Details

Release year: 1984

Storyline

An alien takes the form of a young Wisconsin widow's husband and makes her drive him to his departure point in Arizona. Distrustful government agents, along with a more ambivalent scientist, give pursuit in hopes of intercepting them.

Top credits

Directors

John Carpenter

Writers

Cast

Jeff Bridges — Starman
Karen Allen — Jenny Hayden
Charles Martin Smith — Mark Shermin
Richard Jaeckel — George Fox

See all 46 credits →

Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

See all awards →

Did you know

• The film's director John Carpenter wanted to use the United States of America as "our very own back lot," so the cast and crew traveled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, then Winslow, Meteor Crater and Monument Valley, Arizona, east to Nashville, Chattanooga, and Manchester, Tennessee, upstate New York, and Washington, D.C. The film company then returned to California to complete filming at The Burbank Studios.

• The only John Carpenter film to have an Academy Award nomination (Jeff Bridges, Best Actor).

• Actor Jeff Bridges studied ornithology and the behavior of birds to prepare for his role as an alien in human form for this movie. Bridges particularly used the sudden jerky head movements, amongst other nuances and mannerisms, of birds for his Starman character. Bridges figured that the alien would not have human characteristics and, being encased in a human body, would act with base primitive animal instincts.