the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Cross Creek (1983), Jagged Edge (1985), Bitter Moon (1992), Kika (1993), Patch Adams (1998), Erin Brockovich (2000), A Walk to Remember (2002), and Femme Fatale (2002).

He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator in 2015 for his work on Ken Burns's documentary miniseries The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.

Her father, trained as a rabbi in Russia, escaped being drafted into the Imperial Russian Army, and eventually ran a small candy store in the Bronx.

[13] Upon graduation from Grinnell with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1964,[6] he moved to the West Coast, despite having been accepted at the Iowa Writers' Workshop,[6] and commenced working toward a master's degree in creative writing at San Francisco State University.

Coyote directed the first cross-country tour of The Minstrel Show, Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel,[6] a controversial play closed by authorities in several cities.

[16] They created provocative "theater" events designed to heighten awareness of problems associated with the notion of private property, consumerism, and identification with one's work.

While he was playing the lead in the world premiere of Sam Shepard's True West, a Hollywood agent approached him, and his film career began with Die Laughing (1980).

Since then, he has made more than 120 films for theaters and television and has played starring roles for many directors, including Roman Polanski (Bitter Moon), Pedro Almodóvar (Kika), Martin Ritt (Cross Creek), Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Bon Voyage), Diane Kurys (A Man in Love), and Walter Salles (Exposure).

After The Inside was canceled, Coyote returned to The 4400 as a special guest star for their two-part season finale, then joined the cast of ABC's series Commander in Chief as the Vice President of the United States, and the next year did a four-episode turn as Sally Field's disreputable boyfriend in Brothers & Sisters.

In 2008, he narrated Torturing Democracy, a documentary produced by PBS which details the George W. Bush administration's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" in the War on Terror.

In 2010 he narrated the documentary Solitary Confinement on the effect of long-term isolation, with footage taken from Colorado State Penitentiary where all prisoners are held this way.

In 2014, he appeared in the TNT television series Perception, as the father of the main character, Dr. Daniel Pierce, and narrated Burns' The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; the latter saw him win his first Primetime Emmy Award.

[26] and narrated the audiobook, Trilogy - Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers by Peggy Adler, which won a gold medal in the 2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards (aka IPPY) Competition [Category #91].

[27] Coyote's left-wing politics are evident in his articles for Mother Jones magazine, some of which he wrote as a delegate to the 1996 Democratic National Convention; in his disagreements with David Horowitz; and in his autobiography Sleeping Where I Fall.

[29] In April 2015, his memoir The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education was released, where he "provides portraits of mentors that shaped him—including his violent, intimidating father, a bass player, a Mafia Consiglieri, and beat poet Gary Snyder, who introduced him to the practice of Zen.