On this page are listed works dedicated to River Phoenix :
| Conferences | Biographies | Documentaries | Shorts movies about River |
If you know of others, please let me know at 
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The River Phoenix Pages |
| River | Man | Actor | Musician | Brother | Press |
| Feedback | Interviews | Tributes | Bios and docs | Fan tributes | Links |
On this page are listed works dedicated to River Phoenix :
| Conferences | Biographies | Documentaries | Shorts movies about River |
If you know of others, please let me know at .
Conferences and exhibitions |
Jean-Marc Lalanne at the Paris Cinematheque : Un Ange Engourdi (a numb angel) (Added August 23, 2016) More about the Gus Van Sant exhibition at the Paris Cinematheque (Added August 23, 2016) Fabien Gaffez at the Forum des Images (Paris) : Narcolepticône (Added October 31, 2024) |
Biographies |
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River Phoenix: A Short Life by Brian J. Robb. Published by Plexus in 1995. The first book to be published about River following his death. Plenty of good colour and mono pix. ISBN 0-85965-214-9 |
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The River Phoenix Album by Penelope Dening. Published by Plexus. A large format picture book with a concise and illuminating appraisal of River's life and work. ISBN 0-85965-229-7 |
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River Phoenix : Hero and Heartthrob by Grace Catalano. Published 1986 by Bantam, now out of print. |
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In Search for River Phoenix by Barry C. Lawrence. Barry Lawrence traveled in the steps of River Phoenix to retrace as much of his life as possible in his book. |
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Lost In Hollywood: The Fast Times and Short Life of River Phoenix
by John Glatt. Published by Donald I. Fine (US) in 1995. Also published in UK by Piatkus under the title River Phoenix : The Biography. The first major biography, a little lightweight in places but well worth a read. A rather poor selection of pictures though, at least in the UK version. ISBN 0-74991-511-0 |
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River Phoenix by Penny Stempel. One in a series entitled
"They Died Too Young" published by Parragon. A neat little pocket sized
book, available as far as I know only through Woolworth stores in the UK.
It can be ordered to WATTERSTONE'S book store, tel.0171-581-8522. ISBN 0-75250-725-7 There's been a re-release of this biography "River Phoenix : They Died Too Young"
in a more usual format, and library binding. It's published by Chelsea House Pub in January 2000. |
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Running on Empty by John Barker. A biography written by a fan, for fans, published by Phoenix Literary Productions ISBN 0-96656-120-1 |
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Child Stars, Vol. 9: River Phoenix by Dana Rasmussen (credited as Dana Rasmusse). Dana Rasmussen wrote a series of books about child stars, including this one. # ISBN-10: 1170680240 - # ISBN-13: 978-1170680247 (Added March 31, 2011) |
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The River Phoenix Handbook - Everything you need to know about River Phoenix by Emily Smith . Another author specializing in celebrities mini-bios. Publisher: Emereo Pty Limited (January 23, 2012) # ISBN-10: 1743389477 (Added October 31, 2012) |
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Last night at the Viper Room - River Phoenix and the Hollywood he left behind by Gavin Edwards. Rolling Stone reporter Gavin Edwards wrote this new biography of River Phoenix, that is also a study of how Hollywood and fame affect people, and the impression that River left on the people he met. Publisher : It Books (Released October 22, 2013) # ISBN-10: 0062273159 - # ISBN-13: 978-0062273154 (Added October 31, 2013) Reviews and long excerpts in the following articles : Rolling Stone - focus on Stand by Me Grantland - focus on Keanu Reeves Vanity Fair - focus on Sneakers Slate - focus on Dark Blood Interview of Gavin Edwards |
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Look Up and Stay in Touch by Ed Lachman and Bradley Slater. This book is about the joint project of Bradley Slater and Ed Lachman "Shadow", described below in the "Short movies" section of the page. The movie recreates a sort of prologue to Dark Blood, the film directed by George Sluizer on which Ed Lachman worked as director of photography, and River played one of the lead 3 characters. Shadow features a "doppelganger" of Slater that impersonates River playing Boy (his character in Dark Blood). The book contains studies about Bradley Slater's works, still pictures from the shooting of Shadow, and a conversation between Ed Lachman, Bradley Slater and Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson. In it, Ed Lachman explains "a lot of people contact me about doing something about River, and I was always kind of sensitive about that because of the level of exploitation around his death. He was a very extraordinary person and became a friend. Slater sent me a lot of his work, to get interest in his project." Lachman eventually was convinced about the nature of the project about images. The book also features 4 polaroids that Ed Lachman had taken on set for exposure checks - one of them is the cover. They were taken on the last day of shooting but had long been misplaced, and Ed Lachman finally found them as he was working on the project. The title, Look Up and Stay in Touch, is a message that River left on the wall behind a bar in Utah near Factory Butte, where the movie was shot. # ISBN-10: 0934324530 - # ISBN-13: 978-0934324533 (Added October 31, 2025) |
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The River Phoenix Letters by William Richert. Author, filmmaker and journalist, William Richert directed River in "A night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon". The final result as edited by the movie company didn't satisfy either of them, and a few years ago, Richert distributed the Director's Cut on Vimeo. River kept in touch with William Richert, and suggested him to Gus Van Sant to play the part of Bob Pigeon in "My OWn Private Idaho". Throughout the years, they remained friends until River's death. Richert himself died on July 19, 2022. In his last years, he tried to uncover the truth about River's death, and make it known in a movie. Illness didn't grant him enough time for this. His widow Gretchen Richert collected his writings about River in this book, available at Happy Cloud Publishing. It's a touching, sometimes confusing compilation of William's memories of River and his search for the truth. # ISBN-10: 195103645X - # ISBN-13: 978-1951036454 (Added October 31, 2025) |
Documentaries |
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"This Road Will Never End" : this documentary film about River was shown by Channel 4 Television in the UK on September 8th 1996. E! True Hollywood Story : The E! Entertainment Channel in US dedicated one of its THS documentaries to River. Rather tasteless in general, but not as much as feared, retrospectively, and featuring a couple of rare documents. Eclipsed by Death: The Life of River Phoenix : this River Phoenix documentary was done by Mr John Griffin for the Celebrity Channel. It aired in US on March 12 and 13, 2002, on the Arts & Entertainment channel.
The Last 24 : (also known as "The Final 24") one episode of the a documentary series produced by Discovery Channel was about the last day of River.
Filmen over grenzen (Filming beyond boundaries) (2006) : this documentary about George Sluizer's work as a director features footage from "Dark Blood", the movie that River and George Sluizer were working on together at the time of River's death's. (Added August 23, 2007) James Franco used unseen footage of My Own Private Idaho that he edited into two separate experimental long features movies, With Gus Van Sant's blessing : Too Young to Die : River Phoenix (2013) : German documentary film production company Broadview TV has completed in 2013 a 52' documentary about River in their ongoing series "Too Young To Die".
For French and German viewers, it aired on Arte on August 9th, 2014 in the Summer of the 90es program.
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Short movies about River |
 American Fame Pt. 1: Drowning River Phoenix.This short movie directed by Cam Archer reflects the effect on fame on the life of River. It was shown in several film festivals in 2004. Jasper Bel plays the part of River Phoenix. (added October 2006, 31)
Kevin Robic also uploaded a filmed making of of this short movie.
For clarification, this is a series of chronicles "My friend...", the author, Guilemette Odicino, was not actually a friend of River.
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"I've learned that if you can't get it all together to accomplish this thing called peace, you do at least your part in your life, because that's where you can truly make an immediate difference." -- River Phoenix
