General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Nothing in Common

Nothing in Common is a 1986 American comedy-drama directed by Garry Marshall, written by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger, and starring Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason, and Eva Marie Saint. It follows a successful Chicago advertising creative director whose freewheeling life is upended when his parents end their long marriage and his father's health fails.¹^•² The film was produced by Rastar and Tri-Star-Delphi IV and V Productions and distributed by Tri-Star Pictures, Inc.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	World premiere 21 July 1986 at the Plitt Century Plaza Theater, Century City, CA; national release 30 July 1986¹
Director and writers	Garry Marshall; screenplay by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger¹
Lead cast	Tom Hanks (David Basner), Jackie Gleason (Max Basner), Eva Marie Saint (Lorraine Basner)¹
Runtime and rating	120 minutes per the AFI Catalog; IMDb lists 118 minutes; rated PG¹^•²
Box office	$32,324,557 gross in the US and Canada, with a $3,279,650 opening weekend (weekend of August 3, 1986)²
Gleason's last film	Jackie Gleason's final film role; he died nearly one year after the film's release, long enough to view the completed film, which he was said to have enjoyed²
Music	Original score composed and performed by Patrick Leonard; the Thompson Twins performed the title song¹^•²
Critical score	Metascore of 62 on Metacritic³

Spoilers

Plot

David Basner (Tom Hanks) is a brash, successful advertising creative director in Chicago. Returning from a vacation in the Bahamas, he receives a new office and a promotion. That night his father, Max (Jackie Gleason), calls to announce that his wife of thirty-six years, Lorraine (Eva Marie Saint), has left him. Lorraine tells David she left because she and Max could not communicate, and that it took every ounce of her courage to walk out the door.¹

At work, David's boss, Charlie Gargas (Hector Elizondo), tasks him with winning the account of Colonial Airlines and its eccentric owner Andrew Woolridge (Barry Corbin), a former Navy pilot. David is also drawn to media executive Cheryl Ann Wayne (Sela Ward).¹^•⁴ As the family crisis deepens, David is pulled between his newly independent mother and his stubborn, recently retired father, and he must confront his father's serious illness before he is able to grow up himself.¹^•⁵

Production

According to production notes in the AMPAS library files cited by the AFI Catalog, an unnamed industry source sent the script to Rastar president Howard W. Koch, Jr. and to Tom Hanks, who had teamed up to develop projects, as producer Alexandra Rose moved the screenplay forward. When Rastar chairman Ray Stark offered the role of Max Basner to Jackie Gleason, the actor-comedian accepted within hours of reading the script. Stark and Gleason had previously worked together on the Smokey and the Bandit series (1977, 1980, 1983) and The Toy (1982).¹

Principal photography began on 9 September 1985 in Chicago, Illinois. The filmmakers spent three weeks on location at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Riviera 400 Sports Club on Lake Shore Drive, Oak Street Beach, the Evanston campus of Northwestern University, and the bar She-Nannigan's. While location shooting ran in Chicago, ten members of the Second City comedy troupe, hired by Marshall to play the advertising team, filmed a series of television commercials at a studio in Los Angeles. End credits state the film was shot on location in Chicago and at Raleigh Studios, Hollywood.¹

The credited crew includes John A. Alonzo as director of photography, Glenn Farr as editor, Charles Rosen as production designer, and Patrick Leonard as composer, with string arrangements and conducting by James Newton Howard.¹

Cast

Tom Hanks plays David Basner, Jackie Gleason plays his father Max, and Eva Marie Saint plays his mother Lorraine. Hector Elizondo plays Charlie Gargas, Barry Corbin plays airline owner Andrew Woolridge, Sela Ward plays Cheryl Ann Wayne, and Bess Armstrong plays David's former high school sweetheart Donna Mildred Martin. The supporting cast includes Cindy Harrell, John Kapelos, Bill Applebaum, Mona Lyden, Anthony Starke, and early appearances by Dan Castellaneta and Mike Hagerty; Philip Baker Hall and Richard Kind appear uncredited.¹^•⁶

Release and box office

The film premiered on 21 July 1986 at the Plitt Century Plaza Theater in Century City, California, followed by a national release on 30 July 1986.¹ Its opening weekend in the US and Canada earned $3,279,650, and it went on to gross $32,324,557 in the US and Canada.²

Overseas, the film reached Spain in February 1987: the Spanish film database of the ICAA records a certification and release date of 17 February 1987, while the CineyMax listing gives the Spanish theatrical date as 20 February 1987, distributed by Filmayer and Columbia Films.⁷^•⁸ In Spain it sold 56,763 admissions and grossed 95,832.68 euros.⁷ In Italy it was released as Niente in comune, and in Spanish-speaking markets as Nada en común.⁵^•⁸

Reception

On Metacritic the film holds a Metascore of 62, and IMDb records a user rating of 5.9/10 from about 8,800 votes, with 53 user reviews and 26 critic reviews listed.³^•² A contemporary review in the Observer & Eccentric newspapers called it "such good-humored satire of the advertising world and the way people deal with life that the story's structural problems may be discounted," crediting the "fast-paced, tightly written script by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger" and a cast "played with great competence," while acknowledging "structural confusions in the plot development."⁴ A Metacritic-collected review observed that the serious parts of the film are more interesting than the lightweight parts, leaving the project out of balance, and noted that director Garry Marshall wraps most of the emotions "in bundles as tidy as a Thursday-night sitcom."³ The same review identifies Gleason's part as his final film role, playing the icy, stonewalling father of Hanks's hyperactive professional.³

The film was featured in the 1986 episode of At the Movies covering Out of Bounds, Belizaire the Cajun, Heartburn, and Hard Choices, and it received one award nomination in total.²

Music

Patrick Leonard composed and performed the original score, with Danny Bramson as music supervisor. The soundtrack includes "Loving Strangers (David's Theme from 'Nothing in Common')," written by Leonard, Christopher Cross, and Jon Bettis and performed by Christopher Cross, and the title song "Nothing In Common," written by Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie and performed by the Thompson Twins. Recorded performers also include Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Nick Heyward, Richard Marx, the Kinks, and the Cruzados.¹^•²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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