Fin: Gene Hackman, 1930-2025

Also: The Epstein dud, Israel/Palestine at the Oscars, another (?) new Scorsese movie, the White House and the Tush Push, and more in this week’s notes column.

Ari and Uzi mourn their Pappy

We lost a giant this week, with the news that Gene Hackman had died at age 95 at his home in Sante Fe, along with his wife Betsy Arakawa. The circumstances of their deaths remain very murky at this point, so let’s talk about Hackman’s work.

Hackman appeared in about 75 movies between 1961 and his retirement in 2004. His career straddled several eras, including the New Hollywood heyday of the ‘70s and the blockbuster ‘90s.

He was in all-time classics like Bonnie and Clyde, The Conversation, The French Connection, Night Moves, Hoosiers, Unforgiven, Crimson Tide, and The Firm, often giving the best performance in the film.

As Lex Luthor in the Superman movies, Hackman essentially invented what it was to play the villain in a superhero blockbuster. He starred in Hoosiers, one of the most beloved sports movies ever made, and in the ‘90s, he excelled in studio comedies like The Birdcage and Get Shorty, two movies that each sport a half-dozen Hackman moments that I smile just thinking about.

Hackman was in so many great movies, and so many great types of movies, over such a long period, that cineastes had all sorts of answers about which of his films meant the most to them. Hackman played the villain in Michael Apted’s Extreme Measures from 1996, which happened to be the first movie I ever reviewed in print (David Morse was in that movie as well, which I mentioned when I interviewed him last year.)

But the movie I’ll always associate most with Gene Hackman is Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, from 2001, in which he played family patriarch Royal Tenenbaum in one of my favorite films of the century. In the last 25 years, there have been so many movies about a mean old asshole who, throughout the film, gets a redemption arc. Most haven’t been able to nail it, but that one did, beautifully, thanks to Hackman’s heartbreaking performance, especially in the legendary “I’ve had a rough year, dad” scene.

The Royal Tenenbaums was Hackman’s third-to-last movie, as he famously retired suddenly after 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport.

In 2015, Steven Hyden’s career summation for Grantland was so powerful that many mistakenly read it as an obituary, despite describing Hackman as “the Greatest Living American Actor.” I couldn’t even tell you who the greatest living actor is now…

I don’t make full-on Oscar predictions, but…

You can listen to this week’s episode of the Film Scribes podcast, where I hashed out every category with my colleagues Rich, Rich and Gary. For Sunday night, I stick with my rooting interests from throughout Awards season: Brutalist all the way, and anything but Emilia Perez.

I’ll discuss the Oscars and the show – good luck, Coco! – in Monday’s newsletter.