As Al Pacino brings out his new memoir, fans will inevitably debate his greatest films. While in his memoir, Sonny Boy, the 84-year-old Oscar-winner credits The Godfather, Frances Ford Coppola’s epic mafia movie, with making his name, his number one film, at least according to many fans, myself included, might come as a surprise…
10. Serpico
This 1973 cop drama directed by the late, great Sidney Lumet saw Pacino as Frank Serpico, a painfully honest New York cop who blows the whistle on corruption within the force. The result? He is abused, ostracised and his life threatened. Gripping, depressing and utterly brilliant, this was Pacino spreading his acting wings and flying.
He won the Golden Globe as Best Film Drama Actor for his performance, yet lost (yet another) Best Actor Oscar, one of a total of nine Academy Award nominations for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor during his career, to Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger.
(Image: Paramount Pictures)
9. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
A great ensemble cast helped make Quentin Tranatino’s comedy-drama take on Hollywood and the Manson murders one of the hits of 2019. Pacino plays casting agent Marvin Schwarz who encourages Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading TV star Rick Dalton to move to Italy to appear in Spaghetti Westerns.
His screen time might be short, but even alongside an all-star cast with some of the best of the next generation, including Brad Pittt, Margot Robbie, Timothy Olyphant and Austin Butler, Pacino knocks it out of the park.
(Image: Sony Pictures)
7. The Irishman
Were it not for the staggeringly high calibre of Pacino’s performances over the course of his 50-plus year career, 2019’s The Irishman would undoubtedly feature higher. Based on Charles Brandt’s 2004 book, I Heard You Paint Houses, chronicling the life of Frank Sheeran, an alleged mafia hitman, Pacino stars opposite Robert De Niro playing Sheeran as (spoiler alert) the ultimately doomed Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Director Martin Scorsese used state-of-the-art technology to de-age his two leading men for the three-and-a-half hour gangster epic. A typically brilliant, scenery-chewing turn.
(Image: Netflix)
6. Glengarry Glen Ross
The ultimate ensemble movie, written by and based on David Mamet’s play of the same name, Pacino stars alongside the likes of Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pruyce and Jack Lemmon as the top performing real-estate salesman in an under-pressure office. Alec Baldwin plays Blake, sent by corporate bosses to shake-up the team.
Monologue-heavy, with some of cinema’s biggest beasts competing for attention, Pacino nevertheless shines as Richard Roma. The role garnered Pacino yet another Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars. He was beaten by Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwiod’s Unforgiven but the disappointment was probably saved by his winning the Best Actor OScar for Scent of a Woman.
(Image: New Line Cinema)
