John Lithgow

John Lithgow

John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945) is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award.

Lithgow won two Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in The Changing Room (1972) and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for the musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). He has acted in the plays The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). He portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant on the West End, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. 

He starred as Dick Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances as Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter (2009) and as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in HBO’s Perry Mason (2020) and FX’s The Old Man (2022).

On film, he has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles as a transsexual ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment (1983). He also acted in All That Jazz (1979), Blow Out (1981), Footloose (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), A Civil Action (1998), Shrek (2001), Kinsey (2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Love Is Strange (2014), Interstellar (2014), Late Night (2019), Bombshell (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), and Conclave (2024).

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John Lithgow Movies

Discover the best John Lithgow movies. Explore the complete filmography, including top-rated classics, newest releases, and highest-grossing films starring John Lithgow ranked by year and score.

1

Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic (2026)

Documentary
Featuring interviews from members of the casting, production design, costume design, and creature effects teams, follow the behind-the-scenes journey of bringing the Harry Potter books to the small screen. Find...
Score 7.7
2

Conclave (2024)

Drama Thriller
When the Pope dies without warning, Cardinal Lawrence inherits the most secretive election on earth. Locked inside the Vatican alongside the Church's most ambitious and guarded men, he must shepherd...
Score 7.2
3

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Crime Drama History
In 1920s Oklahoma, the Osage Nation sits atop one of the richest oil deposits in the country, and that wealth makes them targets. Scorsese's sprawling adaptation of David Grann's book...
Score 7.4
4

The Accountant (2016)

Crime Drama Thriller
Christian Wolff keeps two sets of skills sharp: forensic accounting and lethal combat. Somewhere between autism spectrum disorder and a lifetime of brutal discipline, he has built a quiet life...
Score 7.1
5

Interstellar (2014)

Adventure Drama Science Fiction
Earth is dying slowly, its fields choked with dust, its future measured in harvests remaining. Cooper, a former NASA pilot turned reluctant farmer, gets pulled back into the work he...
Score 8.5
6

New Year’s Eve (2011)

Comedy Romance
Manhattan becomes a stage for second chances, new beginnings, and long-overdue confessions as midnight approaches. A sprawling ensemble of New Yorkers, strangers and lovers alike, find their stories colliding in...
Score 5.9
7

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Action Drama Science Fiction
Caesar was raised in a San Francisco home, the unexpected result of an experimental drug designed to repair damaged brain tissue. Smarter than anyone around him, he grew up navigating...
Score 7.3
8

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

Comedy Romance
Rebecca Bloomwood has a talent for spending money she does not have, a gift that has left her buried under a mountain of debt and chased by a tenacious debt...
Score 6.5
9

Orange County (2002)

Comedy Drama
Shaun Brumder has one goal: escape the sun-bleached chaos of Orange County and land at Stanford, where he can finally become the writer he knows he is. But when a...
Score 6.0
10

Shrek (2001)

Adventure Animation Comedy
Shrek just wants to be left alone in his swamp. When a parade of fairy tale creatures invades his property, the grumpy ogre strikes a deal with the pompous Lord...
Score 7.8
11

A Civil Action (1998)

Drama
Jan Schlichtmann starts out trying to dump a nuisance lawsuit as quickly as possible. Then the numbers shift, and what looked like a loser case starts looking like a fortune....
Score 6.5
12

Memphis Belle (1990)

Action Drama War
Ten men crew a B-17 bomber over occupied Europe, acutely aware that one more successful mission means rotation home. Their final assignment targets Bremen, a heavily defended industrial city that...
Score 6.7
13

Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

Comedy Drama Family
A routine drive home from a hunting trip takes a sharp turn for the Henderson family when their station wagon collides with something enormous on a wooded road. Convinced they...
Score 6.1
14

Terms of Endearment (1983)

Comedy Drama
Aurora Greenway has exacting standards for everything, including the men who orbit her life, and her daughter Emma has chosen one she considers well below par. Spanning roughly thirty years,...
Score 7.1
15

Blow Out (1981)

Crime Mystery Thriller
Jack Terry makes his living capturing sounds for low-budget horror films, so when a late-night recording session near a bridge turns into a genuine emergency, his instincts kick in fast....
Score 7.4

John Lithgow TV Shows

Browse the ultimate list of John Lithgow TV shows. Find top-rated television series, critically acclaimed dramas, and hit shows starring John Lithgow.

1

Harry Potter (2026)

Action & Adventure Family Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Eleven years old and largely ignored, Harry Potter has grown up believing he is ordinary. Then an owl-delivered letter changes everything, pulling him into a centuries-old school hidden from the...
Score -.-

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the highest-rated movies starring John Lithgow? +
According to aggregate user scores, the absolute best titles starring John Lithgow are Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic, Conclave, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
How many movies and TV shows has John Lithgow starred in? +
Our database currently features a comprehensive filmography of 16 titles starring John Lithgow, ranging from their earliest roles to the newest releases.
Are the movies starring John Lithgow worth watching? +
Yes! The overall filmography starring John Lithgow maintains a strong average user rating of 7 out of 10 across all tracked titles.