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Sam Elliott and his characteristic mustache have been in movies for more than fifty years, especially in westerns. With time, the actor has become one of the best supporting players in Hollywood. Here are Sam Elliot’s best movies, ranked:
8/8 Up In the Air (2009)
Up In the Air tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who works traveling around the United States and firing people from big companies. As the movie evolves, Ryan discovers this way of life is his worst enemy for a future with romance and a family. The film was directed by Jason Reitman and was one of the best produced by his father, Ivan Reitman. Elliott has a small role as the pilot that congratulates Ryan when he finally reaches the 10 million mile mark, something Clooney’s character had been looking forward to for most of the movie. When the moment finally arrives, Ryan doesn’t care, as he has a broken heart. Elliott’s role might be small, but he still infuses it with charisma, empathy, and charm.
7/8 Thank You for Smoking (2006)
Thank You for Smoking is another of Jason Reitman’s movies, one with one of the best JK Simmons performances. The film shows the real power that some lobbyists have, as Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is trying to defend cigarettes against health nuts, even when he knows they’re bad. Reitman uses Elliott’s image as a weapon itself, and he casts him as the original Marlboro Man, who is dying of cancer from smoking cigarettes. The character could’ve been one-note, but Reitman knows Elliott can do more and gives him some conflict to play as his character has to decide what’s more important: his advocacy against tobacco, or a big fat load of money. You can see his troubling answer just by Elliott’s face acting.
6/8 We Were Soldiers (2002)
We Were Soldiers is a movie about the first days of the war in Vietnam, and how it already might be an unwinnable war. The film appeared after Saving Private Ryan and used some of the filmmaking vocabulary that the movie had created to show the brutal carnage of war. Elliott plays Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, the number two to Lt. Col. Hal Moore (Mel Gibson). Elliott’s style and demeanor make him the perfect complement to Gibson’s high-voltage intensity in this movie directed by Braveheart’s Randall Wallace.
5/8 Road House (1989)
Road House is an over-the-top action film like those that made Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal famous, with the difference that the lead character is played by the personification of charisma, the one and only Patrick Swayze. Swayze plays Dalton, a quiet, tough bouncer who is hired to tame a dirty bar: The Double Deuce. Elliott appears halfway into the movie as Wade Garrett, one of Swayze’s old buddies, who is in town to help him deal with the local and corrupt entrepreneur, Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), who wants Dalton out of town, by any means necessary, even murder. The movie has one of the best taglines ever: “Dalton lives like a loner, fights like a professional, and loves like there’s no tomorrow”, and has been in the hearts of ’80s action movie lovers since its release. It’s also rumored that the movie is getting remade with Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead.
4/8 Mask (1985)
Mask is the story of Rocky (Eric Stoltz), a teenager with craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, which makes him have several facial deformities. Elliott plays Gar, the biker boyfriend of Rocky’s mom (Cher), and gives a great supporting performance in this unique Peter Bogdanovic movie. Elliott shows more range here, as he’s not a cowboy, and gives a sensible performance, full of love for his adopted family as a biker with a heart of gold.
3/8 Tombstone (1993)
Tombstone tells the story of Wyatt Earp, mixing truth and fiction, to create an entertaining movie that became a Western success in the ’90s. Elliott plays Virgil Earp to Kurt Russell’s Wyatt; Bill Paxton plays the other brother, Morgan, and Val Kilmer plays Doc Holliday. Elliott excels as the big brother, showing not only his charisma and western know-how but also making the role more than it’s on the page. Elliott had already been a cowboy many times on TV, but this was one of his bigger opportunities to play one on the big screen, and he nailed it. It’s easy to see in the relationship between the brothers: the love, respect, and camaraderie, that was also probably off-screen between Russell and Elliott.
2/8 A Star is Born (2018)
A Star is Born was written, directed, and acted by Bradley Cooper (he had to learn to play piano and guitar for the role) and tells the story of Jackson Maine (Cooper), a rock star spiraling out of control because of alcohol and drugs. He meets Ally (Lady Gaga), a struggling talented young singer with whom he falls in love as they start working together. Elliott plays Maine’s older brother and manager, in a role that finally earned him an Oscar nomination. The relationship between the brothers goes from bad to worse, but their last scene together shows the complexities of their love for each other, and it wouldn’t have worked without the great performances that Cooper and Elliott give in that moment, as you can see in their silence and their whole relationship, why Cooper’s character uses Elliott’s gravely voice.
About Cooper’s voice, Sam Elliott told Outsider: “He kind of boxed himself in, as I said, to sound like me. I’m not sure which came first. And I’ve heard him say both, but I really think that he settled on the voice, the sound, before he thought of me playing that part. I may be wrong because I’ve heard him say that he wrote it for me, which I don’t… I’m not sure.”
1/8 The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Big Lebowski remains a jewel of the ’90s and one of the Coen Brothers’ best films. Although there’s not much plot to explain, other than after some goons pee on his rug because they think he’s the Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), The Dude (Jeff Bridges), just wants a new rug because ”It really tied the room together”, and hangs out with his bowling buddies Walter (John Goodman) and Donnie (Steve Buscemi). This film is still one of the most followed and loved movies ever.
Elliott plays the de facto narrator of the film, The Stranger, who explains to us the film’s coda and utters the lines many people still follow religiously: “The Dude abides”. It’s a small role where the Coen used Elliott’s screen persona to their advantage, making him part of the audience while exhorting all The Dude’s virtues.
About the role, Sam Elliott told Entertainment Weekly: “I started reading it, and it’s talking about this voiceover in a southern drawl, and ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’ is mentioned playing in the background, and this voice ‘sounding not unlike Sam Elliott.’ Then he shows up in a bowling alley dressed like a drugstore cowboy looking ‘not unlike Sam Elliott.’ [Laughs] So, I went from feeling boxed-in, into just realizing how thankful I was that that was the box I was in because it just led to all this other great work.”
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