Biography
John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an American-Italian actor, writer and filmmaker, known for his association with the independent film movement. He has appeared in over sixty feature films and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee. He began his acting career on-screen in the early 1980s, and received early critical recognition with the independent film Five Corners (1987). Turturro's mainstream breakthrough came with Lee's Do the Right Thing (1...
Known For
Complete Filmography

The Cut
2025
as Boz
A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with ...

The Room Next Door
2024
as Damian
Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist ...

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
2022
as Dottore (voice)
During the rise of fascism in Mussolini's Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father's expectations.

High Noon on the Waterfront
2022
as Elia Kazan (voice)
An inventive remembrance of the impact of the Hollywood blacklist on two American classics, rendered as a visually mesmerizing dialogue between Carl F...

VENGEANCE IN THE MAKING
2022
as Self
Documentary footage from The Batman (2022) Blu Ray.

Potentially Dangerous
2022
Executive Producer
Potentially Dangerous is a feature-length documentary on the untold story of Italian immigrants interned and persecuted as America's "Enemy Aliens" Du...

Forty Winks
2022
as Milo
Forty Winks follows Fabio Berker, struggling Hypnotist in New York City, as he is blackmailed into being the world's first hypnotist hit man by a myst...

The Batman
2022
as Carmine Falcone
In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as ...

The Oedipus Project
2020
as Creon
The Oedipus Project is an innovative new digital initiative by Theater of War Productions that will present acclaimed actors performing scenes from So...

Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
2020
as Self
From "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to "The Big Lebowski" and everything in between, this fascinating deep-dive documentary begins its celebration of...

The True Adventures of Wolfboy
2019
as Mr. Silk
Follows a young boy who runs away from home in the search of his estranged mother.

The Jesus Rolls
2019
as Jesus Quintana
Hours after his release from prison, Jesus Quintana pairs up with fellow misfits Petey and Marie for a freewheeling joyride of petty crime and romance...

The Jesus Rolls
2019
Director, Screenplay
Hours after his release from prison, Jesus Quintana pairs up with fellow misfits Petey and Marie for a freewheeling joyride of petty crime and romance...

Gloria Bell
2019
as Arnold
Gloria is a free-spirited divorcée who spends her days at a straight-laced office job and her nights on the dance floor, joyfully letting loose at clu...

Frank Serpico
2017
as Self
In 1972, officer Frank Serpico exposes the corruption which poisons the roots of the NYPD and becomes famous in 1973 when director Sidney Lumet tells ...

Landline
2017
as Alan Jacobs
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.

Transformers: The Last Knight
2017
as Agent Simmons
Humans and Transformers are at war. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history ...

Hair
2017
as Himself
Actors John Turturro and Bobby Cannavale talk about their hair.

Hair
2017
Writer, Director
Actors John Turturro and Bobby Cannavale talk about their hair.

Just a Movie: On the Set of 'Mia Madre'
2016
as Self
A documentary on the making of Mia Madre (2015).

Hands of Stone
2016
as Frankie Carbo
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

The Ridiculous 6
2015
as Abner Doubleday
When his long-lost outlaw father returns, Tommy "White Knife" Stockburn goes on an adventure-filled journey across the Old West with his five brothers...

Mia madre
2015
as Barry Huggins
Margherita, a director in the middle of an existential crisis, has to deal with the inevitable and still unacceptable loss of her mother.

Partly Cloudy with Sunny Spells
2015
as Ingegnere Lombelli
Two friends, founders of a cooperative that produce couches and that it is found in a situation of bankruptcy, a night, while they are digging for hid...

Keepers of the Covenant: Making 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'
2015
as Self
An in-depth documentary on the making of Ridley Scott's "Exodus: Gods and Kings," featuring interviews with the cast and crew. Featured in the Deluxe ...

Senza Lucio
2015
as Self
The singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla seen through the eyes of the person closest to him in the last twenty years: Marco Alemanno. The tale of how they me...

Exodus: Gods and Kings
2014
as Sethos I
The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its ter...

Rio, I Love You
2014
as Homem (segment "Quando não há Mais Amor")
The third episode of the Cities of Love franchise, Rio, I Love You is an anthology, created by 10 visionary directors from across the globe. The story...

Rio, I Love You
2014
Director, Writer
The third episode of the Cities of Love franchise, Rio, I Love You is an anthology, created by 10 visionary directors from across the globe. The story...

God's Pocket
2014
as Arthur 'Bird' Capezio
A boozy lowlife tries to bury the truth about his crazy stepson's suspicious death, but a nosy newspaper columnist and the young man's mother complica...

Gods Behaving Badly
2013
as Hades
Greek gods living in modern-day New York intervene in the lives of a young couple.

Fading Gigolo
2013
as Fioravante
Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray. With Murray acting as his "man...

Fading Gigolo
2013
Director, Screenplay
Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray. With Murray acting as his "man...

Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
2013
as Himself
Broadway legend Elaine Stritch remains in the spotlight at eighty-seven years old. Join the uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner both on and off ...

In the Shadow of No Towers
2011
as Narrator
Pulitzer Prize-winning MAUS cartoonist Art Spiegelman uses his harrowing experiences as a New Yorker on September 11, 2001 as the catalyst for this ha...

Somewhere Tonight
2011
as Leroy
Somewhere Tonight is an urban fable that tells the story of two lonely New Yorkers trying to find companionship over an adult chat phone line. John Tu...

Transformers: Dark of the Moon
2011
as Simmons
The Autobots continue to work for NEST, now no longer in secret. But after discovering a strange artifact during a mission in Chernobyl, it becomes ap...

Cars 2
2011
as Francesco Bernoulli (voice)
Star race car Lightning McQueen and his pal Mater head overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix race. But the road to the championship becomes rock...

The Nutcracker
2010
as The Rat King
In 1920s Vienna, a young girl receives a magical doll on Christmas Eve.

Passione
2010
as Self
Songs and singers from Naples, musicians and poets, real and legendary characters are the protagonists of a film that crosses one of the most beautifu...

Passione
2010
Director, Choreographer, Idea
Songs and singers from Naples, musicians and poets, real and legendary characters are the protagonists of a film that crosses one of the most beautifu...

The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen
2009
as Self
The definitive feature-length documentary on the creation of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen".

Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy
2009
John Turturro goes back to the land of his ancestors.

Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy
2009
Writer
John Turturro goes back to the land of his ancestors.

Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later
2009
as Self
In this documentary directed by Spike Lee, he interviews the cast and crew of his 1989 film DO THE RIGHT THING. It also includes footage from a twenti...

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2009
as Simmons
Sam Witwicky leaves the Autobots behind for a normal life. But when his mind is filled with cryptic symbols, the Decepticons target him and he is drag...

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
2009
as Lt. Camonetti
Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day's work for dispatche...

What Just Happened
2008
as Dick Bell
During the course of an ordinary week in Hollywood, movie producer Ben must navigate his way through shark-infested waters as he struggles to complete...

Miracle at St. Anna
2008
as Detective Antonio Ri
Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four American soldiers who are members of the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division stationed in Tusca...

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
2008
as Fatoush 'The Phantom' Hakbarah
An Israeli counterterrorism soldier with a secretly fabulous ambition to become a Manhattan hairstylist. Zohan's desire runs so deep that he'll do any...

The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't
2008
as Self
On the 35th anniversary of the release of the landmark film "The Godfather," (March 15, 1972) we look back at the time and place of the film's concept...
Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies
2008
Documentary portrays the saga of how Italian Americans went from being outsiders who were stereotyped as gangsters in American movies to insiders in H...

Margot at the Wedding
2007
as Jim
Margot Zeller is a short story writer with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue. On the eve of her estranged sister Pauline's wedding to unemployed ...

Transformers
2007
as Agent Simmons
Young teenager Sam Witwicky becomes involved in the ancient struggle between two extraterrestrial factions of transforming robots – the heroic Autobot...

Brando
2007
as Self
The life and legacy of Marlon Brando and how he changed acting.

Slipstream
2007
as Harvey Brickman
Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder my...

The Good Shepherd
2006
as Raymond Brocco
Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young ...

John Torturro and the Soul of Naples
2006
as himself
From New York to Naples: award-winning actor John Turturro celebrates his origins and Naples' rich culture while reviving Eduardo De Filippo's play

A Few Days in September
2006
as William Pound
1 September 2001. Elliot, an American C.I.A. agent holding top secret information on the immediate future of the world, disappears. His sole aim was t...

Sacco and Vanzetti
2006
as Vanzetti (Voice)
SACCO AND VANZETTI is an 80-minute-long documentary that tells the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists who...

Romance & Cigarettes
2005
as Male Dancer & Singer
Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much...

Romance & Cigarettes
2005
Director, Producer, Writer
Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much...

The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation
2005
as Son
An animated documentary that explores the terrain of father/son relationships, as seen through Canemaker's own turbulent relationship with his father.

She Hate Me
2004
as Don Angelo Bonasera
Fired from his job, a former executive turns to impregnating wealthy lesbians for profit.

The Filmmaker and the Labyrinth
2004
as Self
A documentary looking at the life and films of Francesco Rosi.

2BPerfectlyHonest
2004
as Sal / Roberto
Business partners Frank and Josh go bankrupt after their dot-com start-up collapses before it goes online. Frank, a bachelor and broke, reluctantly mo...

Secret Window
2004
as John Shooter
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be ...

Secret Passage
2004
as Paolo Zane
Isabel and Clara are growing up in a time of terror. It is 1492, and Spain has decreed that all Jews must either convert to Catholicism, go into exile...

Opopomoz
2003
as John (voice)
It's Christmas Eve in Naples. Little Rocco feels increasingly jealous due to the imminent birth of a baby brother. Three bungling devils sent by Satan...

The Evolution of an American Filmmaker
2003
as Self
Spike Lee's filmmaking career is examined in this partial making-of for the film 25th Hour (2002). Interviews with cast members from this film and his...

Anger Management
2003
as Chuck
After a small misunderstanding aboard an airplane escalates out of control, timid businessman Dave Buznik is ordered by the court to undergo anger man...

Fear X
2003
as Harry
When his wife is killed in a seemingly random incident, Harry, prompted by mysterious visions, journeys to discover the true circumstances surrounding...
Heaven Touches Brooklyn in July
2002
as Narrator
Imagine 125 men carrying a five-ton, five-story, hand-sculptured tower and a 12- piece brass band - on their shoulders - dancing it through their neig...

Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Film on Terrence Malick
2002
as Self
Rosy-Fingered Dawn is a film on Terrence Malick. It is about the making of BADLANDS, DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE THIN RED LINE and the personal involvement of...
New York at the Movies
2002
as Self
Meryl Streep conducts us to a trip to New York City as presented in many films during the 20th Century, and how its cultural importance and impact are...

Mr. Deeds
2002
as Emilio Lopez
When Longfellow Deeds, a small-town pizzeria owner and poet, inherits $40 billion from his deceased uncle, he quickly begins rolling in a different ki...

Collateral Damage
2002
as Sean Amstrong
Firefighter Gordon Brewer is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing cr...

Monday Night Mayhem
2002
as Howard Cosell
The early years of a television sports powerhouse are chronicled as ABC becomes a player in the NFL coverage by putting their full resources into a ma...

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
2001
as Walker
The lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a housecleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of...

Monkeybone
2001
as Monkeybone (voice)
After a car crash sends repressed cartoonist Stu into a coma, he and the mischievous Monkeybone, his hilarious alter-ego, wake up in a wacked-out ways...

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2000
as Pete Hogwallop
In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.

The Man Who Cried
2000
as Dante Dominio
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.

The Luzhin Defence
2000
as Aleksandr Ivanovich 'Sascha' Luzhin
Based upon the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, a chess grandmaster travels to Italy in the 1920s to play in a tournament and falls in love.

Two Thousand and None
2000
as Benjamin Kasparian
A paleontologist is diagnosed with a fatal brain disease and, rather than falling into a depression, explodes into life.

Company Man
2000
as Crocker Johnson
In the 1960's, a school teacher pretends to be a CIA spy to get his nagging wife off his back. He helps a Russian ballet dancer defect and is then sen...

Cradle Will Rock
1999
as Aldo Silvano
A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.

Summer of Sam
1999
as Harvey the Black Dog (voice)
During the summer of 1977, a killer known as the Son of Sam keeps all of New York City on edge with a series of brutal murders.

The Source
1999
as Allen Ginsberg
Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1...

Rounders
1998
as Joey Knish
A young reformed gambler must return to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.

Illuminata
1998
as Tuccio
It's the start of the 20th century, and Tuccio, resident playwright of a theatre repertory company offers the owners of the company his new play, "Ill...

Illuminata
1998
Director, Screenplay, Producer
It's the start of the 20th century, and Tuccio, resident playwright of a theatre repertory company offers the owners of the company his new play, "Ill...

He Got Game
1998
as Billy Sunday
A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

All Revved Up
1998
as Johnny Candellano
A lovely school teacher finds herself the victim of a scam artist - a garage owner who delights in ripping off his customers. Soon, she has two eager ...

The Big Lebowski
1998
as Jesus Quintana
Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelc...

Animals with the Tollkeeper
1998
as Tuxedo Man
While looking for paradise, a cab driver suddenly falls in love.

Lesser Prophets
1997
as Leon
The police have three bookies under surveillance, but they escape and set up shop elsewhere. By chance, one of the police finds them; instead of turni...

The Truce
1997
as Primo Levi
After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

Grace of My Heart
1996
as Joel Millner
Philadelphia teenager Edna Buxton wins a talent contest during the early rock 'n' roll era, changes her name to Denise Waverly and moves to New York C...

Box of Moonlight
1996
as Al Fountain
Al Fountain, a middle-aged electrical engineer, is on the verge of a mid-life crisis, when he decides to take his time coming home from a business tri...

Girl 6
1996
as Murray - the Agent
A struggling actress in New York City takes a job as a phone sex operator.

Sugartime
1995
as Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana is a ruthless mob boss from Chicago. During a trip to Las Vegas, he sees a performance by the McGuire Sisters, a popular singing group wi...

Clockers
1995
as Det. Larry Mazilli
Strike is a young city drug pusher under the tutelage of drug lord Rodney Little. When a night manager at a fast-food restaurant is found with four bu...

Unstrung Heroes
1995
as Sid Lidz
Steven Lidz, unhappy with his home life since his mother became sick, moves in with his two eccentric uncles. As Steven grows closer to his uncles, he...

Search and Destroy
1995
as Ron
A self-help guru's televised teachings inspire a down-and-out businessman to pursue his dream of making a movie.

At Sundance
1995
as Self
A group portrait of filmmakers attend the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring Matthew Harrison, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Greg A...

The Search for One-eye Jimmy
1994
as Disco Bean
While working on a documentary on his old neighborhood, a young film school graduate shifts the focus of his production onto the disappearance of a lo...

Quiz Show
1994
as Herbert 'Herb' Stempel
Herbert Stempel's transformation into an unexpected television personality unfolds as he secures victory on the cherished American game show, 'Twenty-...

Being Human
1994
as Lucinnius
One man must learn the meaning of courage across four lifetimes centuries apart.

Fearless
1993
as Dr. Bill Perlman
After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person. Unable to connect to his former life or to wife Laura, he feels godlike an...

Mac
1992
as Niccolo "Mac" Vitelli
Niccolo "Mac" Vitelli is the eldest of three brothers in 1950s Queens. Mac is a construction builder, a trade he learned from his late father, and hel...

Mac
1992
Director, Writer
Niccolo "Mac" Vitelli is the eldest of three brothers in 1950s Queens. Mac is a construction builder, a trade he learned from his late father, and hel...

Brain Donors
1992
as Roland T. Flakfizer
Three manic idiots—a lawyer, a cab driver and a handyman—team up to run a ballet company to fulfil the will of a millionaire. Stooge-like antics resul...

Barton Fink
1991
as Barton Fink
A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

Jungle Fever
1991
as Pauline Carbone
A successful and married black man contemplates having an affair with a white girl from work. He's quite rightly worried that the racial difference wo...

Men Of Respect
1990
as Mike Battaglia
In this modern day version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a hitman heeds a spiritualist's prophesies that he will rise to the head of his family. He starts...

Miller's Crossing
1990
as Bernie Bernbaum
Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

State of Grace
1990
as Nick
Hell's Kitchen, New York. Terry Noonan returns home after a ten-year absence. He soon reconnects with Jackie, a childhood friend and member of the Iri...

Mo' Better Blues
1990
as Moe Flatbush
Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he ...

Catchfire
1990
as Pinella
A witness to a mob assassination flees for her life from town to town, switching identities, but cannot seem to elude Milo, the chief killer out to ge...
Making 'Do the Right Thing'
1989
as Self
The Behind-the-Scenes documentary of the dramatic comedy Do the Right Thing.

Do the Right Thing
1989
as Pino
Salvatore "Sal" Fragione is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzer...

The Sicilian
1987
as Pisciotta
Egocentric bandit Salvatore Giuliano fights the Church, the Mafia, and the landed gentry while leading a populist movement for Sicilian independence.

Five Corners
1987
as Heinz Sabatino
A psychotic young man returns to his old neighborhood after release from prison. He seeks out the woman he previously tried to rape and the man who pr...

The Color of Money
1986
as Julian
Former pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson decides he wants to return to the game by taking a pupil. He meets talented but green Vincent Lauria and propo...

Off Beat
1986
as Neil Pepper
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 perform...

Gung Ho
1986
as Willie
When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating...

Hannah and Her Sisters
1986
as TV Writer
Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her ...

To Live and Die in L.A.
1985
as Carl Cody
When his longtime partner on the force is killed, reckless U.S. Secret Service agent Richard Chance vows revenge, setting out to nab dangerous counter...

Desperately Seeking Susan
1985
as Ray
A bored New Jersey suburban housewife's fascination with a free-spirited woman she has read about in the personal columns leads to her being mistaken ...

The Flamingo Kid
1984
as Ted from Pinky's
Brooklyn teenager Jeffrey Willis, thoroughly unhappy with his modest homestead, embraces the other-world aspects of his summer job at the posh Flaming...

Exterminator 2
1984
as Guy #1
The flamethrower-wielding vigilante John Eastland returns to rid New York of a drug lord and his gang.

Raging Bull
1980
as Man at Webster Hall Table (uncredited)
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

Wilder & Me
N/A
as I.A.L. Diamond
Part coming-of-age story, part true-life portrait of the beloved Billy Wilder, the film is set during the summer of 1977, when an innocent young woman...
The Thing That Hurts
N/A
The patients of a recently deceased American psychotherapist remember her.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
N/A
as Harry
Harry, a career pickpocket, is forced into a desperate, high-stakes race against time through the streets of his city.

When the Music Changes
N/A
Executive Producer
An Indian American girl who returns to India is subjected to a brutal gang rape topped up by ‘psychological rape’ by her condescending lover who agree...