Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William Atherton Knight (born July 30, 1947) is an American actor, best known for portraying Richard Thornburg in Die Hard and its sequel and Walter Peck in Ghostbusters.
Known For
Complete Filmography

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
2024
as Mayor Walter Peck
When the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world ...

Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters
2020
as Self
The documentary that tells us the full story from where it all started through to the future of the "Ghostbusters" franchise.

Clinical
2017
as Terry Drummond
A psychiatrist tries to put her life back together after a violent attack by seeking to repair the life of a new patient, but he has his own terrifyin...

Ghostheads
2016
as Self
A documentary that explores the extreme side of the Ghostbusters fandom. Join us as we travel the world meeting extreme Ghostbusters fans. Every Ghost...

Jinn
2014
as Father Westhoff
From the beginning, stories of angels and men have captured our imaginations and have been etched into our history crossing all boundaries of culture,...

Jersey Shore Shark Attack
2012
as Dolan
Many years ago, hundreds of locals and tourists were massacred by giant man-eating sharks in the infamous 1916 Jersey Shore attacks. But that's just a...

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
2012
as Earle Swinter
Two guys get a billion dollars to make a movie, only to watch their dream run off course.

The Kane Files: Life of Trial
2010
as Daniel Morgan
Scott Kane (Drew Fuller), a man with a checkered past is trying to live a clean life. When his son Owen falls ill, Kane finds his only option is to tu...

Ghouls
2008
as Stefan
Stefan invites his daughter, Jennifer, to travel to Romania for the funeral of his mother. His mystic girlfriend Liz travels with them to the cursed v...

Black Crescent Moon
2008
as Jo Dexton
A small town sheriff who's investigating a murder at the local diner ends up finding more than he bargained for in the town and in himself.

Aces 'N' Eights
2008
as Howard
Already taking a gamble settling in the uncharted west, the peaceful settlers of a town destined for railroad greatness suddenly find themselves being...

The Girl Next Door
2007
as Adult David Moran
In a quiet suburban town in the summer of 1958, two recently orphaned sisters are placed in the care of their mentally unstable Aunt Ruth. But Ruth's ...

Kush
2007
as King
A young drug dealer Dusty, is torn between the money and getting out. When his partner Christian, is caught up in a kidnapping and murder scheme.

Towards Darkness
2007
as John
About a kidnapped hostage's life, and the frustration his family, a special ops team, and a man in charge of delivering the ransom money all feel as t...

Into the Sun
2005
as Agent Block
After the assassination of Tokyo's Governor by Yakuza members, the CIA bureau chief (William Atherton) for Tokyo puts out a call to an agent (Steven S...

Headspace
2005
as Dr. Ira Gold
25-year-old Alex Borden's chance encounter with a mysterious stranger has found his intellect rapidly expanding, but as the power of his mind grows so...

Headspace
2005
Co-Producer
25-year-old Alex Borden's chance encounter with a mysterious stranger has found his intellect rapidly expanding, but as the power of his mind grows so...

Gone But Not Forgotten
2005
as Sen. Ray Colby
An Oregon woman vanishes. In her wake remains a single black rose & a note reading gone but not forgotten. Now a man stands accused: a private eye has...

Who's Your Daddy?
2004
as Duncan Mack
An adopted Ohio high school senior discovers he is the inherited heir to a porn empire. Dropped into a bitter power struggle, his new flock of beautif...

The Last Samurai
2003
as Winchester Rep
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and th...

Race to Space
2001
as Ralph Stanton
In the 1960s a young woman works at NASA as an animal trainer responsible for the chimpanzee who will go into space.
Burning Down the House
2001
as Arthur Kranston
A down-on-his-luck film director sets fire to his home so he can collect the insurance money and fund his new movie. But crime apparently does pay, be...

Bread and Roses
2000
as Party Guest (uncredited)
Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa ge...

The Crow: Salvation
2000
as Nathan Randall
Alex Corvis, a man wrongly executed for the murder of his girlfriend, returns from the dead and sets out to find the real killer.

The Stranger
1999
A young woman's dreams become real-life nightmares after a mysterious stranger comes into her life.

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
1999
as Darryl Zanuck
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Ye...

Michael Kael vs. the World News Company
1998
as James Denit
A naive French reporter is sent to an African town to cover a sensational news story, unaware that it has been faked by an international news giant in...

Mad City
1997
as Dohlen
A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.

Executive Power
1997
as President Fields
While protecting the U.S. President, Secret Service agent Nick Sager helps him to dispose of the body of a young girl, who accidentally died during an...

Hoodlum
1997
as Thomas E. Dewey
In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City was running 'the numbers'. When Madam Queen—the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harle...

Raven Hawk
1996
as Philip Thorne
A Native-American woman, who was framed for the murders of her parents years before, returns to her reservation to seek revenge.

Bio-Dome
1996
as Dr. Noah Faulkner
Bud and Doyle are a pair of aimless slackers with no real direction in life. While their environmentally-conscious girlfriends are passionate about sa...

Broken Trust
1995
as Neil Roemer
A scrupulously honest judge finds he's a pawn in a federal sting to ferret out corrupt members of the bench, many of whom are his friends.

A Night to Die For
1995
as Self
TV special worth watching if only for the incongruous interviews with Wayne Newton, Wayne Gretzky, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Ditka, a...

Virus
1995
as Dr. Reginald Holloway
Who could have deliberately released a rare and deadly African plague that is now spreading uncontrollably throughout America's largest urban areas? A...

Frank & Jesse
1994
as Allan Pinkerton
At the end of the Civil War, Frank and Jesse James and other former guerillas who rode with Quantrill and Bill Anderson take the oath of allegiance to...

Saints and Sinners
1994
as Terence
After many years Pooch returns to his neighbourhood. To Big Boy, his best friend, Pooch is valuable asset in his plans of becoming local crime lord. T...

The Pelican Brief
1993
as Bob Gminski
A law student's theory about the recent deaths of two Supreme Court justices embroils her in a far-reaching web of murder, corruption, and greed.

Chrome Soldiers
1992
as Sheriff Blackwell
Five ex-soldiers go to a small town in Oregon to help a friend investigate the murder of his brother.

Diagnosis Murder: Diagnosis of Murder
1992
as Eric Walker
Convinced that his long-time patient Nick Osborn didn't murder his boss, Mark Sloan starts investigating the case himself, supported by a junior docto...

Oscar
1991
as Overton
Angelo "Snaps" Provolone made his dying father a promise on his deathbed: he would leave the world of crime and become an honest businessman. Despite ...

Grim Prairie Tales
1990
as Arthur
Two travelers meet on the open prairie, and pass their time together by trading stories with each other. Their tales become a sort of competition, eac...

Die Hard 2
1990
as Richard Thornberg
One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Chris...

Buried Alive
1990
as Cortland "Cort" van Owen
A married woman and her lover plot to kill her husband to make off with the insurance money. However, their attempt to murder him using poisonous fish...

Intrigue
1988
as Doggett
A spy is looking for his old colleague who now works for the other side.

Die Hard
1988
as Richard Thornburg
NYPD cop John McClane's plan to reconcile with his estranged wife is thrown for a serious loop when, minutes after he arrives at her offices Christmas...

The Equalizer - The Movie: Blood & Wine
1987
as Martin 'Alpha' Loeber
Robert McCall is forced to work with a former terrorist turned monk by the name of Joseph Heiden(Telly Savalas), whom he despises and mistrusts, on a ...

No Mercy
1986
as Allan Deveneux
An unconventional undercover Chicago cop and his partner are recruited to commit the murder of a New Orleans criminal kingpin.

A Fight for Jenny
1986
as Michael Rosen
When Kelsey remarries, her struggle to get custody of her daughter from her first marriage is complicated by her current husband being black.

Real Genius
1985
as Professor Hathaway
When teenage geniuses Mitch Taylor and Chris Knight, working on an advanced laser project, learn that the military wants to use it as a weapon, they d...

Ghostbusters
1984
as Walter Peck
After losing their academic posts at a prestigious university, a team of parapsychologists goes into business as proton-pack-toting "ghostbusters" who...

Malibu
1983
as Stan Harvey
A young couple from Milwaukee moves into the fabled, high-society Malibu beach community and becomes involved with the lives of the various people liv...

Tomorrow's Child
1982
as Jim Spence
The wife of a research geneticist agrees to the experimental procedure of a 'test-tube baby' by having her fetus brought to full term in a glass jar i...
The House of Mirth
1981
as Lawrence Selden
Lily Bart, a well-born, but penniless woman of the high society of New York City, who was raised and educated to become wife to a rich man. As an unma...

Looking for Mr. Goodbar
1977
as James
A short, unhappy affair with a married man leads a dedicated schoolteacher into the alcohol-and-drug fueled underworld of singles’ bars, where she beg...

Independence
1976
as Benjamin Rush
John Huston directs this film giving relevance and life to the hallowed buildings and ground making up Independence National Historical Park. Through ...

The Hindenburg
1975
as Boerth
Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security....

The Day of the Locust
1975
as Tod Hackett
Hollywood, 1930s. Tod Hackett, a young painter who tries to make his way as an art director in the lurid world of film industry, gets infatuated with ...

The Sugarland Express
1974
as Clovis Poplin
Married small-time crooks Lou-Jean and Clovis Poplin lose their baby to the state of Texas and resolve to do whatever it takes to get him back. Lou-Je...

Class of '44
1973
as Fraternity President
During the last years of World War II, Hermie, Oscy, and Benjie are coming of age. They went their separate ways when they graduated from high school ...

The New Centurions
1972
as Johnson
An idealistic rookie cop joins the LAPD to make ends meet while finishing law school, and is indoctrinated by a seasoned veteran. As time goes on, he ...

Midnight Men: A John Schlesinger and Michael Childers Story
N/A
A documentary on John Schlesinger and Michael Childers.

Where Did the Adults Go?
N/A
as The Father
Every year, on the anniversary of their parents’ death, Cynthia, Bryce, and Miles gather at the family summer home to reminisce and have brunch at the...