Dabney Coleman: Where to Stream His Best Movies and TV Shows

The veteran character actor Dabney Coleman died Thursday at 92. Coleman began appearing in movies and TV series in the 1960s, when he was in his early 30s, and from the beginning, he had the look and the attitude of a grumpy middle-aged man.

For most of his career — except on those rare occasions when he got to play a lead role — Coleman’s job was to pop in for a scene or two to growl and grumble in a manner that was generally both humorous and more than a little scary. He reliably brought the kind of antagonistic energy familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with a bad boss or a disgruntled customer.

Much of Coleman’s best TV work — like the short-lived sitcoms “Buffalo Bill” and “The Slap Maxwell Story,” and the soap opera parody “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” — aren’t available to stream. And while he had roles in dozens of very good films and TV shows, he was often low in the billing. The seven Coleman performances below, though, are both outstanding and substantial, showcasing his imposing screen presence and ace comic timing.

‘9 to 5’ (1980)

After nearly 20 years in the business, Coleman’s career really took off in the 1980s, when producers started casting him in parts that let him hang around onscreen a little longer. He had his breakout performance in this hit comedy, which stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton as secretaries who try to overcome corporate sexism by imprisoning their boss. Coleman plays that piggish executive, whose disrespect for women in general (and these three employees in particular) is so infuriating to watch that audiences couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance.

Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV or YouTube.

‘On Golden Pond’ (1981)

Coleman teamed again with Jane Fonda a year later for an Oscar-winning big-screen adaptation of Ernest Thompson’s play “On Golden Pond,” a passion project for the actress, who wanted to work with her aging father, Henry Fonda. Coleman only has a small part in the film, playing Bill, the fiancé of Jane Fonda’s character Chelsea, the estranged daughter of Henry Fonda’s prickly Norman. Coleman gets to hit some of his usual sour notes when Bill stands up to Norman’s passive-aggressive bullying, but he’s not the villain of the story this time. He’s a decent man who just won’t be pushed too far, a Coleman character shown in a somewhat more flattering light.