In many ways, the idea of George Clooney as a bona fide movie star is so familiar to us that it’s like pointing out that the sky is blue. He’s been on our big screens for decades, aging into the suave silver fox he is today.
In Jay Kelly – a new film by the Frances Ha writer-director, Noah Baumbach, which lands on Netflix on Friday – Clooney takes on that very persona, playing an adored elder statesman film star who feels lost in midlife and attempts to reconnect with his teenage daughter.
So in the interest of celebrating Clooney’s screen stardom over the years, here are his eight best movies:
8. Gravity (2013)
In a film that was widely celebrated for its spectacle, it takes a lot for a performance to make a strong impression. Clooney – happy to play second-fiddle to the emotive central performance from Sandra Bullock – is unshowy and modest as her fellow ill-fated astronaut.
But his heartbreaking and comforting presence in the film provides unexpected strength for our endangered hero, a kind of paternal model of calm and kindness when, on a space mission, their shuttle is struck by debris and they’re forced to execute an emergency plan. If you needed someone’s voice to soothe you, wouldn’t you like it to be George Clooney’s?
7. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
Although Clooney’s self-directed performances have sometimes been ignored or maligned – sometimes rightly so – one of his greatest successes in this arena must be his 1950s-set drama Good Night, and Good Luck, an examination of the moral pressure of McCarthyism and the Red Scare on legendary journalist Walter Kronkite.
Stylishly and thoughtfully made, Clooney’s film also features himself as supporting player Fred Friendly – Kronkite’s deeply concerned but principled co-producer on iconic nightly show See it Now. Based on a real person known for his innovative ideas about television broadcasting in America, Clooney provides a brilliant backbone to the whirling political action of the story.
6. From Dusk til Dawn (1996)
Robert Rodriguez’s beloved cult action-horror flick about bad guys on the lam who run into a Mexican tavern full of vampires simply wouldn’t be the same without George Clooney at its centre. As the cold-blooded killer Seth – and the only person who can seemingly quell his demented brother Richie’s worst tendencies – he’s only sympathetic by comparison to his sibling.
But he is our sole compass through the undead chaos that unfolds in this Tarantino-penned horror, and his shockingly psychopathic turn in the middle of it all distinguishes it as somehow a cut above any usual B-movie.
5. O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
Clooney proved he could do a fully comic role – and do it completely straight-faced – in his first big outing with the Coen Brothers. He plays a 1930s convict, hustler, and all-round ne’er-do-well who stages an escape from prison in the Deep South to rejoin his folk trio.
With references to Clark Gable and borrowing from a variety of golden age movies from the Depression era, this rompy, oddball comedy revealed Clooney’s willingness to poke fun at himself and to enjoy some retro slapstick humour. He would go on to work with the Coens three more times as a result. Long live the Soggy Bottom Boys!
4. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
In Steven Soderbergh’s flashy, loveable ensemble heist flick set at a Vegas casino – a remake of the Rat Pack classic from 1960 – Clooney may have found one of his signature roles. In the original film, the ringleader of the gang of veterans-turned-thieves – Danny Ocean – was played by Frank Sinatra. Here, looking to channel some of Sinatra’s relaxed but authoritative cool, Clooney seems the obvious choice.
His bromance chemistry with friend Brad Pitt is one thing, but his tortured on-and-off attraction to Julia Roberts, as his ex-wife, elevates this part to something magical. With its crackerjack plotting and star wattage, it’s no surprise there have been several sequels, each as thrilling as the last. It requires Clooney, though, to hold the entire thing together.
3. Three Kings (1999)
If our latter-day impression of the seemingly endlessly suave movie star is not exactly “roughneck soldier”, Clooney still manages to impress in action-heist flick Three Kings as a top brass military man fed up by the Gulf War and willing to risk everything in search of some hidden Iraqi gold.
Undeniably the brains of the operation, Clooney test-drives a part that in some ways feels like a template for Ocean’s Eleven: mastermind and de-facto leader of a gang of macho rebels on a mission. Cool and collected opposite fellow soldiers played by Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze, Clooney emerges as unaffected and tough even in the midst of machine-gun fire.
2. Out of Sight (1998)
If Clooney has long seemed as though he belonged to another era in his genteel charm and dignified handsomeness, Steven Soderbergh – an old-Hollywood lover at heart – found the perfect part for him here. As career criminal and master bank robber Jack Foley, he plays the romantic anti-hero opposite Jennifer Lopez, the US Marshal who’s been sent to track him down.
Turning the cat and mouse dynamic of the classic cops and robbers story into a sexy, funny neo-noir dripping with chemistry, Soderbergh’s wildly entertaining film knows precisely how to use Clooney’s charisma and self-assurance, and he’s a perfect, roguish leading man here.
1. Michael Clayton (2006)
In Tony Gilroy’s incendiary, unusually cerebral mainstream Hollywood political thriller, Clooney plays a version of an archetype beloved of legendary actors – the dubious but charming attorney. Here, his character Clayton is a legal “fixer” for high-profile clients, but is drawn in over his head when he learns of a corporate conglomerate’s cover-up of a billion dollar lawsuit against them involving a lethal weed killer.
Trying to protect a whistleblower from being murdered by corporate goons, Clayton must think – and act – fast in order to protect himself and those around him. Smart, pacy, and brutally cynical, this film feels borne of the fatalistic 70s thrillers of the past – and Clooney, with his impassive, intelligent good looks, is the ideal actor to personify the morally ambiguous central role.
Jay Kelly is out on Netflix on Friday 5 December
