One great actor in 5 great films from five different genres?

Walter Matthau:

The Odd Couple (comedy)
Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (thriller)
Charley Varrick (action)
Charade (mystery)
Kotch (character study)

Hello Dolly! (musical) - not a favorite, but the co-star of a major musical...

Jeff

 

Yeah, it's a subjective term. I guess it can mean big box office hit, or classic film, or personal favorite. Feel free to quote any of us and tell us what films you would drop, and ideally what films you would replace them with.

 

Gary Oldman:

True Romance
JFK
Immortal Beloved
The Professional
and.....
either "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"
or, one of the Batman movies....... take your pick.

 

Yes, The Passenger or Cuckoo's would be excellent and superior choices, but maybe too close to the already used Drama genre. I think Mars Attacks! deserves a re-evaluation- it gets better with age.

 

I have no problem with the film. I would describe it as fun, interesting, and unique, but not great.

 

Sad to see following the recent death of the brilliant Oliver Sacks that you chose to omit Awakenings (biography).

 

Kate Hepburn.Yeah,I think so.
Two of my personal favorites from the 70's and 80's I think could have but kind of fell of the map are Debra Winger and Sissy Spacek,but that's a topic for another thread.
It does remind me of a great movie Sissy did called 'Missing',with another favorite actor of mine(underrated imho) Jack Lemmon.

Some Like It Hot - Comedy

Glengarry Glen Ross- Drama

China Syndrome - Thriller

The Odd Couple - Romantic Comedy

Missing- Historical,Mystery

Days of Wine and Roses
The Apartment
Save the Tiger
Mister Roberts
And one I have on my dvr I had never seen 'Bell,Book,and Candle with Jimmy Stewart,Kim Novak and Ernie Kovaks.He plays a beatnik warlock.
Good actor with a long career.

 

Toshiro Mifune

Hell in the Pacific - WWII
Grand Prix - auto racing
Red Beard - medical drama
High and Low - kidnapping thriller
Throne of Blood - adaptation of MacBeth

And so many classics of which I'm not exactly sure how to classify as they cross several genres, such as:
Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, The Idiot, et cetera.


Klaus Kinski

Aguirre: The Wrath of God - biography
For a Few Dollars More - western
Nosferatu the Vampyre - horror
Fitzcarraldo - tough to classify, but I'll go with adventure at sea
Dr. Zhivago - war/romance

And he's in tons of awesomely bad b-movies as well, but I suppose those don't count.

 

You're right - It was Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, not Gary Cooper (oops!).

 

Sir Sean Connery

From Russia with love (or Dr. No, or Goldfinger...).... spy
The man who would be king........................................adventure
Time bandits................................................................fantasy
The Name of the Rose.................................................historical murder mystery
The hunt for Red October............................................political thriller
The hill.........................................................................war drama
The Rock.....................................................................action

 

Cary Grant

North by Northwest (action/adventure)
Bringing up Baby (screwball comedy)
His Gal Friday (comedy)
An Affair to Remember (romance)
Gunga Din (adventure)
Charade (mystery)
Notorious (thriller)

I could go on....

 

I'm working on a Harrison Ford list, but not sure if "Star Wars" (and/or "The Empire Strikes Back") qualifies as a different genre than "Blade Runner."

 

John Cusack

Say Anything..................directed by Cameron Crowe (Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%) Romantic, Coming of Age
The Grifters...................directed by Stephen Frears (Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%) Crime, Noir
The Thin Red Line............directed by Terrence Malick (Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%) War, Esoteric
High Fidelity...................directed by Stephen Frears (Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%) Comedy, Drama
Love & Mercy..................directed by Bill Pohlad (Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%) Biopic, Drama

Cusack might seem like an odd choice because he can be polarizing at times, the main complaint is that he tends to just play himself. However, I think in many of his roles he has had the ability to sink in and kind of disappear into a character. In Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, while I think it's a terrific film and perhaps one of the finest of the 1990s (Martin Scorsese even thinks so), it did tend to polarize much like the actor himself. His character, while small, has some of the most memorable interactions in the film; specifically with Nick Nolte. Since its release, The Thin Red Line has become something of a cult masterpiece, beautifully photographed by John Toll. The anti-Saving Private Ryan from the boomer generations version of JD Salinger (Malick). Malick of course has continued to chart his own course with films like The Tree of Life an equally polarizing film. Which, at its best, was considered one of the best films ever made by none other than the late Roger Ebert.

In Cameron Crowe's first full length, Say Anything he sort of became a model for many Gen X males. I know he did for me personally and I was only 14 at the time. The film takes what could have been a standard romantic piece and elevates it. No character is written to type. The father has multiple layers and isn't a buffoon. Ione Skye is beyond charming and one can't help for fall for her brains and beauty. And Cusack's character is driven but not by just monetary things nor empty platitudes. He's looking for some fulfillment and security in life. And he wants to be an anchor of support for the girl he loves. I would go so far as to say this film is maybe still to this day one of the best of its genre.

Cusack's work with Stephen Frears is perhaps the most interesting because neither film is remotely like the other. One is a pseudo crime/film noir (The Grifters). And the other is wonderful character piece that, at its heart, is a love affair with records & music, more than anything. Perhaps the only thing either film has in common is that they were both directed by the same man and both were novel adaptations.

Lastly, his most recent work as 'Brian Wilson - Future' in Bill Pohlad's magnificent Love & Mercy. Cusack sinks into the role of a forty-something Brian Wilson in the mid-1980s as he is under the grip of Svengali-like psychotherapist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti). What is most amazing to me about Cusack's work in this film is that he did not in any way coordinate his characterization of Brian Wilson with Paul Dano who portrayed 'Brian Wilson - Past'. The two performances harmonize in a very special way that is woven together by the masterful penultimate scene. While Cusack doesn't much resemble Brian Wilson, except for maybe a year or two in the late 1980s, he embodies his innocence and tenderness in a way that I'm not sure many other actors would have been able to. We care for him and we too want to extract him from the clutches of Dr. Landy.

 

Didn't choose anything -- just didn't remember it.

 

Christopher Walken and i think those are genuinely great movies and he is a great actor

War : Deer Hunter
Gangster : The Funeral
Drama : At Close Range
Horror : Dead Zone
Comedy: Seven Psychopaths

 

How about Space Western and dystopian Sci-Fi?

Looked up 'Blade Runner'.It described it as 'Neo- Noir'.Your call

 

Gene Hackman

Bonnie & Clyde
The French Connection
The Conversation
Young Frankenstein
Superman II
Unforgiven

 

Robert Preston

This Gun For Hire
The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs
The Music Man
Junior Bonner
S.O.B.

 

Oh, come on. That's easy:

Blade Runner - Sci Fi
Witness - thriller
Working Girl - rom-com
Indiana Jones - adventure
American Graffiti - teen nostalgia

Next?

 

Melvyn Douglas

Ninotchka
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Hud
I Never Sang For My Father
Ghost Story

 

Paul Newman

Courtroom drama -- Absence of Malice
Southern Gothic -- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Old Western -- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
New Western setting -- Hud
Gangster/Comedy -- The Sting
Anti-Hero -- Cool Hand Luke

If I could pick Sports I would include his TV performance in Bang the Drum Slowly

 

They are both Sci-Fi, but Blade Runner is the tale of a dystopian future unlike Star Wars.

Perfect, was going to do Cary myself.

 

Might add the Poisidon Adventure in the disaster genre.

 

I would pick Slap Shot for Sports and Comedy

 

Edward G. Robinson

Little Caesar - gangster film
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet - biopic
Larceny, Inc. - comedy
Double Indemnity - film noir
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes - family drama
The Ten Commandments - biblical epic
Cheyenne Autumn - Western
Soylent Green - science fiction