best film: This all depends on what you think of his pit-stop of a performance in Goodfellas (which I have ever-so-slightly above Pulp Fiction). I don’t think it’s enough of a performance so I’m going with Pulp Fiction here. There’s no short of other fantastic films that Samuel L has been here over the course of his prolific career. Other highlights include Do the Right Thing, Jurassic Park, Out of Sight, Kill Bill and Django. Wow.
best performance: Pulp Fiction by a mile here though he’s fantastic in films 2-5 as well below (four of the five coming in Tarantino films). He’s a perfect match for Tarantino’s dialogue and I’d have no problem if someone says Jackson emerges from QT’s masterpiece here with the best single performance. He clearly has the most memorable line-delivery (though the most memorable scene is the dance sequence with Travolta and Uma).
stylistic innovations/traits: 18 films in the archives but we have 178 IMDB credits and running. He’s busy. It’s easy to take Samuel L. for granted with his 4-5 movies a year plus commercials but he’s a supremely talented actor who can play toughness and intelligence in equal measure. He’s a late-bloomer, too. He was 40+ when Do the Right Thing came out in 1989. I guess my one problem with Jackson (outside of just how many bad movies he’s in) is that I don’t even remember him in about 7 of the 18 films below in his filmography.
directors worked with: Tarantino (4) and this is the key partnership as much as like his three films with Spike Lee. He’s incredibly well-suited to QT’s dialogue like I said above and 4 of his top 5 performances are in QT films. Lee (3) and then once with Soderbergh, PT Andreson, Spielberg and Scorsese though if you blink you’ll miss him in all of those films.
Top 5 Performances:
- Pulp Fiction
- Django Unchained
- Jungle Fever
- Jackie Brown
- The Hateful Eight
Archiveable films
| 1981- Ragtime |
| 1989- Do the Right Thing |
| 1989- Sea of Love |
| 1990- Goodfellas |
| 1990- Mo’ Better Blues |
| 1991- Jungle Fever |
| 1992- Patriot Games |
| 1993- Jurassic Park |
| 1993- True Romance |
| 1994- Pulp Fiction |
| 1996- Hard Eight |
| 1997- Jackie Brown |
| 1998- Out of Sight |
| 2003- Kill Bill Vol. 1 |
| 2004- Kill Bill Vol. 2 |
| 2012- Django Unchained |
| 2012- The Avengers |
| 2015- The Hateful Eight |
IMHO,1994 is a robbery.He deserved the best supporting actor oscar.
Let’s not get too hasty here, I see that maybe Jackson was slightly more deserving, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a robbery; Martin Landau is truly transcendent in Ed Wood. It’s lightyears beyond these Oscar bait celebrity impersonations; he makes Bela Lugosi both uproariously funny (the octopus scene, for instance) and astoundingly humane and poignant (the scene where he nearly attempts suicide, then checks into rehab) on top of landing the accent and mannerisms perfectly.
I think that 1994 is just one the best years for supporting performances: Jackson, Willis and Turman in Pulp Fiction, Landau in Ed Wood and Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption make for a great collection of performances.
I will also like to mention Gary Oldman in Leon The Professional and Jean-Louis Trintignant in Red.
Top 10 Tarantino Characters
1. Jules Winnfield
2. The Bride
3. Jackie Brown
4. Hans Landa
5. Vince Vega
6. Django Freeman
7. Mr. Pink
8. Mia Wallace
9. Cliff Booth
10. The Wolf