Ten Best Gene Hackman Movies

Gene Hackman as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971)

Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, on January 30, 1930. Hackman made his film debut in Mad Dog Coll (1961), playing an uncredited cop. His early television work includes appearances on The United States Steel Hour, Naked City, Route 66 and Brenner.

Here are ten movies no Gene Hackman fan should ever miss. All right, Popeye's here!...

The French Connection (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1971)

Gene Hackman plays Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, a tough-as-nails New York City police detective out to bust the fabled French Connection drug syndicate. Hackman's Popeye gets into the action early, pursuing a suspect while dressed in a Santa Claus costume. Along with partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider), Hackman shadows the drug operation's kingpin, Frenchman Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), who has traveled from Marseilles to New York to personally supervise a massive shipment of heroin. Hackman is at his screaming, manic best, playing the gritty, profane Popeye as he tears up Gotham's streets in one of Hollywood's greatest car chase scenes.

• Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (won)
• Great Hackman line: "All right! You put a shiv in my partner. You know what that means? Goddammit! All winter long I got to listen to him gripe about bowling scores. Now I'm gonna bust your ass for those three bags and I'm gonna nail you for picking your feet in Poughkeepsie."
• Director: William Friedkin
• On DVD: The French Connection Two-Disc Collector's Edition (Twentieth Century-Fox, 2006)

Unforgiven (Warner Bros., 1992)

Gene Hackman plays Little Bill Daggett, the sheriff of Big Whiskey who runs his western town like a feudal chieftain. Hackman's Little Bill is a violent, obscene man, brutally beating and kicking both English Bob (Richard Harris) and William Munny (Clint Eastwood) for violating the town's ordnance against carrying firearms. The Little Bill Daggett role affords Hackman one of his greatest screen performances ever, playing a sadistic lawman whose contempt for other human beings apparently knows no boundaries.

• Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (won)
• Great Hackman line: "You'd be William Munny out of Missouri. Killer of women and children."
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• On DVD: Unforgiven Two-Disc Special Edition (Warner, 2002)

Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett in Unforgiven (1992)

Mississippi Burning (Orion, 1988)

Gene Hackman stars as Rupert Anderson, an ex-southern sheriff-turned-FBI agent sent down to Mississippi in 1964. Partnered with agent Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe), Hackman and his fellow "Hoover Boys" investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers who may have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and their local law enforcement sympathizers. Hackman excels in his role as the tough, savvy southerner with a conscience, confronting Deputy Clinton Pell (Brad Dourif) in the famous barber shop scene where he administers a brutal beating in retribution for Pell's savage attack on his own wife (Frances McDormand).

• Academy Award nomination for Best Actor
• Great Hackman line (to Brad Dourif's Clinton Pell while holding a straight razor to his throat): "Make no mistake about it, Deputy. I'll cut your f...ing head clean off and not give a shit how it reads in the report sheet!"
• Director: Alan Parker
• On DVD: Mississippi Burning (MGM, 2001)

Hoosiers (Orion, 1986)

Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale, a teacher and coach with a checkered past who comes to small town Hickory, Indiana, in 1951. Now the head basketball coach, Hackman's Dale takes on an assistant, the alcoholic yet knowledgeable Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch (Dennis Hopper). Despite some setbacks, the two guide the small high school to the coveted Indiana state championship, defeating a much larger school from South Bend in the title game. Hoosiers is Hackman at his best, the tough, no-nonsense hoops coach with the sometimes hair-trigger temper whose disciplinarian style nets the big prize in basketball-mad Indiana.

• Great Hackman line (to his players): "My practices aren't designed for your enjoyment!"
• Director: David Anspaugh
• On DVD: Hossiers 2-Disc Collector's Edition (MGM, 2005)

Gene Hackman as Norman Dale in Hoosiers (1986)

Crimson Tide (Buena Vista, 1995)

Gene Hackman plays Captain Frank Ramsey, an old-school submarine commander at the helm of the nuclear-powered USS Alabama. When an attempted coup de etat takes place in Russia, the Alabama receives launch orders to unleash its nuclear payload. Hackman's interaction with exectuvie officer Lt. Commander Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington) makes the movie, with the two locking horns over a broken, interrupted Emergency Action Message which could be an order to stand down.

• Great Hackman line: "Be careful there, Mr. Hunter. It's all I've got to rely on being a simple-minded son of a bitch. Rickover gave me my command, a checklist, a target and a button to push. All I gotta know is how to push it, they tell me when. They seem to want you to know why."
• Director: Tony Scott
• On DVD: Crimson Tide (Walt Disney, 1998)

The Quick and the Dead (TriStar, 1995)

Gene Hackman portrays John Herod, the town boss gunslinger of Redemption circa 1878. A cash prize of $123,000 is being offered for the fastest gun, with Herod, The Lady (Sharon Stone), Cort (Russell Crowe) and The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio) all in the running. This fantasy western features plenty of gun powder and theatrics, with Hackman playing his usual mean son of a bitch with devilish gusto.

• Great Hackman line: "This is my town! If you live to see the dawn, it's because I allow it. I'm in charge of everything! I decide who lives or who dies!"
• Director: Sam Raimi
• On DVD: The Quick and the Dead (Columbia Tristar, 1998)

The French Connection II (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1975)

Gene Hackman is back as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in this sequel to the 1971 blockbuster. This time Hackman's Popeye is in Marseilles, working with French police to nab the elusive drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey). Hackman's interplay with French inspector Henri Barthelemy (Bernard Fresson) and his reaction to a foreign culture are the highlights of the movie, along with the usual shootouts and Popeye's deadly encounter with his adversary. Hackman excels in the harrowing scenes where Charnier turns him into a heroin junkie.

• Great Hackman line (trying to talk American baseball with Bernard Fresson's Barthelemy): "You don't know who Mickey Mantle was? Huh? How about Willie Mays? Say hey! Willie Mays! The mighty Willie Mays! See?"
• Director: John Frankenheimer
• On DVD: The French Connection Collection Box Set 1 & 2 (Twentieth Century-Fox, 2001)

Absolute Power (Columbia, 1997)

Gene Hackman plays President Allen Richmond, whose sexual encounter with the wife of billionaire Walter Sullivan (E.G. Marshall) goes viral when she stabs him with a letter opener. Two Secret Service agents blow the woman away and try to pin the murder on burglar Luther Whitney (Clint Eastwood) who was observed leaving the residence. The unidentified Whitney had seen the entire incident from a secret room situated behind a two-way mirror. Hackman is excellent as the philandering chief executive whose predilection for extramarital sex with a friend's young wife costs him dearly.

• Great Hackman line (on Clint Eastwood's Luther Whitney): "He saw nothing. He saw a drunk woman who liked rough sex too much. He's a burglar. Who's gonna believe him?"
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• On DVD: Absolute Power (Warner, 1997)

Bonnie and Clyde (Warner Bros./Seven Arts, 1967)

Gene Hackman plays Buck Barrow, brother of Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow in this extremely violent, bullet-riddled movie chronicling the bloody exploits of the famous Depression Era gangsters. Hackman's Buck is a brutal, gun-toting creature but not without a sense of humor as he delights in telling a lame joke involving a brandy-producing dairy cow. His interaction with screaming, hysterical wife Blanche Barrow (Estelle Parsons) provides the film with a nice sidelight.

• Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor
• Great Hackman line (the punchline to his lame joke): "Son, whatever you do, don't sell that cow!"
• Director: Arthur Penn
• On DVD: Bonnie and Clyde Two-Disc Special Edition (Warner, 2008)

Gene Hackman as Buck Barrow with Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

I Never Sang for My Father (Columbia, 1970)

Gene Hackman plays Gene Garrison, a college professor whose stormy relationship with his aging father (Melvyn Douglas) is put to the test when the latter is in need of care. Hackman is reunited with Estelle Parsons from Bonnie and Clyde, who plays his sister Alice. The subject matter is depressing, but Hackman is not, delivering a fine, even performance as the alienated son who never got along with his demanding father.

• Academy Award nomination for Best Actor
• Great Hackman line (to Melvyn Douglas' Tom Garrison, who asks if it's so terrible for a father wanting to see his son): "It is terrible to want to possess him – entirely and completely."
• Director: Gilbert Cates
• Not currently available on commercial DVD

Ten Other Gene Hackman Movie Favorites

•  Cisco Pike (1972)
• The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
• Scarecrow (1973)
• The Conversation (1974)
• No Way Out (1987)
• The Package (1989)
• Get Shorty (1995)
• The Chamber (1996)
• Heist (2001)
• Runaway Jury (2003)