George Clooney is one of the most outspoken personalities in entertainment today. His activism, on and off screen, gains him widespread attention.
George Clooney is one of the most outspoken personalities in the entertainment world, and one of the highest-profile stars as well. His activism, on and off screen, earns him widespread attention, and his marriage to human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin is often the subject of gossip in Hollywood trade publications and inner circles.
As an actor, Clooney is arguably the best example of one who rose to motion picture stardom after first earning fame on a television series, having portrayed maverick pediatrician Dr. Doug Ross in the first five seasons of ER. Between seasons, Clooney made a name for himself starring in several hit films before switching to big screen roles full time with 2000's The Perfect Storm. Reviewers on Letterboxd have assembled the 10 best films starring Clooney over the past 25 years.
Matt King (Clooney) becomes distraught when his wife is rendered comatose by a horrific boating accident. Facing the reality of becoming a widow, he is faced with managing a substantial amount of Hawaiian real estate the family holds in trust. Soon, he is bombarded with advice for and against selling the property.
The Descendants is not for the faint of heart, and George Clooney delivers a cold, authentic portrayal of a father of two girls having no guidance as to how to move on from the tragedy. However, the film does feature some of the most beautiful scenery of the Hawaiian Islands ever filmed.
Ryan Bingham (Clooney) has enjoyed a career of living out of a suitcase for Career Transitional Counseling as he travels the country firing random strangers from their jobs. When Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a young enthusiastic associate, pitches an idea that would downsize Bingham, he invites her on his next assignment in hopes of not only convincing her of his worth but also preserving his ten million frequent flyer miles benefit.
Jason Reitman's dark comedy from 2009 is especially relevant today because of the covid-19 pandemic that has forced many companies to rethink their approach to their employees with the popularity of working from home thanks to modern technology increasing. Clooney's performance, along with Kendrick's, highlight distinct differences between older and younger generational workplace styles.
Two gym managers come into the possession of classified information courtesy of former CIA operative Oswald Cox and attempt to blackmail him. When Oz won't play ball, Linda and Chad try their luck at the Russian embassy. Meanwhile, Harry (Clooney), is having an affair with Mrs. Cox and becomes intertwined with the scheme resulting in its unraveling and one of the managers' untimely death.
Burn After Reading was George Clooney's second outing with the Coen brothers and they cooked up a strange yet comedic set of circumstances for the ensemble characters to traverse. Clooney played a lustful government official desperate to dump his children's book author wife. He often employed facial expressions and mannerisms that reinforced his character's paranoid personality.
Clooney is Sgt. Major Archie Gates who teams up with Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) and Chief (Ice Cube) in pursuit of Iraqi gold hidden somewhere in the Saudi desert at the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War. Along the way, they encounter refugees fleeing Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard and agree to escort them in exchange for helping rescue Troy from Iraqi Intelligence.
David O' Russell's war comedy harkens back to the 1970 film Kelly's Heroes starring Clint Eastwood and Don Rickles in a squad of American soldiers sneaking off the frontlines of World War II to recover Nazi treasure. Clooney, like Eastwood, plays the opportunistic Gates with a free-spirited, "war, what is it good for?" if you can't benefit from its outcome but honors the oath he took as a soldier to defend the innocent.
Fleeing from the authorities, Seth Gecko and brother Richard, stow away with a widow and his two children aboard their RV managing to cross the US-Mexico border undetected. The Geckos find themselves at a roadside bar celebrating their escape until they discover the joint is laced with vampires.
In his first lead role, George Clooney donned the persona of an amateur bank robber partnered with, of all people, Quentin Tarantino, in a rare on-screen appearance. As Gecko, Clooney acts like a brute making vulgar threats and waving his .357 magnum but quivers at the sight of Salma Hayek and her squad of thugs with blood sucking fangs.
Edward R. Murrow's editorials during the infamous Red Scare period of the 1950s brought into the American household, recently introduced to television, nightly commentary on the virtue of Senator Joe McCarthy's hearings on communism infiltrating free society. Clooney functioned in a supporting role as Murrow's executive producer, Fred Friendly.
Clooney directed and starred in this examination of the CBS News' anchor as a tribute to his father, Nick Clooney, also a news anchor from his home state of Kentucky. Clooney took a back seat to David Strathairn in the lead role of Morrow but accomplished his objective of bringing the importance of old-school journalism to light in his directorial debut.
Clooney plays burnt out former prosecutor Michael Clayton for the prestigious law firm Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen. When one of their senior attorneys, Arthur Edens, has a meltdown during a deposition, Clayton is dispatched to handle the situation. In his delirium, Edens warns Clayton that their client, a chemical company their defending from a $3 billion judgment is determined to win the case by any means necessary.
Michael Clayton is an underrated neo-noir suspense thriller with elements of Alfred Hitchcock contained throughout the plot. For instance, when Clayton is nearly killed in a car bomb explosion, he can't be sure if it's the firm's client or a loan shark he owes money to much like a paranoid Cary Grant in North by Northwest convinced foreign agents believe he is a spy.
Jack Foley (Clooney) is a career thief being pursued by Federal Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). The twist is Agent Sisco and Foley are hot for each other and find themselves engrossed in their romance while Foley's criminal buddies plot their final job and Sisco's allies at the bureau grow weary of her ineffective efforts. Soon, they'll both have to choose between their careers and each other.
Out of Sight is an unconventional cat and mouse flick, based on an Elmore Leonard novel, that could pass for a rom-com. Clooney is, once again, a bank robber but this time he's charming, clean shaven and irresistible to Sisco. The unique plot point of a cop and criminal dueling with each other in private settings made this film an engaging treat and one of Clooney's best performances.
Clooney plays master thief Danny Ocean, a parolee who plots a high stakes robbery of three separate Las Vegas casinos using a boxing bout as cover. His motive is revenge for losing his wife, Tess, to gambling mogul Terry Benedict, who owns the three casinos he plans the heist for.
Clooney channels his inner Frank Sinatra from the 1960 original Ocean's 11. Together with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, Clooney became a member of an unofficial modern Rat Pack. He shined brightly in the titular role with moxy and charisma. He returned for two sequels promptly named Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In this modern adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, from the minds of the Coen Brothers, Clooney is Ulysses Everett McGill, an escaped convict in Mississippi during The Great Depression. He and two other prisoners escape a chain gang and pose as a traveling musical trio encountering various shady characters and finding themselves repeatedly in strange, stickty situations.
Although a native of Kentucky, Clooney needed to invent a deeper southern accent to pass for a drifter in the 1930s and brilliantly delivered a Golden Globe winning performance in O' Brother Where Art Thou? He did not sing as he appears to in the film. His spot-on lip syncing, however, reinforces his acting chops.
