Following Gene Hackman’s death at the age of 95, he’s being recognized around the world as one of the greatest actors of his generation. Yet it’s difficult to define exactly which generation that is, with the highlights of Hackman’s career spanning several generations. From the final decade of Hollywood’s Golden Age to the heyday of New Hollywood, from the birth of the superhero movie franchise to the mainstream acceptance of indie comedies, Gene Hackman, who passed away on Thursday, February 27, has been there and acted in that.
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He might be most known for the hard-boiled detective persona he honed in the early 1970s, but it’s actually Hackman’s lighter roles that more casual moviegoers will remember him for. The actor could be incredibly funny and surprisingly tender when he needed to be, as well as his mastery of the neo-noir crime thriller. Now, Hackman’s passing gives us a chance to remember all sides of his acting. Rarely have a performer’s best movie roles been as varied and far-reaching as Gene Hackman’s are.
You are watching: The 8 Gene Hackman Movies That We’ll Always Remember Him By
1
Bonnie and Clyde
1967
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Generally regarded as the film that ushered in the era of New Hollywood, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde inspired a generation by subverting the classic road movie with its anti-heroic protagonists and novel mix of grit and style. Gene Hackman appears a third of the way through the movie as the loudmouth older brother to Warren Beatty’s Clyde Barrow.
Hackman did win Best Supporting Actor at the National Society of Film Critics Awards for his performance in Bonnie and Clyde.
Hackman’s Buck Barrow pays a heavy price for joining the famous outlaw couple’s bankrobbing scheme, dying via a bullet to the head during an iconic police shootout scene. Still, the character’s humor and folksy charm help ground the movie before he meets his fate. This role earned Hackman his first of five Oscar nominations, although he lost out to George Kennedy, who played another hardened criminal in Cool Hand Luke.
2
I Never Sang for My Father
1970
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Although Gene Hackman was already a star before he played Melvyn Douglas’ son in I Never Sang for My Father, this was the movie that really put him on the map. The moving family drama ranks as Hackman’s best movie according to Rotten Tomatoes, and proved had the acting chops to mix it with screen legends. Hackman’s visceral depiction of a father-son relationship alongside Douglas demonstrated that there was a deep well of emotion beating beneath the hard-boiled exterior of the police detectives that became his trademark.
Hackman’s visceral depiction of a father-son relationship alongside Douglas demonstrated that there was a deep well of emotion beating beneath the hard-boiled exterior of the police detectives that became his trademark.
Its excruciatingly, beautifully realistic final scene might still be the finest three minutes of acting that he ever produced. Hackman was already 40 years old by the time the film came out, but in its closing moments he manages to conjure the expression of a child looking at his father, wanting to be loved. His visceral depiction of a father-son relationship alongside Douglas demonstrated that there was a deep well of emotion beating beneath the hard-boiled exterior of the police detectives that became Hackman’s trademark persona.
3
The French Connection
1971
It was the actor’s portrayal of Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s The French Connection that established him as a true great of the New Hollywood era. Popeye lays down the law in a no-nonsense fashion throughout this neo-noir classic, invariably getting the job done with the minimum of fuss. He’s also crude, racist, and prone to losing his temper.
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Nevertheless, it feels as though Popeye is bound to get his man when he goes looking for drug kingpin Alain “Frog One” Charnier in an abandoned building. It’s Hackman’s characterization of Popeye through the movie that makes the movie’s ambiguous ending so unsettling. Everything that Popeye knows about cracking narcotics cases counts for nothing, just as everything we know about crime thriller endings is turned upside down.
4
The Conversation
1974
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The French Connection turned Hackman into Hollywood’s most sought-after noir detective, and The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola soon came calling. The Conversation is Coppola’s forgotten masterpiece, with some of the most impressive staging and camerawork of any New Hollywood movie. One scene in particular, involving Gene Hackman’s character, Harry Caul, and a blocked toilet, is a lesson in suspense and unseen horror, with the actor’s face doing half the work while Coppola leaves the rest to our imaginations.
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Caul starts the film as a wiretapper for private clients, before he turns detective on one of them. What follows is one of the most brilliantly disturbing stories of the neo-noir genre, which only comes to life because of Hackman’s magnetic central performance.
5
Superman
1978
By 1978, Gene Hackman had already cemented his place at the top of his profession, and was ready to have some fun. Cue the most expensive movie ever made up to that point, Richard Donner’s Superman. Hackman was called in to play the villain in what became the first superhero blockbuster, mad scientist Lex Luthor.
His performance as the Man of Steel’s arch-nemesis is suitably bonkers, and to make Superman a smash hit, it made its money back more than five times over. He returned for the movie’s less successful sequel in 1980, which proved to be his last outing in a comic book franchise. Before long, Hackman was back to what he did best.
6
Mississippi Burning
1988
Mississippi Burning features the last of Gene Hackman’s great police detective roles, as he plays FBI agent Rupert Anderson investigating a racist triple-murder in the Jim Crow South. Hackman is at his best as the wily and smooth-talking Anderson, who goes around the law if necessary to get the information he needs.
The movie rightly saw Hackman garner his fourth Academy Award nomination, but marked the end of an era. The actor had played his last serious role as a hard-boiled detective, and would subsequently parody his own typecasting in a set of comical and mediocre police movies throughout the decade that followed.
7
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Unforgiven
1992
Still, there was time for Hackman to pick up his second Oscar in the early 1990s, for playing the villainous sheriff Little Bill in Clint Eastwood’s landmark Western Unforgiven. The movie signaled the revival of the Western genre for more modern audiences after it had gone into what seemed like a terminal decline during the 1960s.
Hackman’s performance essentially turned his classic hard-boiled police persona on its head, as his sheriff serves as the film’s big-talking but callous antagonist
Hackman’s performance essentially turned his classic hard-boiled police persona on its head, as his sheriff serves as the film’s big-talking but callous antagonist. The actor’s final showdown with Eastwood’s William Munny at the end of Unforgiven recalls the classic Westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks at their finest.
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The Royal Tenenbaums
2001
As Gene Hackman roles go, the actor’s turn as the unruly patriarch in a Wes Anderson’s movie sounds like it should have a complete mismatch, which might explain why Hackman originally rejected The Royal Tenenbaums. Yet it’s arguably the part that best encapsulates his entire career, melding the trademark tough guy of his crime films with his magnetic screen presence, knack for deadpan humor, and sensitive portrayals of family strife.
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24 years after its release, it’s clear that this movie was the Hollywood great’s swansong. Given that The Royal Tenenbaums showcases almost every side of Gene Hackman’s rare gift for screen acting, it seems like a fitting way to celebrate his extraordinary career.
Gene Hackman
Birthdate
January 30, 1930
Birthplace
San Bernardino, California, USA
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Category: Entertainment