Tom Waits (Actor)

Reviews of Tom Waits Movies

Looking for reviews of Tom Waits movies? Cinafilm has a total of 10,068 reviews across 36 movies.

Movies starring Tom Waits have generally received positive reviews and hold an average score of 66%.

Mystery Train - released in 1989 - is Tom Waits's highest rated movie, with a score of 79% based on 261 reviews.

The lowest rated film from Tom Waits is Twixt - released in 2011 - with a score of 42% based on 111 reviews.

Actor Biography

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including Down by Law, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Wristcutters: A Love Story. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places – although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' 55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2010, Waits was chosen to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children.

Tom Waits has acted in films with Steve Buscemi, Diane Lane, Sofia Coppola and Diane Venora.

Tom Waits has worked with these film directors: Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam and Héctor Babenco.