Backdrop fallback

Tender Mercies

Tender Mercies

Share

Tender Mercies

"His struggle for fame was over. His fight for respect was just beginning."

1983

1h 32m

6.8(156 votes)

Drama

Music

Romance

Overview

Alcoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

EMI Films

Associated Film Distribution

Universal Pictures

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Robert Duvall

Robert Duvall

Mac Sledge

Tess Harper

Tess Harper

Rosa Lee

Betty Buckley

Betty Buckley

Dixie

Wilford Brimley

Wilford Brimley

Harry

Ellen Barkin

Ellen Barkin

Sue Anne

Allan Hubbard

Sonny

Lenny Von Dohlen

Lenny Von Dohlen

Robert

Paul Gleason

Paul Gleason

Reporter

Michael Crabtree

Michael Crabtree

Lewis Menefee

Norman Bennett

Reverend Hotchkiss

Creative team

Directed by: Bruce Beresford
Written by: Horton Foote
Produced by: Philip Hobel

Similar Movies

On Golden Pond

On Golden Pond

For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer on golden pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years.

Wasted

Wasted

A high-school track star (Nick Stahl) watches without judgment as his two best friends (Summer Phoenix, Aaron Paul) abuse heroin.

Company

Company

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

The Life of David Gale

The Life of David Gale

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman

The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.

Missing

Missing

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

Swimming Upstream

Swimming Upstream

A young man aspiring for recognition of his talents battles against his estranged father's sentiment towards him as the father deals with his own demons.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

In March 2005, Neil Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Four days before he was scheduled for a lifesaving operation, he headed to Nashville, where he wrote and recorded the country folk album Prairie Wind with old friends and family members. After the successful operation and recovery period, he returned to Nashville that August to play at the famed Ryman Auditorium, once again gathering together friends and family for this special performance.

Selena

Selena

In this biographical drama, Selena Quintanilla is born into a musical Mexican-American family in Texas. Her father, Abraham, realizes that his young daughter is talented and begins performing with her at small venues. She finds success and falls for her guitarist, Chris Perez, who draws the ire of her father. Seeking mainstream stardom, Selena begins recording an English-language album which, tragically, she would never complete.

The Legend of Billie Jean

The Legend of Billie Jean

Average Texas teen, Billie Jean Davy, is caught up in an odd fight for justice. She is usually followed and harrased around by local boys, who, one day, decide to trash her brother's scooter for fun. The boys' father refuses to pay them back the price of the scooter. The fight for "fair is fair" takes the teens around the state and produces an unlikely hero.

The Bench

The Bench

Kaj is a stubborn man with a great deal of pride. The former chef lives in a council flat. He has wasted his life and is now on a council job training scheme for the long-term unemployed, where he refuses to let the foreman of the activation project boss him about. When Kaj's daughter, with whom he has not been in touch for nineteen years, moves into the same council estate on the run from her violent husband, a change comes over Kaj. His initial instinct is to avoid her, but by chance he ends up helping to look after Jonas, her six-year-old son. For the first time for years Kaj need not survive on his own devices. Now he has responsibilities and a family of his own.

Pigface: Free for All

Pigface: Free for All

Join drummer Martin Atkins and his industrial rock band Pigface for this document of their epic 2005 tour of the United States. Visits backstage and interviews with the band meld with the concert footage to create the ultimate Pigface experience. Witness rehearsals, life on the road, collaboration with Nocturne and Sheep on Drugs and the challenges of setting up and tearing down the stage as the band hits venues from New York to San Diego.

A Passage to India

A Passage to India

Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

Life Is Beautiful

Life Is Beautiful

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

Southern Baptist Sissies

Southern Baptist Sissies

Southern Baptist Sissies is the live film of the GLAAD Award winning play by Del Shores. Southern Baptist Sissies is the story of four boys who are gay growing up in the Southern Baptist Church and how they each deal differently with the conflict between the teachings of the church and their sexuality.

Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

Gandhi

Gandhi

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Platoon

Platoon

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Recommended Movies

Ruth & Boaz

Ruth & Boaz

A talented singer leaves the Atlanta music scene and starts over in small-town Tennessee, where she finds love and new purpose but can't escape the past.

Country Strong

Country Strong

Soon after the rising young singer-songwriter Beau Williams gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star Kelly Canter, the pair embark on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager James and featuring a beauty queen-turned-singer Chiles Stanton. Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.

Back to Black

Back to Black

The extraordinary story of Amy Winehouse’s early rise to fame from her early days in Camden through the making of her groundbreaking album, Back to Black that catapulted Winehouse to global fame. Told through Amy’s eyes and inspired by her deeply personal lyrics, the film explores and embraces the many layers of the iconic artist and the tumultuous love story at the center of one of the most legendary albums of all time.

Purple Hearts

Purple Hearts

An aspiring musician agrees to a marriage of convenience with a soon-to-deploy Marine, but a tragedy soon turns their fake relationship all too real.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.

Step Up

Step Up

Delinquent Tyler Gage receives the opportunity of a lifetime after vandalizing a performing arts school, gaining him the chance to earn a scholarship and dance with up-and-coming dancer Nora.

I Saw the Light

I Saw the Light

Singer and songwriter Hank Williams rises to fame in the 1940s, but alcohol abuse and infidelity take a toll on his career and marriage to fellow musician Audrey Mae Williams.

Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls

A trio of female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.

The Best of Me

The Best of Me

A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.

Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing

Abandoned by her family, Kya raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. When her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is instantly branded by the local townspeople and law enforcement as the prime suspect for his murder.

King Creole

King Creole

Delinquent Danny Fisher flunks out of high school, quits his job as a nightclub busboy, and one night gets the chance to perform. Success is imminent and local crime boss Maxie Fields wants to hire him to perform at The Blue Shade. Danny declines, but Fields won't take no for an answer.

Pure Country

Pure Country

Dusty Chandler is a super star in the country music world, but his shows have the style of a '70s rock concert. One day he takes a walk - out of his overdone concerts to find his real country roots. He's helped and hindered by friends and staff, but pushes on in his search for a real music style as well as a real romance.

Footloose

Footloose

Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.

Pure Country 2: The Gift

Pure Country 2: The Gift

Three angels bestow the gift of song to a young girl, who must follow a series of rules in order hold on to it during her rise to fame and fortune.

Song Sung Blue

Song Sung Blue

Based on a true story, two down-on-their-luck musicians form a joyous Neil Diamond tribute band, proving it's never too late to find love and follow your dreams.

Save the Last Dance

Save the Last Dance

After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.

Nine Lives

Nine Lives

Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.

Teen Spirit

Teen Spirit

A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.

Racing with the Moon

Racing with the Moon

In a small coastal California town, Henry and Nicky are pals from blue collar families with only a short time before they ship off to World War II. Henry begins romancing new-to-town Caddie Winger, believing her to be wealthy. Mischievous and irresponsible, Nicky gets into trouble which forces the other two to become involved, testing their relationship, as well as the friendship between the boys.

Almost Famous

Almost Famous

In 1973, a precocious 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist lands a dream assignment from Rolling Stone to tour with a rising rock band, embarking on a coming-of-age journey as he discovers the exhilarating and heartbreaking realities behind rock stardom.