John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945) is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. Lithgow won two Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in The Changing Room (1972) and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for the musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). He has acted in the plays The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). He portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant on the West End, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. He starred as Dick Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances as Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter (2009) and as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in HBO's Perry Mason (2020) and FX's The Old Man (2022). On film, he has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles as a transgender ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment (1983). He also acted in All That Jazz (1979), Blow Out (1981), Footloose (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), A Civil Action (1998), Shrek (2001), Kinsey (2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Love Is Strange (2014), Interstellar (2014), Late Night (2019), Bombshell (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), and Conclave (2024).
143 movies · 65 shows
Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic
2026·7.8
Jimpa
2026·8.5
The Rule of Jenny Pen
2025·6.2
Spellbound
2024·6.6
Conclave
2024·7.2
Art Happens Here with John Lithgow
2024·0.0
Cabrini
2024·7.7
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
2023·7.0
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023·7.4
Sharper
2023·6.9
Chez Bob
2022·0.0
The Bubble
2022·4.6
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes
2021·7.5
Show of Titles
2021·0.0
Emily @ the Edge of Chaos
2021·0.0
Myths and Hymns
2021·0.0
Give My Regards to Broadway
2020·0.0
Bombshell
2019·6.8
On Broadway
2019·8.7
The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts
2019·7.6
The Tomorrow Man
2019·5.7
Pet Sematary
2019·5.7
Late Night
2019·6.4
Pet Sematary: The Tale of Timmy Baterman
2018·7.0
Mister Rogers: It's You I Like
2018·7.9
Pitch Perfect 3
2017·6.5
Daddy's Home 2
2017·6.3
The Pulitzer At 100
2017·6.0
Beatriz at Dinner
2017·5.8
Hickory Dickory Doc
2017·0.0
They All Saw a Cat
2017·0.0
Miss Sloane
2016·7.4
The Accountant
2016·7.1
Shakespeare Live! From the RSC
2016·7.2
Ode to Joy: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
2016·0.0
Best of Enemies
2015·7.2
Lord John
2015·0.0
Inside 'Interstellar'
2015·6.9
Projections of America
2015·5.0
Interstellar
2014·8.5
The Jungle Bunch 2: The Great Treasure Quest
2014·5.7
Love Is Strange
2014·6.3
The Homesman
2014·6.5
9 Kisses
2014·5.5
Timms Valley
2013·6.2
Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love
2013·9.0
Shrek Stories
2013·8.1
National Theatre Live: The Magistrate
2013·6.0
This Is 40
2012·5.9
Casting By
2012·6.9
The Campaign
2012·5.8
Shrek: Once Upon a Time
2011·7.5
New Year's Eve
2011·5.9
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2011·7.3
Leap Year
2010·6.9
Miracle in a Box: A Piano Reborn
2009·0.0
The Macabre World of Lavender Williams
2009·4.7
Confessions of a Shopaholic
2009·6.5
Car of the Future
2008·6.0
ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway
2007·7.2
Dreamgirls
2006·6.7
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
2006·0.0
The Great Robot Race: The DARPA Grand Challenge
2006·0.0
Sangre
2006·0.0
Einstein's Big Idea
2005·7.3
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
2004·6.6
Footloose: A Modern Musical
2004·0.0
Kinsey
2004·6.6
Shrek 3-D
2004·6.0
Dogs and More Dogs
2004·5.2
Bark, George
2003·0.0
Orange County
2002·6.0
Buckaroo Banzai Declassified
2002·8.5
Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party
2001·6.3
Shrek
2001·7.8
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
2000·6.7
Don Quixote
2000·6.3
95 Worlds and Counting
2000·7.0
Tales from the Crypt: The Robert Zemeckis Collection
1999·8.7
A Civil Action
1998·6.5
Homegrown
1998·5.6
Johnny Skidmarks
1998·5.5
Officer Buckle and Gloria
1997·8.5
Hollow Point
1996·5.3
Special Effects: Anything Can Happen
1996·10.0
The Tuskegee Airmen
1995·7.1
Redwood Curtain
1995·6.5
My Brother's Keeper
1995·1.0
Silent Fall
1994·5.3
Princess Caraboo
1994·5.5
A Good Man in Africa
1994·4.9
Masters of Illusion: The Wizards of Special Effects
1994·9.0
The Country Mouse & the City Mouse: A Christmas Tale
1993·8.0
Love, Cheat & Steal
1993·4.5
The Pelican Brief
1993·6.6
The Wrong Man
1993·5.1
Cliffhanger
1993·6.5
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
1993·10.0
Stallone on the Edge: The Making of Cliffhanger
1993·0.0
Raising Cain
1992·6.1
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991·6.5
Ricochet
1991·6.1
The Boys
1991·7.0
Amazing Stories: The Movie II
1990·0.0
Memphis Belle
1990·6.7
Ivory Hunters
1990·4.9
John Lithgow's Kid-Sized Concert
1990·5.0
Night of 100 Stars III
1990·4.0
Happy Birthday, Bugs! 50 Looney Years
1990·7.2
Traveling Man
1989·4.0
Out Cold
1989·5.9
Distant Thunder
1988·5.8
Harry and the Hendersons
1987·6.1
The Amazing Bone
1987·0.0
Baby Girl Scott
1987·7.5
The Manhattan Project
1986·6.2
Resting Place
1986·6.3
Santa Claus: The Making of the Movie
1985·5.4
Mesmerized
1985·4.8
Santa Claus: The Movie
1985·6.3
2010
1984·6.7
The Glitter Dome
1984·4.5
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
1984·6.0
Footloose
1984·6.7
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
1984·6.7
2010 : The Odyssey Continues
1984·10.0
The Day After
1983·6.8
Terms of Endearment
1983·7.1
Twilight Zone: The Movie
1983·6.5
Not in Front of the Children
1982·7.5
The World According to Garp
1982·6.7
I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can
1982·7.3
Blow Out
1981·7.4
Big Blonde
1980·6.0
Mom, the Wolfman and Me
1980·7.0
The Oldest Living Graduate
1980·4.0
All That Jazz
1979·7.5
Rich Kids
1979·4.9
The Big Fix
1978·5.8
Secret Service
1977·9.0
Obsession
1976·6.7
The Country Girl
1974·10.0
Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues
1972·5.3