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Yaphet Kotto

Acting · follow into films and chains

Biography

Yaphet Frederick Kotto (November 16, 1939 – March 15, 2021) was an American actor known for numerous film roles, as well as starring in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-99) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His films include the science-fiction and horror film Alien (1979), and the Arnold Schwarzenegger science-fiction and action film The Running Man (1987). He portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die (1973). He appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the comedy thriller Midnight Run (1988) as FBI Agent Alonzo Mosley.

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Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

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The Discs That Changed How Britain Watched

When DVD landed in Britain in 1997 it promised cinema in your living room. The discs that followed rewired what collectors expected from a film at home.

10 films

Trapped and Playing by Someone Else’s Rules

With the upcoming release of Jumanji: Open World, we trace the evolution of the survival game subgenre, following how the core premise of human beings forced to...

10 films

The Bogeyman Never Dies

From Elm Street to Halloween, Scream to Candyman, horror icons keep returning in new forms. Freddy's Dead marked a strange end that became a beginning.

8 films

When Studios Marry: Films Born of Corporate Chaos

From the ashes of mergers and acquisitions come some of cinema's most fascinating experiments. This chain traces how boardroom decisions shaped the art on scree...

8 films

The Art of Listening

From the whisper of a surveillance tape to the roar of a wartime beach, these eight films prove that sound is not just heard, it is felt. A chain of masterpiece...

7 films

From External Beast to Internal Trauma

Here is a five-film narrative chain that traces how the monster evolved from an exotic physical threat into a psychological mirror of society.

5 films

20 Home Video Releases Every Film Obsessive Should Own

There was a brief, glorious period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when buying a film on home video felt less like acquiring a product and more like being han...

20 films

The DVDs That Changed Everything

In the autumn of 1997, the first DVD players reached British shops, and the format arrived with a sales pitch that sounded too good to be true: cinema in your l...

13 films

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