
River Jude Phoenix (née Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993) was an American actor, musician, and activist.
Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family, as the oldest brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix. He had no formal schooling, but he showed an instinctive talent for the guitar, and he played and sang on the streets for money. He began his acting career at age 10 in a handful of television commercials. He starred in the science fiction adventure film Explorers (1985) and had his breakthrough role in 1986's Stand by Me, a coming-of-age film based on the novella The Body by Stephen King.
Phoenix made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with Running on Empty (1988), playing Danny Pope, the son of fugitive parents in a well-received performance that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (at age 18, he became the sixth-youngest nominee in the category), and My Own Private Idaho (1991), playing Michael Waters, a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother. For his performance in the latter, Phoenix garnered enormous praise and won a Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 1991 Venice Film Festival as well as Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, becoming the second-youngest winner of the former.
Phoenix fought heroin addiction and died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood in the early hours of Halloween, 1993, after unknowingly ingesting cocaine and heroin (a mixture commonly known as a speedball) at The Viper Room.

Stand by Me
1986 · as Chris Chambers

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1989 · as Young Indy

Sneakers
1992 · as Carl

My Own Private Idaho
1991 · as Mike Waters

Explorers
1985 · as Wolfgang Müller

The Mosquito Coast
1986 · as Charlie Fox

Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford
2023 · as Self (archive footage)

Running on Empty
1988 · as Danny Pope

I Love You to Death
1990 · as Devo Nod

Little Nikita
1988 · as Jeff Grant

The Thing Called Love
1993 · as James Wright

Dogfight
1991 · as Eddie Birdlace

Showbiz Kids
2020 · as Self

Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy
2003 · as Self (archive footage)

Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand by Me
2000 · as Self (archive footage)

Silent Tongue
1994 · as Talbot Roe

A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon
1988 · as Jimmy Reardon

Dark Blood
2012 · as Boy