This selection is for fans of the extraordinary actress, Lydia Susannah Hunt, a woman with a growth hormone deficiency. She is 145 centimeters of talent, a wonderful voice and boiling energy, for which she is considered one of the brightest actresses in Hollywood.
Linda Hunt is famous for her TV series roles, is the narrator in the computer game series God of War, plays on the Broadway stage and sometimes appears in feature-length projects, leaving critics and audiences with the most remarkable impressions with her inimitable acting.
Here are 12 of the best movies with Linda Hunt, the little embodiment of courage, talent and zest for life.
Stranger Than Fiction
- IMDB Rating – 7.5
- Genre: fantasy, drama, melodrama, comedy
- Production: USA, UK / 2006
- Budget: $30,000,000
- World Box Office: $53,653,224
- Director Mark Forster
- Starring: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Linda Hunt, Tom Hulse, William Dick, Guy Massey, Martha Espinoza
“Stranger Than Fiction” is a witty, high-scoring drama about the life of tax inspector Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell. The monotonous realism of Crick’s measured life is one day disrupted by a female voice in his head who ironically or pathetically comments on everything that is happening to Harold.
Of course, our hero runs at a gallop to a psychiatrist (Linda Hunt), who first tries to diagnose the problem and then, realizing that standard methods do not fit here, recommends Harold to go to a professor of literature to figure out what mythical spirits or demons torment the poor inspector. And soon Harold comes to a terrible conclusion…
The names of all the characters in this film are the names of famous scientists, artists, and so on.
Yours, Mine & Ours
- IMDB Rating – 5.4
- Comedy, Family, Melodrama
- USA production / 2005
- Budget: $45,000,000
- World Box Office grossed: $71,875,793
- Directed by Raja Gosnell
- Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rene Russo, Sean Faris, Katya Pewek, Dean Collins, Tyler Patrick Jones, Hayley Ramm, Bracken Palmer, Bridger Palmer, Ty Panitz, Linda Hunt
Do you enjoy watching kindergarten? If your answer is yes, immerse yourself in the incredible turmoil of Raja Gosnell’s family comedy. Linda Hunt plays Miss Manion, the prim housekeeper of Frank, one of the film’s main characters.
Frank is a former rear admiral, a widower, and the proud father of eight children. Together with his offspring he returns to his hometown of New London, where he meets his high school sweetheart, Helen North. This woman’s situation is even worse: she lost her husband, having had four children of her own and six adopted children. Frank and Helen decide to get married, which causes the whole kindergarten to be outraged.
In the first weekend, the film took the 3rd position in the list of the most watched pictures.
Dragonfly
- IMDB Rating – 6.1
- Genre: fantasy, thriller, drama, melodrama, detective
- Production: USA, Germany / 2002
- Budget: $60,000,000
- World Box Office: $52,323,400
- Director Tom Shadyac
- Starring: Kevin Costner, Susanna Thompson, Joe Morton, Ron Rifkin, Kathy Bates, Robert Bailey Jr.
In Tom Shediak’s mystical drama, Linda Hunt plays the role of Sister Madeline, a nun who has explored the otherworld and is able to give an answer to the main character, Joe Darrow. The man is a doctor who recently lost his pregnant wife, an oncologist who works with sick children.
Soon after the tragedy, strange events begin to occur in Joe’s life involving dragonflies, which his wife adored. He goes to her patients and discovers that many of them she is, trying to pass something on to her husband. Joe begins his investigation, which leads him to a miraculous discovery.
The picture is dedicated to Catherine Curtess – wife assistant director, who died at the time when the film was made.
The Relic
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Genre: Horror, sci-fi, thriller, detective
- Production USA / 1997
- Budget: $40,000,000
- U.S. box office receipts: $33,956,608
- Directed by Peter Hyams
- Starring: Penelope Ann Miller, Tom Sizemore, Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, Clayton Roner, Chi Mooi Lo, Thomas Ryan, Robert Lesser, Diane Robin, Lewis Van Bergen
Peter Hyams’ horror film is about an ancient artifact that carries death. Linda Hunt embodied the image of the museum’s director, Ann Cuthbert.
A ship arrives in America with relics from South Africa and a terrible cargo in the hold – the decapitated bodies of the ship’s entire crew. Detective D’Agosta begins to investigate, but soon a similar murder occurs in the museum where the relics were delivered. Instead of the usual investigation, the detective will have to dive into the world of ancient, scary legends and believe in a monster that destroys everyone who touches his secret.
The plot is based on a novel by American writer Douglas Preston.
Twenty Bucks
- IMDB Rating – 6.3
- Genre: Drama, comedy
- USA production / 1993
- U.S. box office estimate: $89,558
- Director Keva Rosenfeld
- Starring: Linda Hunt, Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Shue, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Lloyd, Spalding Gray, David Rush, George Morphogen, Sam Sorbo, Bubba Baker.
A parable based on an O. Henry story about a $20 bill passing from hand to hand. For some, this money is an inconspicuous little thing, but for others, it changes their lives. “Adventures” of the bill unfolds life in front of the viewer in a small town, with its colorful residents and little incidents.
Linda Hunt played homeless Angelina, who picked up a bill lost by its previous owner on the street. While Angelina anticipates a future big lottery win, a street kid steals $20 from her and runs to the nearest bakery…
The original screenplay was written in 1935 and was gathering dust in the Hollywood back rooms for a long time.
If Looks Could Kill
- IMDB Rating – 5.8
- Action, comedy, adventure
- Production: USA, Canada / 1991
- U.S. box office receipts: $7,788,597
- Directed by William Deere
- Starring: Richard Greco, Linda Hunt, Roger Rhys, Robin Bartlett, Gabriel Anwar, Geraldine James, Michael Siberry, Carol Davis, Frederick Coffin, Tom Rack.
One of Linda Hunt’s most impressive and unusual roles is as the assassin Ilsa Grant, the surrogate mother of the criminal Augustus Steranko in William Deere’s action-comedy thriller.
The plot follows the adventures of 18-year-old Michael Corben, who flies to Paris to accompany his French teacher. By coincidence, he is mistaken for a CIA agent killed at the airport by Ilsa, and upon his arrival in France, the boy is taken away by the British secret service.
Realizing that he finds himself in the midst of an exciting event, Michael begins to play along, enjoying high-tech gadgets, but then realizes that he finds himself in mortal danger.
The gold coins that Augustus made in the movie were chocolates in gold foil.
Kindergarten Cop
- IMDB Rating – 6.2
- Action, comedy, crime
- Produced by USA / 1990
- Budget: $15,000,000
- Worldwide box office receipts $201,957,688
- Director Ivan Reitman
- Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt, Richard Tyson, Carroll Baker, Joseph Cousins, Christian Cousins, Cathy Moriarty, Park Overall
Cute comedy-detective with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a box-office hit of ’90. Actress Hunt is amazing as the elementary school principal, the stern and wise Miss Schlovsky.
John Kimble is an undercover cop who takes a job in the first grade of an elementary school. He wants to track down a violent drug dealer whose son is in that class. The bumbling big guy doesn’t understand how to handle the children at first, but then he gets a taste of their cheerful energy, gains the children’s trust and charms the teacher, Joyce, and, of course, catches the criminal at the same time.
Local kids were hired as extras in the film and were paid a whopping $35 a day!
She-Devil
- IMDB Rating – 5.6
- Comedy genre
- USA production / 1989
- U.S. box office: $15,351,421
- Directed by Susan Seidelman
- Starring: Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, Ed Begley Jr., Linda Hunt, Sylvia Miles, Elisbeth Peters, Brian Larkin, A. Martinez, Maria Pitillo, Mary Louise Wilson
A black family comedy about the transformation of a sweet housewife into a real devil under the influence of anger and lust for revenge. Linda Hunt appears as Hooper, a humble nurse from a nursing home, who becomes a close friend of the main character and, together with her, opens a scandalous employment agency for rejected women.
So the film’s protagonist, Ruth Patchett (Roseanne Barr), is a supportive wife and humble housewife, a treasure to her husband Bob up until the moment he decides to leave her for the fashionable writer of women’s novels, Mary (Meryl Streep). Ruth decides by all means to destroy the happiness of the betrayer and his girlfriend, losing all her comportment and turning their lives into a real nightmare.
The film is remotely based on the 1983 novel by Fay Weldon.
Silverado
- IMDB Rating – 7.2
- Genre: Action, drama, melodrama, crime, western
- Production USA / 1985
- Budget: $26,000,000
- U.S. box office receipts: $32,192,570
- Director Lawrence Kasdan
- Starring: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Marvin G. McIntyre, Brad Leland, Sheb Wooley, John Kasdan, John Cleese, Todd Allen, Linda Hunt
The western starring Kevin Costner is on IMDb’s list of the best hundred films of the genre. Linda Hunt played Stella, a stubborn little woman who runs a gambling parlor in Silverado.
Four cowboys team up to get to Silverado, where each of them has his own noble cause. Once there, they refuse to obey the corrupt sheriff and begin to fight for justice in this town.
The film took 96 days to shoot and involved a large animal husbandry team and about 500 head of cattle, horses, chickens and other livestock.
Eleni
- IMDB Rating – 6.9
- Genre: Drama, War
- US production / 1985
- U.S. box office estimate: $305,102
- Director Peter Yates
- Starring: Kate Nelligan, John Malkovich, Linda Hunt, Oliver Cotton, Ronald Pickup, Rosalie Crutchley, Glenn Headley, Dimitra Arliss, Steve Plaitas, Peter Woodthorpe.
In the biographical drama “Eleni,” Linda Hunt played the small role of a woman from the protagonist’s past, Nicholas Gage, played by a young John Malkovich.
Thirty years after leaving Greece for the United States, Gage, a well-known journalist, returns to his native land to solve the mystery of his mother’s death, which occurred in the 1940s, during the Greek Civil War. He goes back and forth in his memories to his childhood, trying to find clues in the depths of his memory.
The Greek mountain village in the film is actually a set built in Spain for the sake of filming.
Dune
- IMDB Rating – 6.3
- Genre: Sci-fi, action, adventure
- Production: USA, Mexico / 1984
- Budget: $40,000,000
- U.S. box office receipts: $30,925,690
- Directed by David Lynch
- Starring: Kyle McLocklen, Juergen Prochnow, Francesca Annis, Patrick Stewart, Richard Jordan, Freddie Jones, Dean Stokwell, Kenneth MacMillan, Sting, Leonardo Cimino, Linda Hunt
In Lynch’s 1984 epic masterpiece, based on the famous book of the same name, Linda Hunt played the memorable role of the housekeeper of the Imperial residence, freemancer Shadout Mapes, who asks Summer’s concubine Jessica to serve her, thinking she is the woman of the prophecy. The film is certainly old for modern audiences, and yet it’s still iconic sci-fi from the ’80s movies.
The events unfold on the planet Arrakis, simply called Dune because of the vast deserts beneath which lie deposits of a priceless resource that gives the ability to travel through time and space. Monstrous sandworms are the least of the Dune’s residents’ worries. They await the coming of a liberator who will rid them of the evil Harnonnen dynasty.
David Lynch considers “Dune” the biggest failure of his career. And in 2022 he said in an interview that he might well make a new version of the story.
The Year of Living Dangerously
- IMDB Rating – 7.1
- Genre: Drama, melodrama, war
- Production: Australia, USA / 1982
- Budget: $13,000,000
- U.S. grosses: $10,278,575
- Director Peter Weare
- Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt, Mel Gibson, Bembol Roco, Domingo Landicho, Michael Murphy, Noel Ferrier, Paul Sonkila, Ali Noor
A heartfelt Australian war melodrama starring Sigourney Weaver, Mel Gibson and Linda Hunt, who won an Oscar for her role. And she played… A man. Because of her gruff and unusual appearance, Linda was cast as Billy Kwan, an eccentric Chinese-Australian photographer with a dwarfism.
Gibson played Guy Hamilton, a young journalist who arrives in Jakarta on the eve of dangerous political unrest. Billy Kwan becomes Guy’s guide in the troubled city and introduces him to Jill, a representative of the British Embassy.
The young people have feelings for each other, and Jill suggests that Guy leave with her, but he stays behind to continue his sensational reporting from the most dangerous place on Earth in these years.
In addition to the Oscars, Linda picked up several other film awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe, although she was genuinely upset when actors teased her by calling her “sir” on set.
