Larry Beinhart is an American author. He is best known as the author of the political and detective novel American Hero, which was adapted into the political-parody film Wag the Dog. Directed by Barry Levinson, it starred Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, William H. Macy, Denis Leary, Kirsten Dunst, Woody Harrelson, and Willie Nelson. The New Yorker called the novel "a tour de force of satirical fiction."