There are few actors as iconic as Al Pacino. Ever since New Hollywood roles like Michael Corleone and Frank Serpico made him one of the most recognizable movie stars in the world, every prolific director has wanted to work with Pacino. In the ‘70s, Pacino got his start under the direction of such legendary filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet.
In the decades since, Pacino has worked with just about every acclaimed director in the industry, from Martin Scorsese to Ridley Scott to Michael Mann to Quentin Tarantino.
Oliver Stone is both an acclaimed filmmaker and a controversial political figure. He directed a movie about the Kennedy assassination, a trilogy about the Vietnam War (in which he served), and a satirical thriller about a pair of Bonnie and Clyde-style killers-in-love who amass a celebrity following.
Pacino played a coach in one of Stone’s least politically charged movies, Any Given Sunday, an ensemble drama about the world of professional American football.
From Robert De Niro to Pam Grier to Brad Pitt to Margot Robbie, many iconic actors have jumped at the opportunity to work with Quentin Tarantino and deliver his idiosyncratic dialogue. Pacino appeared in Tarantino’s sun-drenched ‘60s-set opus Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Marvin Schwarz, the agent who informs Rick Dalton that he’s a has-been.
Pacino gives a delightfully eccentric performance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, delivering all the crucial exposition that sets up Rick’s existential crisis throughout the movie.
William Friedkin is one of the most acclaimed genre directors of the New Hollywood movement. He revolutionized the police noir with the gritty realism and ambiguous ethics of The French Connection, then revolutionized horror cinema with the relentless supernatural terror of The Exorcist.
Pacino starred in one of Friedkin’s most controversial films (which is saying a lot, because almost all of his films have garnered controversy). Cruising is a gruesome neo-noir thriller about a serial killer who targets gay men.
After Memento put him on the map but before his Batman trilogy made him a modern legend, Christopher Nolan helmed the underappreciated crime thriller Insomnia.
A remake of the 1997 Norwegian movie of the same name, Insomnia stars Pacino as a detective opposite an uncharacteristically cold Robin Williams as a sadistic killer.
From space-bound haunted house chiller Alien to futuristic sci-fi noir Blade Runner to action-packed swords-and-sandals epic Gladiator, Ridley Scott has directed some of the greatest movies ever made across a wide variety of styles and genres. His work has been consistently acclaimed for almost half a century.
The director’s most recent film, House of Gucci, is a stylish true-crime drama evoking the dark humor and soundtrack needle-drops of Scorsese’s work. Pacino gives one of the film’s most memorable performances as overinvolved uncle Aldo Gucci.
Michael Mann paired up Pacino with Robert De Niro for the first time. The Godfather Part II featured both actors in separate timelines, but they first appeared on-screen together in Mann’s beautifully intense cat-and-mouse thriller Heat. Pacino plays Vincent Hanna, the detective chasing De Niro’s notorious bank robber.
The director reunited with Pacino for the true-life thriller The Insider. Pacino plays Lowell Bergman, the real-life investigative journalist who teamed up with a tobacco industry whistleblower.
From his terrifying, tautly constructed Stephen King adaptation Carrie to his post-Watergate paranoid political thriller Blow Out, Brian De Palma has directed some of the most acclaimed movies ever made. He was hailed as New Hollywood’s answer to Hitchcock.
De Palma cast Pacino in one of his most iconic roles as drug lord Tony Montana in Scarface. A few years later, they reunited for Carlito’s Way (the Casino to Scarface’s Goodfellas).
Sidney Lumet is one of the visionary filmmakers responsible for honing the groundbreaking edge, challenging storytelling, and documentary-like realism that defined the classics of the American cinema of the 1970s.
He cast Pacino to play two quintessential New Hollywood antiheroes based on real people: Serpico’s Frank Serpico, the grizzled cop targeting corruption in his own workforce, and Dog Day Afternoon’s Sonny Wortzik, a first-time bank robber with a sympathetic motivation.
Martin Scorsese wanted to work with Pacino for a while before they finally collaborated on The Irishman in 2019. The two discussed many unrealized projects over the years, but their eventual team-up was well worth the wait.
Pacino’s unforgettably offbeat turn as union boss Jimmy Hoffa was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. He played Hoffa across several decades, with the help of de-aging CG effects.
When Pacino was a renowned stage actor with a little indie film cred, Francis Ford Coppola gave him the star-making role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy. The Godfather became the highest-grossing movie of all time and catapulted Pacino to the top of the Hollywood A-list.
Michael is a quintessential antihero. He’s a wayward war veteran whose mob boss father wants to keep him out of the illegal family business. As the Corleone saga unfolds, Michael’s humanity is chipped away and he becomes every bit the uncompromising sadist that his father was.
