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Smallest casts in movies

Yeah I was gonna say "Dead Calm" but it was already mentioned. How about "Hell in the Pacific"? Two guys, Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune?
 
I was thinking about Dark Star. 3 main characters, plus the dead captain and the voices of the computer & bomb.
 
Moon lists a cast of 10, though for %95 of the movie it's just Rockwell and Spacey.

And really, its just Spacey's voice, and, aside from two video calls & flashbacks, Sam Rockwell is the only one seen onscreen.

I'd say Same Time Next Year. IMDB says it has a cast of seven, but only three of the characters get names, while the others are Waiter #1, Waiter #2, Pilot #1 & Pilot #2. And the majority of the movie is Alan Alda & Ellen Burstyn in a room together.
How are we defining "cast"? If they appearing in the film they are in the cast right? They dont have to have names. Even if its just their voice, they are part of the cast, yes?
 
"Last Year at Marienbad" a pseudo-art film which was included in Harry and Michael Medved's 1978 book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time", one of the first works to acknowledge bad movies as a cultural phenomena.

(The aforementioned "The Terror of Tiny Town" was also included in the Medveds' book)
 
Back in 1983 there was a wonderful TV movie starring (get this) Jackie Gleason and Laurence Olivier called Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson. Just two gentlemen talking at a table. Only the two credited actors according to the IMDb.

The similar My Dinner with Andre has 4 credited actors - the two leads plus the waiter and bartender.

I saw the Gleason/Olivier production when it first aired (it was made for PBS). It was excellent. It got a limited VHS release but I keep hoping it shows up on DVD one day.

Link to prove it exists ;) :

http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Halpern-Johnson-VHS/dp/6300165051

Someone mentioned Andy Warhol - I recall reading somewhere he shot a film that was basically just a guy sleeping (for something like 6 hours), so that might count.

Alex
 
Moon lists a cast of 10, though for %95 of the movie it's just Rockwell and Spacey.

And really, its just Spacey's voice, and, aside from two video calls & flashbacks, Sam Rockwell is the only one seen onscreen.

I'd say Same Time Next Year. IMDB says it has a cast of seven, but only three of the characters get names, while the others are Waiter #1, Waiter #2, Pilot #1 & Pilot #2. And the majority of the movie is Alan Alda & Ellen Burstyn in a room together.
How are we defining "cast"? If they appearing in the film they are in the cast right? They dont have to have names. Even if its just their voice, they are part of the cast, yes?

Well, Kevin Spacey even tweeted that he was "sort of" in Moon when it opened.

And at a scifi con just before Revenge of the Sith came out, Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett/Clone Troopers) was asked how big his role in the new movie would be. His answer was, "I'm not in the movie a lot, but there's a lot of me in the movie." Which makes sense since, for the most part, his appearances were special effects added in after filmin', thanks to scans taken of his head.

But, yeah...if a person appears in the film, it could be considered part of the cast, unless they're just an extra, in which case they're just movin' scenery. If they are really lucky, they get to talk, too!
 
Robert Altman's Secret Honor is a one-man film, based on the play: The great Philip Baker Hall gives a solo performance as Nixon.
There's also Give 'em Hell, Harry!, which was a film of the one-man show about Harry S. Truman which originally starred James Whitmore. Since the film is actually a videotaped recording of a live performance, I was sort of reluctant to mention it, but Whitmore did get Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

And of course, there's also Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with only four credited actors (Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis & George Segal), and two others who appear on-screen (the elderly couple who run the roadhouse where they stop for drinks and dancing; the man was the film's gaffer, and his wife was his wife IRL).

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Sleuth, and Give 'em Hell, Harry! are also notable as (to date) they're the only films where the entire credited cast has been nominated for Oscars.
 
Spalding Gray made four films of his stage monologues: Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box, Terrors of Pleasure and Gray’s Anatomy. All featured a cast of one, except that Gray’s Anatomy, IIRC, intercut “interview” segments of people commenting on Spalding’s performance.

And of course, there's also Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with only four credited actors (Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis & George Segal), and two others who appear on-screen (the elderly couple who run the roadhouse where they stop for drinks and dancing; the man was the film's gaffer, and his wife was his wife IRL).
That movie, by the way, should be required viewing for all film students. It’s a great example of the right way to adapt a stage play for the screen. Despite being based on a four-character play and taking place almost entirely in one house, nothing about the film looks or feels stagey.
 
This is good. I have quite a list of movies to name to my friend. and sone of these movies sound interesting (Buried, Closet Land) so I might end up watching them.

I would recommend you see Buried. "Intense" is definitely the word to describe it. Ryan Reynolds gives a great solo performance, it's really something to watch.
 
What about Castaway? Does that work? He spends most of his time alone on the island and we only see more people at the beginning and the end.
 
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