Biography
Paul Franklin Dano (born June 19, 1984) is an American actor. He began his career on Broadway before making his film debut in The Newcomers (2000). He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in L.I.E. (2001) and received accolades for his role as Dwayne Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). For his dual roles as Paul and Eli Sunday in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007), he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. Dano has also...
Known For
Complete Filmography

The Wizard of the Kremlin
2025
as Vadim Baranov
Russia, in the early 1990’s is the aftermath of the USSR’s collapse. In a new world that promises freedom and flirts with chaos, a young artist-turned...

The Apprentice
2024
Thanks
A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry scion of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat...

Spaceman
2024
as Hanuš (voice)
Six months into a solo mission, a lonely astronaut confronts the cracks in his marriage with help from a mysterious creature he discovers on his ship.

Dumb Money
2023
as Keith Gill
Vlogger Keith Gill sinks his life savings into GameStop stock and posts about it. When social media starts blowing up, so do his life and the lives of...

A Journey Home: The Story of Sahaya Vietnam
2023
as Self - Narrator
Forced to flee Vietnam as a child, Chung Truong went on to create a beautiful life and family in the US. But as career and family was settling in, an ...

The Fabelmans: A Family in Film
2023
as Self
A fascinating behind-the-scenes special about Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans."

The Fabelmans
2022
as Burt Fabelman
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shatte...

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

The Batman
2022
as The Riddler
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 Guilty
2021
as Matthew Fontenot (voice)
A demoted police officer assigned to a call dispatch desk is conflicted when he receives an emergency phone call from a kidnapped woman.

The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America
2020
as Prior Walter
An all-star livestream benefit performance of scenes from Angels in America in support of amfAR’s Fund to Fight COVID-19.

Wildlife
2018
Screenplay, Director, Producer
14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled fores...

Okja
2017
as Jay
A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a massive animal named Okja.

Swiss Army Man
2016
as Hank
Alone on a tiny deserted island, Hank has given up all hope of ever making it home again. But one day everything changes when a dead body washes ashor...

Love & Mercy
2015
as Brian Wilson 1960s
In the late 1960s, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson stops touring, produces "Pet Sounds" and begins to lose his grip on reality. By the 1980s, under the s...

Youth
2015
as Jimmy Tree
Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical car...

12 Years a Slave
2013
as John Tibeats
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well...

Prisoners
2013
as Alex Jones
Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minute...

Looper
2012
as Seth
In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send th...

Ruby Sparks
2012
as Calvin
Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. ...

Ruby Sparks
2012
Executive Producer
Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. ...

Being Flynn
2012
as Nick Flynn
Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick w...

For Ellen
2012
as Joby Taylor
After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, ...

For Ellen
2012
Executive Producer
After an overnight long-distance drive, Joby has a special meeting—with lawyers and his ex-wife. A struggling musician with the prerequisite tattoos, ...

Flatscreen
2012
as Paul
A bookclub meeting that ends up in a orgie.

Cowboys & Aliens
2011
as Percy Dolarhyde
A stranger stumbles into the desert town of Absolution with no memory of his past and a futuristic shackle around his wrist. With the help of mysterio...

Meek's Cutoff
2011
as Thomas Gately
A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

The Extra Man
2010
as Louis Ives
A man who escorts wealthy widows in New York's Upper East Side takes a young aspiring playwright under his wing.

Knight and Day
2010
as Simon Feck
A fugitive couple goes on a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure where nothing and no one – even themselves – are what they seem. Amid shifting al...

Where the Wild Things Are
2009
as Alexander (voice)
Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts—Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander—cr...

The Good Heart
2009
as Lucas
Jacques is the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determ...

Taking Woodstock
2009
as VW Guy
The story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happe...

Gigantic
2008
as Brian
Young mattress salesman Brian decides to adopt a baby from China but is distracted when he forms a relationship with quirky, wealthy Harriet whom he m...

Light and the Sufferer
2008
as Don (AKA: Light)
Realism and fantasy collide in Jonathan Lethem's genre-bending coming-of-age story, which follows two estranged brothers as they try to leave New York...

Gigantic
2008
Executive Producer
Young mattress salesman Brian decides to adopt a baby from China but is distracted when he forms a relationship with quirky, wealthy Harriet whom he m...

Explicit Ills
2008
as Rocco
The film follows four inter-connecting stories revolving around love, drugs and poverty in Philadelphia

There Will Be Blood
2007
as Paul Sunday / Eli Sunday
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image...

The Manufacturing of 'Fast Food Nation'
2007
as Self
A full-length documentary chronicling filmmaker Richard Linklater and author Eric Schlosser throughout their journey making the movie 'Fast Food Natio...

Weapons
2007
as Chris
Weapons presents a series of brutal, seemingly random youth-related killings over the course of a weekend in a typical small town in America, and trag...

Fast Food Nation
2006
as Brian
A dramatised examination of the health issues and social consequences of America's love affair with fast food.

Little Miss Sunshine
2006
as Dwayne Hoover
A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

The King
2006
as Paul
A motiveless malignancy? Elvis leaves the Navy and heads for Texas where he contacts his father, whom he's never met, the pastor at a Christian commun...

The Ballad of Jack and Rose
2005
as Thaddius
Jack Slavin is an environmentalist with a heart condition who lives with his daughter, Rose, on an isolated island. While Jack fights against develope...

The Girl Next Door
2004
as Klitz
Exceptionally ambitious high schooler Matthew has aspirations for a career in politics when he falls in love with his gorgeous 19-year-old neighbor, D...

Taking Lives
2004
as Young Asher
Recruited to assist Montreal police in their desperate search for a serial killer who assumes the identities of his victims, FBI profiler Illeana Scot...

The Emperor's Club
2002
as Martin Blythe
William Hundert is a passionate and principled Classics professor who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new stud...

Too Young to Be a Dad
2002
as Matt Freeman
When 15-year-old Matt Freeman gets his girlfriend, Francesca, pregnant, her family decides to put the unborn baby up for adoption. Matt agrees to the ...

L.I.E.
2001
as Howie Blitzer
With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing thei...

The Newcomers
2000
as Joel
A 12-year-old boy and his family start life over in a new town.
Untitled Paul Dano Comedy Film
N/A
Writer, Director, Producer
Plot details are being kept under wraps other then it being a high-concept, original comedy.