Gene Hackman’s favourite movies of his career: “That was the pinnacle”
Gene Hackman had a career unlike any other Hollywood star.
Of course, he didn’t have Warren Beatty’s looks or Steve McQueen’s charisma. But rather than being relegated to character roles—playing tough guys and supporting parts—Hackman became a star, leading some of the most iconic films of his era. William Friedkin’s The French Connection and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation were landmark films of the 1970s, and he carried them with quiet gravitas and a simmering volatility.
Throughout his career, Hackman picked up two Oscars, one for The French Connection in 1972 and the other for playing an iron-fisted sheriff in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven in 1993. Unlike many actors of his stature, he retired on his own terms more than two decades before his death, choosing to live his remaining years out of the spotlight.
For such a starry career, picking favourites would be no easy task, but over the years, Hackman dropped hints about the films he loved most. His favourite performance was in Jerry Schatzberg’s 1973 road drama Scarecrow, where he and Al Pacino played two men from California travelling to Pittsburgh to start a business. It’s a relatively low-key story of male friendship, with Pacino as the sensitive soul and Hackman as the more aggressive, assertive one.
The actor later said it was his favourite in all his filmography, and it’s easy to see why. You can see the spectrum of his talents on screen without the trappings of melodrama to distract from them. “It’s the only film I’ve ever made in absolute continuity,” he said later, “And that allowed me to take all kinds of chances and really build my character.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Conversation was another favourite. In the film, Hackman plays a surveillance expert who grapples with his moral and professional responsibilities when his recordings capture what he believes to be a murder. “That was the pinnacle of my acting career in terms of character development,” he said. “Caul was somewhat constipated. The character didn’t burst out. There was no satisfying cathartic moment in the film.”
Of all his movies, there was only one that the actor wanted his mother to see. In the 1970 drama I Never Sang for My Father, Hackman played a widowed college professor struggling with resentment and guilt about his domineering father, who he plans to leave on his own when he remarries. It’s a powerfully emotional performance, and Hackman earned his second Oscar nomination for it.
“I thought it was a sensitive picture about family and relationships, and I think she would have been proud and happy to see that,” the actor told GQ. “You’re fortunate to be able to do something in life that defines who you are, and who your parents may have wanted to be.”
All three of these movies represent key moments in Hackman’s career and demonstrate his range and depth as a performer. He was more versatile than his reputation might have you believe, and these films, which range from tender dramas to tense, understated thrillers, prove just what an unusual and enthralling force he was on screen.
