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Whenever someone of this stature goes, I tend to gather together their films, what I have of them, and work through them. So here I am looking at Outland (which isn't as terrible as Harlan Ellison said but goodness it isn't great), Zardoz, In the Name of the Rose, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (it's fun, I will grant it that), Time Bandits and was left wondering: what films had his iconic performances? What's a good sample to understand the range he had?

I grew up with the Bond films so they're very much background to me, almost hard to notice in a way. Any recommendations?

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His top 5 performances in my mind

* The Man Who Would Be King

* The Offense

* Last Crusade

* The Untouchables

* The Wind and the Lion

He wasn't as bad of an actor as people say (compared to the greats), but he didn't take a lot of challenging roles. I wish he'd played more villains/anti heroes.

In my mind, I was listing the Connery movies that I liked and I completely forgot The Man Who Would Be King. I love that movie! Along with Michael Caine and Saeed Jaffrey as Billy Fish, it really shows a fun side to him.

That seems to be curiously common with that film - people seem to: 1) think it's awesome 2) but somehow forget that they think that until they're reminded of it!

'The Man Who Would Be King' is a wonderful film. He was also in some stinkers ('Highlander' springs to mind).

Highlander a stinker?

I enjoyed it when it first came out. But I watched it again with my family, recently, and the cringe factor was high. The janky special effects were of their time. But there is no excuse for the accents! The music is amazing though.

The Name of the Rose is pretty terrible. The book is incredible, though. It's the movie I instantly think of when someone asks "what is the worst movie adaptation of a book you've seen?"

I think it's probably important with Connery just to accept him as the man and actor that he was, rather than worrying about his range - whether he was playing Bond, or King Arthur in the execrable "First Knight", or a Russian submarine commander, he was always the same handsome, suave man with an unmistakable Scottish accent: that, in itself, was his great achievement. But he definitely wasn't a method actor or particularly dynamic.

Yes, usually the accent goes unmentioned in-story, but I liked how in "The Presidio" (1988) they actually explained why Sean Connery's character (a US Army officer) would have the accent by explaining that his family moved from Scotland to the US when he was a child.

Finding Forrester has I think perhaps his greatest performance.

Ohh I loved that one. I haven't watched his bond films and I didn't liked the few clips. Him as an older actors was fabulous everytime I saw him.

Dragonheart - I loved his voice in that. I think I realized for the first time, what a voice can do. The angry, bitter dragon turning to the wise advisor.

And someone else mentioned 'The Rock'

I can't imagine any actor of any era playing that part as well. (Same with 'Name of the Rose' and Henry Jones. Connery has been underappreciated.

Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) where he appeared against Tippi Hedren. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058329/

"Outland" (despite its faults) can be seen as an early example of cyberpunk with its evil mega corporation ruling Io (even though it was inspired by real life company mining towns just on a larger scale)

_The Hill_ was not mentioned yet... (1965, directed by Sidney Lumet)

The Man Who Would Be King

Add Red October to your list.

The Rock! I consider it his best film but opinions are of course opinions.

I wouldn't underestimate the thief character he played in "Entrapment" (though the movie in itself was IMHO so-and-so), which is clearly derived/has connections with the one in "The rock".

And there are some memorable quotes:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137494/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_...

I like the "It's impossible. But doable." and the "I'm never late. If I'm late it's because I'm dead."

Untouchables

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