Summary
finest films starring Al Pacino.. Now seems like a good time to examine the filmography of an actor whose arrival on the scene in the 1970s was as seismic an event in the film industry as that of any who came along before or since. With the recent announcement that Oscar winner Al Pacino will star in Bernard Rose’s Lear Rex as King Lear, a classic valedictory role for a performer at the end of a storied career, it does seem like a worthwhile time to do so.
finest films starring Al Pacino
Over the course of fifty years, Pacino has appeared in about every kind of film that human beings can think of. Over the course of his career, he has provided us with a multitude of outstanding performances that will endure the test of time. The following is a list of the best films featuring Al Pacino, which is extremely subjective based on personal opinion.
1. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
There has never been a heist film that has ever attained the same level of heart-pounding, sweat-drenched intensity that Lumet and Pacino accomplished in their earlier collaboration from the 1970s for the film Dog Day Afternoon. This is true regardless of whether the robbery in question is successful or not. Dog Day Afternoon is a showcase for the irrepressible Pacino in a film that is concerned above all with ground-level minutiae. The film is based on the real-life, albeit unfortunate, robbery of the Gravesend Chase Manhattan Bank in 1972 by John Wojtowicz, who was renamed to the more pronounceable Sonny Wortzik for the film.
As acute as any film that has ever been created on the reality of American crime and police enforcement, Lumet’s picture is virtually faultless, and Pacino is also nearly perfect throughout the film.
2. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Pacino, along with the majority of the original cast (with the exception of Brando), came voluntarily along with Coppola when he was pulled back to the table by his ever-present financial difficulties. Coppola had never intended to produce a sequel to The Godfather.
The excellence of The Godfather Part II in comparison to its predecessor is now universally accepted, and a significant portion of the credit for this is due to Pacino’s portrayal, which is less timid and more kingly as Michael rises from the periphery to the center of his own new realm.
3. The Godfather (1972)
Pacino, who was just 31 years old at the time, altered the notion of what a leading man should be by playing the role of Michael Corleone, a golden boy turned Mafia ruler, in director Francis Ford Coppola’s timeless classic. Pacino was little, dark, quiet, and unreadable.
Coppola remained steadfast in the face of unyielding studio opposition to this unproven and unusual lead actor, and as a result, he became one of the most quietly persistent masters of acting that has ever been committed to film.
4. Serpico (1973)
No one had a greater understanding of Pacino than the director Sidney Lumet, who directed two New York crime pictures in the 1970s starring Pacino. Lumet put Pacino in the roles of a police officer and a robber, respectively, while Lumet probed the rough-hewn spirit of the city’s decline. Francis Ford Coppola was the only other director who had a better understanding of Pacino.
In his role as the real-life New York Police Department whistleblower Frank Serpico, Al Pacino introduced another of his career’s lasting archetypes: the shambling, unbalanced crusader. This character would eventually be mirrored in a number of other films, including And Justice for All and The Insider.
5. Heat (1995)
Among the series of world-beaters that Pacino shot in the 1990s (a remarkable comeback given a string of flops in the 1980s that led the actor to take a four-year hiatus from the screen), none shines brighter than Heat, the serious-minded but ravishingly fun Los Angeles crime drama from one of the genre’s masters, Michael Mann. Heat is particularly noteworthy because it was directed by Michael Mann.
The first time Pacino had the opportunity to play scenes opposite Robert De Niro, the other Italian-American icon of 1970s gangster cinema and Pacino’s closest corollary on screen, Pacino delivered a twitchy, mystifyingly non-Oscar-nominated performance that includes possibly the single greatest line delivery in the history of cinema. When the suspect Hank Azaria wonders out loud how he ever “got mixed up” with a difficult dame, Pacino’s officer, who is under the influence of cocaine, widens his eyes like a Halloween mask and yells out, “‘Cause she got a great ass!” Just right. There are no notes.
6. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
In this late-career Tarantino picture, which the director believes to be his greatest, Pacino has a supporting role as the endearingly earnest super-agent Marvin Schwarz. This performance is typical of Pacino’s career in the years between Insomnia (2002) and The Irishman (also 2019). It is a peculiar supporting character that takes advantage of Pacino’s reputation above all else, which is a force that is just as potent as his ability at this time in the history of movies.
Due to the fact that Pacino made his start in the film industry in 1969, this outstanding alternate-history account of the Manson murders, which takes place in 1969, is well suited for Pacino in terms of both tone and subject matter.
7. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Pacino is in his element here as a smug, sarcastic overachiever working for a Chicago real estate agency that is sad but competitive. He plays the role of Ricky Roma, a hotshot salesperson. In the symphony of sleaze that is David Mamet’s screenplay, which is based on his own play, every character is a different model of wheedling, loathsome irascibility. However, Roma, a role that was originated on the American stage by Joe Mantegna, stands out by virtue of the fact that he has achieved a degree of success in his milieu.
In contrast to an all-time cast that includes cinematic greats Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, and Kevin Spacey (which must be recognized with some reluctance), Roma is an embodiment of Pacino’s standing as a renegade artist-king of a Hollywood that he helped establish.
