Jeff Bridges picks his five favourite Jeff Bridges movies
Jeff Bridges has starred in some of the best-loved movies of the past 20 years. For his fans, it is always difficult to look beyond his most iconic role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, but how does Bridges himself feel about his own filmography? Fortunately, the legendary actor picked out his favourites during a conversation with Rotten Tomatoes.
Up first for Bridges is the 2005 comedy The Amateurs, which had originally been titled The Moguls. The film tells the story of six friends in a small USA town who decide to make a full-length amateur porn film. Speaking about Michael Traeger’s work, Bridges commented: “It was a wonderful film, got great laughs, and then it got picked up by a distributor who went bankrupt and took about five or six movies down with him. It’s a film that I’m very proud of, makes me laugh, I think people will like it.”
Another feature that Bridges holds close to his heart is Tideland, released the same year as The Amateurs. Terry Gilliam’s film focuses on a young child who tries to come to terms with their isolation in rural Texas after the death of her drug-addict parents. “This one was very low-tech and not a giant budget movie,” Bridges said of Tideland. “It’s based on a great book with the same title by Mitch Cullin, and very, very surreal. I’d even stretch it and say it’s the weirdest movie that Terry has ever made, for my tastes (although everyone’s got different tastes). But it’s macabre.”
Going way back to 1971, Bridges picks out The Last Picture Show, the coming-of-age drama directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Again the movie is set in a small town (a favourite feature of Bridges) in Texas and tells of two long-time high school friends. “For me, that’s a movie that is kind of like no other movie, and no other movie is like it,” Bridges said of the film. “It just kind of sits there by itself.”
Flashing right back into the 21st Century, we find another Bridges-starring film; this time, 2009’s Crazy Heart, directed by Scott Cooper in his directorial debut. The film was based on Thomas Cobb’s 1987 novel of the same name and focused on a down-on-his-luck country music singer who begins a relationship with a young journalist. Bridges says he was “thankful” to be able to play with his “two dear friends, Stephen Bruden and T-Bone Burnett”.
Jeff Bridges’ five favourite Jeff Bridges movies:
- The Amateurs (Michael Traeger, 2005)
- Tideland (Terry Gilliam, 2005)
- The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
- Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper, 2009)
- Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972)
Finally, Bridges picks out 1972’s Bad Company to round off the list of his favourite films. The Robert Benton-directed western saw a young Bridges star as a young man who looks to escape the Civil War draft. Bridges revealed, “An interesting sideline to [it]; we get a band of guys that fall in with us, John Savage is one of those guys, and who do we run into during our travels but David Huddleston. You know who he is… the Big Lebowski!”
