A brilliant character actor who has stayed on top of his craft for more than 40 years, Dustin Hoffman was born Aug. 8, 1937, in Los Angeles. He started his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse at age 19. Next, he struggled for years for a breakthrough on the New York stage, finally winning a 1966 Obie award for "The Journey of the Fifth Horse."Director Mike Nichols was so impressed that he cast the unknown Hoffman in his first major film role, as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (after Robert Redford turned down the part). The result: overnight stardom and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Hoffman.
He repeated that honor with a risky, against-type performance in Midnight Cowboy (1969). Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man both earned Best Actor Academy Awards for Hoffman, who nabbed additional nominations for Lenny, Tootsie and Wag the Dog.
PapillonCaged for a murder he didn't commit, petty thief Henri "Papillon" Charriere (Steve McQueen) finds himself trapped within the walls of a French penal colony, determined to escape, in this film adaptation of Charriere's true story. Joining forces with fellow convict and quirky counterfeiter Louis Dega... Read More
Rain ManFast-talking yuppie Charlie Babbitt is forced to slow down when he meets a brother he never knew he had, an autistic savant named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman, in an Oscar-winning role) who's spent most of his life in an institution. When their wealthy father dies, leaving everything to Raymond, Charlie... Read More
Perfume: The Story of a MurdererBorn with an acute sense of smell, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille resorts to dark deeds in creating a perfume that captures the essence of a woman in this 18th-century thriller based on Patrick Süskind's best-selling novel. Read More
Last Chance HarveyDustin Hoffman stars in this romantic drama as struggling jingle writer Harvey Shine, an aging father who risks losing his job to attend his daughter's London wedding, only to discover that he's not exactly welcome. While seeking refuge in the airport bar, Harvey meets a lonely statistician named... Read More
OutbreakAs Army virologist Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) strives to thwart a global biological meltdown in the form of a killer virus that has infested a California community, he must also battle those who say the only way to stop the disease is to firebomb the town. Silver-screen luminaries Rene Russo,... Read More
