William Hurt was nominated four times in five years, winning Best Actor for Kiss of the Spider Woman, playing a gay man imprisoned in Brazil in a performance that has been reassessed repeatedly since.
Children of a Lesser God, Broadcast News and Body Heat filled the same period, and Broadcast News gives him the most interesting version of the persona: a genial anchor who is not intelligent and knows it.
He worked steadily afterward in supporting roles, including A History of Violence, which earned a fifth nomination for about ten minutes of screen time.
He played Thaddeus Ross across five Marvel films and died in 2022. The later career was quieter than the mid-1980s peak by some distance.
Catherine KeenerInto the Wild (2007) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Sean Penn adapts Krakauer's account of Chris McCandless walking into Alaska and dying there, and the film admires him considerably more than the book does. Hal Holbrook…
Kathleen Turner
Andie MacDowellNora Ephron's 1996 angel comedy with John Travolta. Gentle commercial work that uses spiritual material as premise instead of substantial engagement.
Alec NewmanFrank Herbert's Dune is the most faithful screen adaptation of Herbert's novel ever produced. Seen it three times across decades.
Anthony MackieSam Wilson's Captain America cannot inherit Steve Rogers's moral authority. Decorative political signaling.
David HarbourFlorence Pugh's Yelena Belova carries a film that arrived too late to matter. The Phase Four opener that established the pattern of decorative empowerment.
Anthony MackieThe Phase 3 inflection point where moral clarity became moral confusion. Spider-Man and Black Panther's introductions as franchise expansion vehicles.
Edward NortonEdward Norton, Louis Leterrier, and the most underrated MCU film. Norton's psychologically committed Bruce Banner.
Jennifer ConnellyDark City is the most underrated film in the history of science fiction cinema. It arrived in 1998, one year before The Matrix, explored several of the same fundamental questions about manufactured reality and the nature of consciousness, and was…
Frances OConnorStanley Kubrick developed the project for years before his death; Steven Spielberg completed it as a tribute. The first act honors the premise.
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