)
Approved | 92 min | War, Western
Forced by circumstances,Confederate POWs and Union soldiers join forces against Indians but old animosities resurface during their fragile alliance.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Jeff Chandler, Cornel Wilde
Votes: 1,202
19. Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
In need of quick money, a fallen former cop recruits a hard-bitten ex-con and a debt-ridden nightclub singer to pull off a bank job. But as the animosity between them boils over, the entire plan threatens to implode.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Shelley Winters
Votes: 5,563
20. The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
Approved | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder after she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortese, William Lundigan, Fay Baker
Votes: 3,848
21. The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.
Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter
Votes: 7,175
22. Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, War
In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War, a young French laundress shares a coach ride with several of her condescending social superiors. But when a Prussian officer holds the ... See full summary »
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, John Emery, Kurt Kreuger, Alan Napier
Votes: 619
23. Blood on the Moon (1948)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Western
Unemployed cowhand Jim Garry is hired by his dishonest friend Tate Riling as muscle in a dispute between homesteaders and cattleman John Lufton.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan
Votes: 3,496
24. Tribute to a Bad Man (1956)
Passed | 95 min | Drama, Romance, Western
With no law within 200 miles horse rancher Jeremy Rodak runs his spread with an iron hand and deals with rustlers even more ruthlessly.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: James Cagney, Don Dubbins, Stephen McNally, Irene Papas
Votes: 1,724
25. Executive Suite (1954)
Passed | 104 min | Drama, Romance
When the head of a large manufacturing firm dies suddenly from a stroke, his vice presidents vie to see who will replace him.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, June Allyson, Fredric March
Votes: 4,586
26. Three Secrets (1950)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Three women who secretly gave up their newborn sons for adoption in 1945 wonder if the 5-year-old survivor of a plane crash, named in the the local newspapers, is their long-abandoned son.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Eleanor Parker, Patricia Neal, Ruth Roman, Frank Lovejoy
Votes: 670
27. Something for the Birds (1952)
Approved | 81 min | Comedy, Romance
Enviromentalist Anne Richards goes to Washington D. C. to fight for getting legislation passed to save the last remaining sanctuary of the almost-extinct California Condor. She enlists the ... See full summary »
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Victor Mature, Patricia Neal, Edmund Gwenn, Larry Keating
Votes: 233
28. The Desert Rats (1953)
Approved | 88 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Richard Burton plays a Scottish Army officer put in charge of a disparate band of ANZAC troops on the perimeter of Tobruk with the German Army doing their best to dislodge them.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Richard Burton, James Mason, Robert Newton, Robert Douglas
Votes: 5,299
29. Star! (1968)
G | 176 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
A musical biography of Gertrude Lawrence, who led a hustling and bustling life on the stage.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, Michael Craig, Daniel Massey
Votes: 2,271 | Gross: $9.16M
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