Total Recall: Al Pacino's Best Movies
We count down the best-reviewed work of the Stand Up Guys star.
It may not be getting much critical love at the moment, but this weekend's Stand Up Guys has at least one thing going for it: An expertly seasoned cast that includes Alan Arkin, Christopher Walken, and Al Pacino. They've all made plenty of great films -- in fact, you can check out our countdown of Walken's best movies right here -- but seeing those names together made us realize that we've never dedicated a list to the mighty Pacino filmography, and we knew we had to take this chance to repent. Join us, if you will, for a stroll through a world where one of the greatest actors of his generation always lived up to his greatest potential, and movies like 88 Minutes and Jack and Jill never happened. It's time for Total Recall!
10. Donnie Brasco
87%
By 1997, gritty Al Pacino dramas about the never-ending struggle between law enforcement and organized crime were essentially a genre unto themselves, but Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco gave it just enough of a fresh twist to justify its own existence. Based on the true story of FBI agent Joe Pistone (played here by Johnny Depp), Brasco sensitively portrays his long, painful struggle to bring down the Mafia -- even at the expense of his friendship with Lefty Ruggiero, the low-level hitman played by Pacino, whose unwitting association with an undercover agent will all but certainly end his life. Admitting that it's "perhaps familiar in its outer trappings," Variety's Todd McCarthy countered that "Pacino's fine work is the key to the film succeeding to the extent that it does."
9. Scent of a Woman
88%
Get yer hoo-ahs out -- the Academy certainly did, awarding Pacino his first Best Actor Oscar after four previous nominations. Given that those nominations included The Godfather, Part II and Dog Day Afternoon, it's tempting to say Pacino benefited from a little late-career grade inflation, but there's no arguing that it's his performance that elevates this Martin Brest-directed dramedy about a prep school student (Chris O'Donnell) who takes a job looking after a blind, alcoholic retired Army Ranger. "By the end of Scent of a Woman, we have arrived at the usual conclusion of the coming-of-age movie, and the usual conclusion of the prep school movie," admitted Roger Ebert. "But rarely have we been taken there with so much intelligence and skill."
8. Scarface
89%
Scarface director Brian De Palma was inspired by Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson's 1932 gangster picture of the same name, but where the earlier version was a relatively straightforward morality play, De Palma's '80s update offered viewers a far more lurid take on the rags-to-bullets tale of crime kingpin Tony Montana. Garishly violent and gleefully profane, Scarface endured an extended battle with the MPAA before bowing to decidedly mixed reviews, but it was a fairly sizable commercial hit -- and critics have come around over the years, helping cement its status as an eminently quotable classic of over-the-top '80s crime cinema. "The dominant mood of the film is anything but funny," observed Vincent Canby of the New York Times, one of the few major contemporary critics to praise the film during its initial release. "It is bleak and futile: What goes up must always come down. When it comes down in Scarface, the crash is as terrifying as it is vivid and arresting."
7. Serpico
90%
Pacino received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work in this Sidney Lumet crime drama -- his second brush with the Academy during a torrid span that saw him earning some sort of Oscar nomination every year between 1972-75. While it was far from his biggest hit of the decade, it contains some of his strongest work, anchored by Lumet's sensitive direction and a Waldo Salt/Norman Wexler screenplay inspired by the real-life story of an NYPD officer whose efforts to root out corruption in the police force were met with life-threatening resistance. Calling it "One of the best films of our time, and our grandkids' time," Moviehole's Clint Morris marveled, "Serpico is pure Pacino, powerful as hell."
6. Insomnia
93%
Pacino has played an awful lot of cops during his career, but arguably none more complex than Insomnia's Will Dormer, the officer whose murky past and tortured conscience can't erase the fact that he's a formidably dogged investigator. Dragged out of L.A. and into a gloomy corner of Alaska, Dormer cracks a murder case in spite of his partner's death and an attendant absence of sleep -- and that?s when things really start to get grim for him. Directed by Christopher Nolan and stocked with a cast of talented actors that included Hilary Swank, Maura Tierney, Martin Donovan, and -- as the world's skeeviest crime writer -- Robin Williams, it racked up a healthy $113 million at the box office and wowed critics like Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, who grinned, "Here's proof that it's still possible to make pop-oriented yet personal movies with an A-list cast and a zillion bucks."
Henrik Schia
I've a feeling the discussion on this list will get very heated.
Jan 30 - 09:36 AM
King Simba
Things get heated when Heat doesn't make it to the top ten.
Jan 30 - 11:57 AM
Andrew Chaney
I completely agree with you there. Heat was epic.
Jan 30 - 04:03 PM
Sergio Arias
Agreed!
Feb 1 - 02:26 AM