The great Gene Hackman passed away at the end of February at the age of 95. Retired from acting for the last 20 years, Hackman was a leading man and occasional character actor across five decades, playing memorable roles across numerous eras and genres.
Hackman’s most memorable parts were very eclectic – he played cops, detectives, sheriffs, coaches, politicians, and even one schlocky Hollywood producer; Hackman played characters named “Harry” at least five different times, including in three of the below films. This list could easily be twice or three times as long, but these are my picks for the best roles of the late legend’s career.
The French Connection
William Friedkin’s 1971 classic, which won Oscars that included both Best Picture and Best Actor for Hackman, was the tale of police corruption in the NYPD, featuring some of the best urban chase scenes in cinema history. Hackman played Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a frequently rule breaking detective.
The Conversation
In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 reworking of Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Hackman played Harry Caul, a San Francisco-based surveillance expert who stumbles into a high-level murder conspiracy. When he’s not recording the misdeeds of the powerful, he’s playing the saxophone in his apartment.
Night Moves
In 1975, Hackman reteamed with his Bonnie and Clyde director Arthur Penn on Night Moves, a neo-noir film set in Los Angeles, with Hackman as PI Harry Moseby. In the tradition of The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, The Big Lebowski, and Inherent Vice, it’s an L.A. movie with a guy at the center of a sprawling mystery.
Superman
In the original Superman in 1978 and its subsequent sequels, Hackman provided a template of what it meant to play the villain in a superhero movie, especially as someone with a reputation as a great actor. As Lex Luthor, Hackman never seemed to be slumming it.
Hoosiers
One of the all-time great sports films, this 1986 drama starred Hackman as Norman Dale, the coach of a small-town basketball team that made an unlikely run to the Indiana state championship in the 1950s. A lot of it is hokum, but it’s very well-executed hokum.
Unforgiven
In Clint Eastwood’s revisionist Western from 1992, Hackman played Sheriff “Little Bill,” the film’s main antagonist, and won another Oscar. It’s a film that was seen as a final career summation for Eastwood, but then he went on kept on directing for another 30 years.
Get Shorty
In Barry Sonnenfeld’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel about Hollywood, Hackman plays Harry Zimm, a shlock film producer pulled into the Hollywood adventures of John Travolta’s mobster-turned-showbiz player Chili Palmer.
The Birdcage
In Mike Nichols’s riotous remake of La Cage Aux Folles, Hackman played Sen. Kevin Keeley, a conservative politician whose daughter marries a man whose parents (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) are a gay couple. Probably Hackman’s best pure comedy role, as he reacts incredulously to the embarrassing death of his colleague, and ends the movie, yes, in drag.
Enemy of the State
In a role that’s something of a homage to Hackman in The Conversation, Hackman starred in Tony Scott’s 1998 action film as Edward “Brill” Lyle, a veteran spy who assists Will Smith’s hero in his battle with national security bad guys.
The Royal Tenenbaums
My favorite Hackman role, though, is the third-to-last of his career, as he played Royal, the long-estranged patriarch of the Tenenbaum family, and a character believable as both a loathsome lout and as belatedly redeemed. “Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true.“
