James Tolkan Trailers
Val TrailerBone Tomahawk TrailerBack in Time Trailer
Fiery, forceful and intimidating character actor James Tolkan has carved out a nice little niche for himself in both movies and television alike as a formidable portrayer of fierce and flinty hard-boiled tough guy types. James Stewart Tolkan was born on June 20, 1931 in Calumet, Michigan. His father, Ralph M. Tolkan, was a cattle dealer. James attended the University of Iowa, Coe College and Eastern Arizona College. After serving a year-long stint in the United States Navy, Tolkan went to New York and studied acting with both Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Actors Studio. Short and bald, with beady, intense eyes, a wiry, compact, muscular build, a gruff, jarring, high-decibel voice, and an aggressive, confrontational, blunt-as-a-battle-ax, rough-around-the-edges demeanor, Tolkan has been often cast as rugged, cynical no-nonsense cops, mean, domineering authority figures, and various ruthless and dangerous criminals.
Tolkan first began acting in movies in the late 1960s and was highly effective in two pictures for Sidney Lumet: He was a rabidly homophobic police lieutenant in the superbly gritty Serpico (1973) and a sneaky district attorney in the equally excellent Prince of the City (1981). Best known as the obnoxiously overzealous high school principal Gerard Strickland in the Back to the Future films, Tolkan's other most memorable roles include Napolean in Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), a ramrod army officer in WarGames (1983), mayor Robert Culp's mordant, wisecracking assistant in Turk 182 (1985), the hard-nosed Stinger in Top Gun (1986), the choleric Detective Lubric in Masters of the Universe (1987), meek mob accountant Numbers in Dick Tracy (1990), and Wesley Snipes' bullish superior in Boiling Point (1993).
Most Popular James Tolkan Trailers
Total trailers found: 58
16 May 1986
For Lieutenant Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell and his friend and co-pilot Nick 'Goose' Bradshaw, being accepted into an elite training school for fighter pilots is a dream come true.
03 July 1985
Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest.
13 April 1984
A team of Arctic researchers find a 40,000 year-old man frozen in ice and bring him back to life. Anthropologist Dr.
22 November 1989
Marty and Doc are at it again as the time-traveling duo head to 2015 to nip some McFly family woes in the bud.
18 December 1973
New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.
25 May 1990
The final installment finds Marty digging the trusty DeLorean out of a mineshaft and looking for Doc in the Wild West of 1885.
19 August 1981
New York City detective Daniel Ciello agrees to help the United States Department of Justice help eliminate corruption in the police department, as long as he will not have to turn in any close friends.
14 June 2013
A drama centered on the relationship between Phil Spector and defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden while the music business legend was on trial for the murder of Lana Clarkson.
23 October 2015
During a shootout in a saloon, Sheriff Hunt injures a suspicious stranger. The doctor's assistant, wife of the local foreman, tends to him in prison.
03 June 1983
High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions.
02 April 1989
The chilling true story of the "two of a kind" killing cousins, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, better known as the Hillside Stranglers.
26 April 1992
A sketch artist for the police helps a witness recall who she saw leaving the scene of a murder, and discovers that the person is his wife.
30 July 1969
A rich, jet-setting playboy has a secret life: he's also a professional Mafia hitman. When he decides it's time to retire from that life, he finds that his former employers don't like the idea that someone who knows so much about them won't be under their control anymore, and decide to send their own hitmen to eliminate him.
27 July 1979
George Lutz, his wife Kathy, and their three children have just moved into a beautiful, and improbably cheap, Victorian mansion nestled in the sleepy coastal town of Amityville, Long Island.
23 July 2021
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video.
03 July 1991
Junior and his father, Ben, move from Cold River to Mortville. Junior becomes threatened by Ben's desire to date again and find a new mother for Junior, and sabotages each of his dates.
28 April 1989
Teenager Ray Trueblood is wrongfully accused of murdering a police officer after his fellow gang member Billy Masters does the deed.
16 April 1993
Red is an aging scam-artist who's just been released from prison together with Ronnie, a young and not-so-bright hoodlum who is easily manipulated.
05 April 1990
The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice's united mob.
09 June 1971
After the death of his wife, wealthy retiree Justin Playfair creates a fantasy world for himself in which he is the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, even dressing like the character.
01 December 1984
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm.
28 January 1995
Police sketch artist Jack Whitfield helps blind rape victim Emmy describe her attacker – a serial rapist and murderer who is now out to get her.
04 June 1982
Naïve Michael Jordon is drawn into a web of government secrets when a girl carrying a mysterious package gets into a taxi with him.
11 January 1991
When a large group of escaped convicts take Ike Slayton, a Vietnam veteran's wife hostage, Slayton enlists the help of his old army friend in a furious search to find her, while a hard-nosed National Guardsman leads a platoon of solders determined to kill or capture all the convicts, even if it means killing all the hostages in the crossfire.
15 February 1985
After New York City firefighter Terry Lynch is unable to receive any compensation for an injury incurred during the off-duty rescue of a young girl, he grows suicidal.
07 August 1987
When the evil Skeletor finds a mysterious power called the Cosmic Key, he becomes nearly invincible, seizing Castle Grayskull and the surrounding city.
01 October 1973
After being unknowingly inflicted with the bite of a werewolf while on a visit to Europe, White House press secretary Jack Whittier begins to turn into a deadly beast by night, terrorizing Washington D.
06 December 1989
Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else.
05 October 1986
When a runaway stray dog is rescued by the local neighborhood kids, they discover a nearby gang is involved.
03 November 1989
David Miller is a Vietnam vet who renounced violence and became a minister after he was forced to blow up a Viet Cong kid in self defense, but years later, when David's wife Gail and daughter Kim are killed by a group of terrorists led by Ali Aboud, in a massacre at an airport in Rome, Italy, David is devastated.
20 October 2015
Cast, crew and fans explore the 'Back to the Future' time-travel trilogy's resonance throughout our culture—30 years after Marty McFly went back in time.
10 February 2009
A 9-part retrospective documentary from 2009 on the trilogy’s legacy.
01 January 1988
After Laura's husband James is murdered, she decides to find out who did it and why. She finds herself in a fight against an anti-terrorist organization in her desire for revenge.
10 April 1986
Joe Gower's job is skating through library shelves, fetching books. A police officer/friend of his is chosen to participate in a charity dance performance.
01 February 1988
A group of reservists ("weekend warriors") are sent to Honduras to build a runway. Shortly after arriving an engineering group is sent to a small village to repair a bridge as a favor for the US Ambassador; at this point Captain John Deason begins to question who he is really building the bridge for.
15 August 1986
After policeman Frank Dooley is framed for theft and loses his job on the force, he joins a security guard agency and teams up with inept former defense lawyer Norman Kane.
24 July 1981
A New York City cop and an expert criminologist trying to solve a series of grisly deaths in which the victims have seemingly been maimed by feral animals discover a sinister connection between the crimes and an old legend.
01 June 1996
A crook sets out to get revenge on the thugs who hurt his father in this bloody noir-style crime drama.
01 January 1966
In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters and their brother live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful.
28 February 1997
An Australian woman searches for her soldier brother in Cambodia during the civil breakdown from which Pol Pot would emerge.
16 May 1991
An eccentric East German inventor and defector travels to Los Angeles, California to sell a prototype revolutionary new car that runs on vegetables and produces no pollution, but he runs into one madcap situation after another to find a buyer and financier for mass production.
26 June 1973
An aging hood is about to go back to prison. Hoping to escape his fate, he supplies information on stolen guns to the feds, while simultaneously supplying arms to his bank robbing chums.
10 June 1975
In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.
04 July 1976
John Huston directs this film giving relevance and life to the hallowed buildings and ground making up Independence National Historical Park.
30 March 1990
Eddie and Lou are a couple of two-bit con men on the lam from a loan shark. They hide out in someone's house and they hear on the answering machine that (A) the owner of the house is out of the country for a month or two and (B) the housesitter supposed to watch the house for the absent owner won't be able to watch the house due to a new job in another part of the country.
06 November 1987
Deceased drifter Mike arrives in Heaven and quickly falls for newborn soul Annie, soon to start her assignment on Earth.
06 October 1988
A woman struck down by terminal cancer shuns conventional medical techniques at her husband's insistence and turns to alternative treatment to combat the disease.
03 November 1989
Wills is an ex-cop who pairs up with Bobby, a wacky psychic, to form the "Second Sight Detective Agency.
15 January 1997
The year is 2036 and Earth has been invaded: hope lies with the last Robo Warrior - a towering fighting machine.
18 November 1992
When Danny unknowingly repossesses the car of a powerful arms merchant, it sets off a chain of violent retaliation.
18 June 1982
A broadway playwright is burning the candle at both ends. He is dealing with pressure from a production nearing premiere, a wife who is leaving him, and 5 children 4 of which belong to her.
20 July 2006
Successful New York attorney Sam Leibowitz travels to the South in 1933 to defend nine young black men accused of raping two women on an Alabama freight train.
30 October 1985
Aging New York cabbie Flanagan still has hopes of making it as a stage actor. He can recite any Shakespeare sonnet and is facile with accents, but he can't land an agent or a job.
26 October 2010
Eight-part retrospective documentary on the making of "Back to the Future" (and its two sequels) for the film's 25th anniversary.
11 June 1988
When a boxer is killed because he wouldn't take a dive, his brother tries to find a way to avenge him even if only symbolically.
26 April 1983
An elderly woman, a former aviatrix, is gradually recovering from a stroke.
21 April 1990
Police drama involving a team of young Los Angeles undercover cops posing as bikers to nail street
17 January 2004
An aging con-man and a beautiful, ambitious student cross paths in a scam that promises to make them both rich.
