River Jude Phoenix (né Bottom; August 23, 1970 – October 31, 1993) was an American actor. He was known as a teen actor before taking on leading roles in critically acclaimed films and becoming one of the preeminent acting talents of his generation. Phoenix's numerous accolades include the Volpi Cup and the Independent Spirit Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award.

Phoenix grew up in an itinerant family as the older brother of Rain, Joaquin, Liberty and Summer Phoenix. He began his acting career at age 10 in television commercials. His early film roles include Explorers (1985), Stand by Me (1986) and The Mosquito Coast (1986). Phoenix then made a transition into adult-oriented roles, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Sidney Lumet drama Running on Empty (1988). He earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance as Michael Waters, a gay hustler in search of his estranged mother, in the Gus Van Sant drama My Own Private Idaho (1991).

He died at age 23 from combined drug intoxication in West Hollywood, California, in the early hours of Halloween 1993, having overdosed on cocaine and heroin (a mixture commonly known as a speedball) at The Viper Room.

River Phoenix was born on August 23, 1970, in Madras, Oregon, the first child of Arlyn Dunetz and John Lee Bottom. He had four younger siblings: Rain (born 1972), Joaquin (born 1974), Liberty (born 1976) and Summer (born 1978), as well as a paternal half-sister, Jodean (born 1964). Phoenix's parents named him after the river of life from the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha, and he received his middle name from the Beatles' song "Hey Jude". In an interview with People, Phoenix described his parents as "hippieish".

His mother, Arlyn, was born in New York to Jewish parents whose families had emigrated from Russia and Hungary. His father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California, of English, German and French ancestry. In 1968, Phoenix's mother travelled across the United States. While hitchhiking in California, she met John Lee Bottom. They got married on September 13, 1969, less than a year after meeting.

Phoenix's family moved cross country when he was very young. Phoenix has stated that they lived in a "desperate situation." Phoenix often played guitar while he and his sister sang on street corners for money and food to support their ever-growing family. Phoenix never attended formal school. Screenwriter Naomi Foner later commented, "He was totally, totally without education. I mean, he could read and write, and he had an appetite for it, but he had no deep roots into any kind of sense of history or literature." Filmmaker George Sluizer claimed Phoenix was dyslexic.

In 1973, the family joined the religious cult known as the Children of God. His family settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where the Children of God had stationed them to work as missionaries and fruit gatherers.

According to Vanity Fair, Phoenix was raped at the age of four. In an interview with Details magazine in November 1991, Phoenix stated he lost his virginity at age four to other children while in the Children of God, but he had "blocked it out." In 2019, his brother Joaquin would claim that River was joking, saying, "It was literally a joke, because he was so tired of being asked ridiculous questions by the press." Although Phoenix rarely talked about the cult, he was quoted in an article published in Esquire in 1994 as having said, "They're disgusting, they're ruining people's lives." Arlyn and John eventually grew disillusioned with the "Church" and left the cult in 1977.