12 Best Gene Hackman Movies

'You ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?' In a pork pie hat and with a short fuse, Hackman created the ultimate obsessive street detective in William Friedkin's masterpiece. The breathtaking car chase under the elevated Brooklyn train is film history, and the role rightly earned him his first Oscar, for Best Actor.

'I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house.' As the cruel, self-righteous sheriff who rules the town of Big Whiskey with an iron fist and builds himself a house with a leaky roof, Hackman created one of the most layered villains in western history. It won him his second Oscar.

Perhaps his most subtle and moving performance. In Francis Ford Coppola's Palme d'Or winner, Hackman plays an obsessive surveillance expert who fiercely guards his own privacy, until he suspects that a conversation he recorded will lead to a murder. His saxophone playing in a torn-apart apartment is unforgettable.

As a former Southern sheriff, FBI agent Anderson understands exactly how racist culture and the KKK work in Mississippi. When the official rules fail, he turns to hard-nosed intimidation. His barbershop scene with a racist deputy is legendary, and he earned an Oscar nomination for the role.

Wes Anderson wrote the role with Hackman in mind, and he didn't disappoint. As the shameless, lying patriarch who fakes stomach cancer to move back in with his eccentric New York family, Hackman brings an irresistible mix of roguishness and sincere wistfulness, winning a Golden Globe.

The film that gave him his first big breakthrough and Oscar nomination. As Buck Barrow, the good-humored brother of bank robber Clyde (Warren Beatty), Hackman brings a tragic, boisterous joy that comes to a dramatic end in a shootout with the police.

On a nuclear submarine, a mutiny erupts when Captain Ramsey refuses to wait for confirmation of an order to launch nuclear missiles. The verbal boxing matches between Hackman's authoritarian veteran and Denzel Washington's thoughtful executive officer are of the highest order.

'Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story.' With a lavish wig collection and delicious theatrical arrogance, Hackman gave Superman's archenemy exactly the right dose of campy charm and megalomaniacal genius.

The ultimate sports film. As a coach with a dark past who gets a second chance with a tiny high school basketball team in rural Indiana, Hackman brings raw discipline and warm faith in teamwork. His speech before the state final gives every sports fan chills.

As an ultra-conservative senator embroiled in a scandal who visits the family of his daughter's fiancé (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane), Hackman shows fabulous comic timing. His final escape from a drag nightclub, in a dress and makeup, is a highlight.

A spiritual sequel to The Conversation. Hackman plays a paranoid former NSA surveillance expert who helps Will Smith escape from a high-tech surveillance machine. His mastery of spycraft and gruff pragmatism give the action thriller enormous punch.

His most famous uncredited cameo. In Mel Brooks' horror parody, an unrecognizable Hackman plays the lonely blind man who warmly welcomes the monster (Peter Boyle), then pours hot soup in his lap and sets his thumb on fire. 'I was gonna make espresso!'