George C Scott won Best Actor for Patton and refused it, having declared beforehand that he considered the ceremony a meat parade. He was the first actor to decline the award.
Patton opens with a six-minute monologue delivered directly to camera in front of an enormous flag, and Scott plays the man as both magnificent and impossible, which is the only honest reading.
Dr. Strangelove gives him a wholly different mode. Kubrick reportedly obtained the broad performance by telling him the exaggerated takes were rehearsals and then using them.
The Hospital and Hardcore are the underseen ones, and he directed several films himself, including Rage.
David WarnerScott plays Scrooge in a faithful television adaptation that became a holiday staple after theatrical release. A Christmas Carol is Clive Donner's 1984 American television adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella, depicting the Christmas Eve transformation of Victorian London miser…
Barnard HughesArthur Hiller's 1971 medical satire. Scott as suicidal chief of medicine.
George C. ScottScott and a young Tom Cruise. Taps is Harold Becker's 1981 military academy drama.
Ben Gazzara1959 Otto Preminger courtroom drama with James Stewart as small-town Michigan lawyer defending an Army officer charged with murder. Anatomy of a Murder is Otto Preminger's 1959 American courtroom drama adapting Robert Traver's 1958 novel.
George C. ScottKubrick's 1964 Cold War satire. Sellers in three roles, Scott as Buck Turgidson.
George C. Scott
George C. ScottPaul Schrader grew up in a strict Calvinist household in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's a hard film to watch, not because of what it shows, which is less explicit than its reputation suggests, but because of what it understands about…
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
