top 100 hackman moments!

7. "It's not that I don't trust you, Otis but...well, actually, I don't trust you!" - Superman (1 or 2? I forget)

8) The "Coltrane" incident in _The Royal Tennenbaums_

Miss Teschmacher: "I have an aunt that lives there!"

Lex Luthor: (looks at watch, shakes head)

(Also, he's pretty good in the washroom scene in that movie. Call that 13a?)

yeah i'd forgotten misissipi burning.

(Danny Glover was much nicer to him)

x-post

(From Heist. He's mint in the rest of the movie too.)

29. Getting shot up in Bonnie & Clyde

30. All of the moves with the hat in "The French Connection".

44. The scene where he wakes up from being drugged in the Cayman Islands in The Firm. He knows he's dead, and he just doesn't give a shit. Classic Hackman.

45. His desparate chasing of the boat at the end of The French Connection II

46. "Lowes - let's build something together."

ooh we're almost halfway there!

47. that bit in the board games room in '... tenenbaums' with ben stiller where he tells him he thinks he's having a nervous breakdown

48. the montage of the day out with the kids to the soundtrack of paul simon also from '... tenenbaums'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLNH1ULIKIU

I thought how the hell could he be 88 but then looked it up and he was 41 in The French Connection. Anyone read any of his novels?

88-Year-Old Gene Hackman Buys an E-Bike and Is Ready to Shred https://t.co/uSYFkE3Fvo pic.twitter.com/RCWbfSdPI8

— Cinephilia & Beyond (@LaFamiliaFilm) January 30, 2018

he looks fantastic!

i admire that when he retired, he really retired. just dropped from the public eye altogether (although he was always a very private person even at the height of his fame).

just dropped from the public eye altogether

He's written five novels, four of them since retiring from acting. He does book signings and stuff like that.

90! Today!

Coincidentally, I saw Under Fire on Amazon again on Sunday, one of my favorite political thrillers (if muddled; what else is new).

The entire Civil Defense movie he was in (an excerpt is linked above) is on YouTube now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwXE568WnXg

I own The Conversation, Heist, Prime Cut, Night Moves and Unforgiven; should maybe re-watch one of them.

Xp I’ve still never seen Under Fire.

According to the recent Wes Anderson episode of the Adam Buxton podcast he was not so much fun to actually work with on Tenenbaums; it was worth it though.

Wes Anderson promised a reluctant Hackman that it'd be fun. It wasn't fun and Hackman reminded him if his promise.

⭐️Happy 93rd Birthday to Gene Hackman! The brilliant Academy Award-winning actor was born on this day in 1930⭐️

"He's the quintessential movie actor. He's never showy ever, but he's always right on." - Director Alan Parker pic.twitter.com/s2AL3pDZpY

— Gene Siskel Film Center (@filmcenter) January 30, 2023

https://x.com/awardsconnect/status/1777816938179166301?s=46&t=bJOqpCuQneT7ju08y55VSA

the hard smile and twinkle eye whenever he just wants costner, cruise, any other young buck he just wishes would take his swing, to sweat

wears it through the entirety of the impromptu redneck bar scene in Mississippi Burning ofc

He played me in The Royal Tenenbaums, wish I'd picked up the lesson at the time

“I don’t deserve this. I was building a house.”

Iconic line from Unforgiven feels a bit different today.

RIP Gene, you were one of the best.

During the Poppy Bush years he accepted a number of roles that might've been for alimony payments, stuff like The Package and Narrow Margin and a terrible thing with Mikhail Baryshnikov. He's aces in all of them.

the hard smile and twinkle eye whenever he just wants costner, cruise, any other young buck he just wishes would take his swing, to sweat

otm. This seems like the gift of many great actors, to convey so much with just a sly, almost flirtatious shift of the eyes. Like the scene in "Unforgiven," where he is challenging the journalist to a sort of duel. (Richard Harris is great in that scene, too, at depicting humiliated defeat.)

Hackman very nearly directed "The Silence of the Lambs," the current thriller starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, and Scott Glen.

"I (owned) had the rights to "Silence," Hackman says, "I sold it back to Orion. I was going to direct it. But it was too violent. " It's one thing to write it and another thing to show it on the screen. I was going to play one of the characters in the film, too. "

The way he says “sweetie, don’t be mad at me, that’s just one man’s opinion” ends me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YdMj8ocvns

xxxpost I was just thinking of "The Package." That's Andrew Davis, right as he was transitioning from action schlock to "The Fugitive."

You know somebody's great when they elevate whatever they're in, schlock or not.

Yes, The Package is the best of them. Andrew Davis knew how to edit boilerplate thrillers. Co-starring Davis favorite Tommy Lee Jones too.

The duck …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS8IPEulMp4

Also jfc The Conversation … in before Clemenza lol

not even a moment but the querulous quality of his voice whenever he raises it in volume or pitch has always been a great asset also, granted he came to prominence in his thirties anyway and probably never looked under 35 but it lent an old man crankiness to so many of his moments which was such a great contrast to two (at least) other constant characteristics

i. earthiness, realness, immediacy whatever youd call the presence of humour and gleam that always seemed close to the surface

ii. the physical threat in the way he carried his frame even when not necessarily referenced or prominent. the heft of a construction worker in his fifties

the physical threat in the way he carried his frame even when not necessarily referenced or prominent. the heft of a construction worker in his fifties

Used to such chilling effect in Unforgiven.

Absolutely. Because he is depicted as such an affable sort of gee-whiz guy, but can transform at a moment's notice to his true self, in accord with the movie's themes.

William Munny's doppelganger.

I've been watching little clips of The Quick and the Dead on the YouTube lately and I'd forgotten but he basically plays the same role as Unforgiven, (to lesser effect, in a lesser movie) iirc?

Out on a job, so just learning of this. I've got a grade 5/6 class today. Picking a clip to show them is easy: "Me and Julio" from Tenenbaums, being careful to explain that stealing and egging and walking out into traffic is generally frowned upon.

he, his wife and their dog. all three found dead upon a welfare check. wild.

Gotta be carbon monoxide.

His spluttering is A-plus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pR2i-NQCZ8

stealing and egging and walking out into traffic is generally frowned upon

"Kids, investing in real estate can be cool, using nuclear weapons to cause earthquakes to increase its value is definitely not"

His episode of Inside The Actors Studio is great.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3gkiu8

Is that the one where he breaks down remembering the dad who abandoned him?

Great little montage.

Gene Hackman has passed away at the age of 95.
Gene was one of the greatest actors of his, or anyone's generation. He was a powerhouse, as adept at comedy as he was drama. Today is a very sad day, we've lost a legend. Gene was a giant of cinema.
R.I.P Gene Hackman pic.twitter.com/iL19ky4not

— The Sting (@TheStingisBack) February 27, 2025

Is that the one where he breaks down remembering the dad who abandoned him?

Exactly. It comes about four minutes in; he talks about being down the street playing with his friends and his father drove by, waved at him, and just never came back. It's astonishing.

This guy was the only actor I've never seen give a bad performance. some of the films he was in aren't particularly good, but he was always on his game. there are so many incredible onscreen moments he's responsible for, as a flawed hero or a contemptible villain or as a hapless fool. three of his greatest films see him left in complete limbo at the end, with no easy answers available to him or the viewer -- The French Connection, The Conversation, Night Moves. He was underrated as a comic actor and he was better at it than his flashier contemporaries -- there's a scene in Get Shorty where, when finding himself alone meeting Dennis Farina's oafish gangster, he decides to follow the lead of Travolta's Chili Palmer and intimidate him, which fails in utterly spectacular fashion. He's great at playing those brutal authority figures obv but really excellent as those easily charming regular guy heroes too -- I recognize Mississippi Burning is pretty problematic but it does get by on those performances from the leads and Hackman is so good at confronting those shitkickers but even better at the storyline involving him and Frances McDormand and his efforts to lure her in as an ally and possible romantic partner. He spent a lot of time fully committed to action films as well, and not reputable ones either, I mean Uncommon Valor isn't exactly Heat or Ronin, and so many of them are the kind of films you'd not have expected him to bother with, but he was a pro and just delivered every single time. However, I'm glad The Package was mentioned, because that's a genuinely good one, a great and exciting action thriller made by a director who for awhile was incapable of directing a bad one, probably cursed by its absolutely boring title. Ultimately I think the guy made so many films so much better, and the great films he made would have perhaps been great without him, but i mean would they have been as great? he was a really comforting screen presence too, which was used to such considerable effect in Unforgiven, because he lures you in as this charming self-made man type sheriff whose surface is just pure narcissistic self-regard and self-mythologizing. it's not dissimilar to his heroic roles, it's just a flip to the dark side. such effective casting. he could have won half a dozen Oscars imo. maybe he should have.

To omar's point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O31rBYqYkuQ

"i'm sorry for your loss. your mother was a terribly attractive woman."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pOUnjJlFcQ

A fucking great Lex Luthor too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sweCgwB6z-M

“I don’t want you as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. I want you as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton.”

A weird outlier episode in a TV show that's already bonkers to begin with, Gene Hackman's last TV role was as an alien invader looking for a missing case of alien spores. It's not particularly great TV, but Hackman runs with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeqOv_HL3A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_umRYt68L4

Never forgot the ending: Invader Hackman incinerating to death as the spores begin hatching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYwSeZR_bYM

“I don’t want you as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. I want you as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton.”

So many great lines in Heist. "Is he going to shoot me? Well then he hadn't oughta point a gun at me. It's insincere."

Dan Aykroyd on FB:

Pouring two Head shots.* One in sorrow. One in celebration. For the loss and for the life and career of the great Gene Hackman. Made a D grade picture with Gene and Dom DeLuise.** We laughed together through the whole fiasco. Gene told me he only needed four instructions from directors. Louder. Softer. Faster. Slower.

*This is a plug for his Vodka line.

**Loose Cannons, 1990

Loose Cannons is one of the Hackman movies currently available on Tubi.

Full Inside the Actors Studio episode

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3gkiu8