Paramount Pictures
With therecent announcementthat Oscar winner Al Pacino will star in Bernard Rose’sLear Rexas King Lear , a classical valedictory role for a performer at the close of a storied vocation , now seems a worthwhile time to examine the filmography of an actor whose emergence onto the scenery in the 1970s was as seismic an effect in the moving picture industriousness as that of any who came along before or since .
Over a half - century , Pacino has starred in in almost every kind of flick conceivable . Along the way , he ’s given us wealth of great carrying into action that will put up the test of prison term . The comply is a highly immanent list of the outstanding films starring Al Pacino .
Paramount Pictures
7. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Playing hotshot salesman Ricky Roma , Pacino is in his chemical element here as a cocky , descend overachiever in a pathetic , but cutthroat Chicago real estate firm . 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 blarney , wicked irascibility , but Roma , a part originated on the American stage by Joe Mantegna , stand out because he ’s achieved a degree of success in his milieu .
Opposite an all - time cast let in movie caption Jack Lemmon , Alan Arkin , Ed Harris , Alec Baldwin , and ( it must be reluctantly receipt ) Kevin Spacey , Roma is an avatar of Pacino ’s status as renegade creative person - king of a Hollywood he serve make .
6. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Pacino ’s pocket-sized role as adorably sincere ace - agent Marvin Schwarz in this recent - careerTarantinofilm that the managing director considers his best is emblematic of Pacino ’s career in the years betweenInsomnia(2002 ) andThe Irishman(also 2019 ) . It ’s an eccentric supporting role making use above all of Pacino ’s legend , which itself is as powerful a force as his talent at this power point in movie story .
This first-class alternating - history interlingual rendition of the Manson murders , coiffure in 1969 , is absolutely suitable in tone and subject matter for Pacino , who made his film debut in that year .
5. Heat (1995)
Among the series of mankind - beater Pacino burgeon forth in the 1990s ( a remarkable riposte impart a string of ‘ 80 flops that go the worker to take a four - twelvemonth suspension from the screen ) , none shines brighter thanHeat , the serious - tending , but ravishingly fun LA crime dramatic event from one of the genre ’s masters , Michael Mann .
4. Serpico (1973)
Other than Francis Ford Coppola , no one had a better good sense of Pacino than managing director Sidney Lumet , whose two 1970s New York crime photographic film star Pacino tramp the player first as a cop and then as a robber while the filmmaker explore the rough - hewn essence of the urban center ’s decline .
As genuine - life NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico , Pacino initiated another of his calling ’s enduring archetypes – the shambling , unstable crusader ( later to be echoed in … And Justice for AllandThe Insider , among others ) .
3. The Godfather (1972)
In just his third on - screen carrying out , the 31 - yr - old Pacino – small , sour , hush , and unreadable – changed the definition of what a moderate world should be as prosperous nipper - turned - Mafia boss Michael Corleone in Coppola ’s live masterpiece .
look with unrelenting studio resistance to this unknown and unconventional principal , Coppola stood his ground , and ushered into being one of the most quietly insistent master classes in act ever put to celluloid .
2. The Godfather Part II (1974)
Coppola never wanted to make a subsequence toThe Godfather , but when his ever - present money difficulty brought him back to the mesa , Pacino and most of the original plaster bandage ( salve Brando ) came volitionally along .
The Godfather Part II ’s favorable position to its predecessor is now wide acknowledged , and much of the quotation go to Pacino ’s public presentation — less tentative , more kingly — as Michael moves from the outskirts to the centerfield of his own new world .
1. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
No heist motion picture , whether the heist involve is successful or no , has ever achieved the heart - pound , sweat - drenched strength that Lumet and Pacino did in their other 1970s collaboration , Dog Day Afternoon . Based on the tangible - living , but ill - fated robbery of the Gravesend Chase Manhattan Bank in 1972 by John Wojtowicz ( rename to the more pronounceable Sonny Wortzik for the film),Dog Day Afternoonis a showcase for the irrepressible Pacino in a film worry above all with ground - level detail .
As perceptive about the realities of American criminalness and legal philosophy enforcement as any plastic film ever made , Lumet ’s moving-picture show is about perfect , and so too is Pacino .
