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This list was originally published on December 24, 2020.
It has been updated with subsequent roles, including his latest,Wolfs.
It didnt involve career maintenance or role selection or the potential temptations of fame.
By the time he became a star, he was ready and serious about it.
A younger actor might have bristled at Spielbergs advice; Clooney took it, absorbed it, and adjusted.
Next thing you know, the director was proven right: Clooney was indeed a movie star.
The irony was that he just needed to get old enough to feel like a throwback.
(He has also never been quite as bankable as you may think.)
Well, since he played Batman, anyway.
Wed be happy to forget about this if Clooney would let us.
33.RedSurf(1989)
Next up for Clooney: playing a street tough!
(Things dont turn out well.
)Red Surfinexplicably has Gene Simmons in it, and its as bad as you suspect it is.
It would be a while before anyone started to agree with Thomas.
Remember the ambitious guy who worked with the Coen brothers and was game for big experimental swings with Soderbergh?
Theres no sign of that guy here.
This is the sort of bored complacent old-guy performance youd expect from George Hamilton, not George Clooney.
He picked the two most old-school movie stars, Cate Blanchett and Clooney, to play the romantic leads.
(Even the poster looks likeCasablancas.)
ode to an earlier age whilealsotrying to be a modern, earnest star vehicle.
This is definitely the only movie in which Clooney wears eye black, though.
(John Krasinski and Renee Zellweger too!)
How could it miss?
Clooney would have had a real chance to be nominated for this movie.
Clooney is fine inTomorrowland, but playing an eccentric, reclusive inventor makes him look smaller rather than bigger.
He gets swept away in all the empty effects, as everyone else does.
Its clearly not one of their passion projects is what were saying.)
The officers bluster is even more pathetic in the face of what all these guys have had to endure.
Would you like to see the whole performance for yourself?
Seriously: He claimed that exact thing in his unauthorized autobiography.
Still, this is definitely the lightest, most purely enjoyable movie Clooney has ever directed.
19.From Dusk Till Dawn(1996)
How powerful wasQuentin Tarantinoin 1996?
(LikeHouse of Cards, actually.)
15.Hail, Caesar!
(2016)
Baird Whitlock is a very Clooney-ish Coen-brothers character in this affectionate send-up of 1950s Hollywood.
14.O Brother, Where Art Thou?
That applies to the performance as well.
(Hes got time to get a run in.)
And well be careful of spoilers here, but … his final scene with Pitt is truly incredible.
Clooney really felt like a Bogart-like leading man here, though he probably shouldnt try that Gloucester accent again.
So affecting is Clooney inGravitythat you feel a palpable sense of dread once he has to leave her.
Without Kowalskis guidance and experience, can this rookie survive the ordeal on her own?
8.Up in the Air(2009)
Clooney would have worked well in the 80s.
Cant you just see a younger version of him making a goodBonfire of the Vanitieslead?
For perhaps understandable reasons, this isnt a movie Clooney talks about much these days.
But its crucial in his early development as a star.
(And heavy: He gained 30 pounds for the film.)
And he said, Dont worry about it, lets just go make the movie and have some fun!
(Long before they go to bed together, you know theyre destined to.)
