5 Best Movies to Watch by Alan Cumming

Staff & contributors

It’s bold to make a film about a legendary icon of cinema, but it’s even bolder to make one about Orson Welles. Best known for making Citizen Kane (universally agreed upon as one of the best movies ever made), Orson Welles is the renegade filmmaker whose works and techniques form the foundation of modern narrative filmmaking today. In his eyes, he asserts that the best films are made by accident. However, armed with archival footage and interviews with those closest to Welles, director Morgan Neville dares to question one of cinema’s biggest geniuses by examining the production of his last unfinished film, the Hollywood satire The Other Side of the Wind. While Welles was undeniably genius - able to inscrutably visualize a film without scripts - it’s easy to see how his tendency to stoke conflict for art could be so self-destructive. This film presents Welles as he is - both a cinema maverick and also an overly demanding artistic tyrant.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Alan Cumming, Andrés Vicente Gómez, Cameron Mitchell, Cybill Shepherd, Danny Huston, Dennis Hopper, Dominique Antoine, Frank Marshall, Gary Graver, George Stevens Jr., Henry Jaglom, Jeanne Moreau, John Huston, Joseph Cotten, Joseph McBride, Keith Baxter, Larry Jackson, Michael Fitzgerald, Neil Canton, Norman Foster, Oja Kodar, Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Jason, Rich Little, Robert Random, Simon Callow, Steve Ecclesine, Yves Deschamps

Director: Morgan Neville

Rating: TV-MA

While writing the classic novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens was also writing Nicholas Nickleby, with volumes released every month. His third novel was adapted in 2002 in a film adaptation that smooths out Dickens’ elaborate plot, with beautiful sets and costumes, and the classic good vs evil themes the classic novelist is known for. There’s a bit of a mismatch with Charlie Hunnam as the titular protagonist, but the rest of the cast slips into their characters well, most notably Christopher Plummer as the incredibly stingy uncle Ralph, and Jamie Bell, whose rendition of Smike makes his dynamic with Nickleby compelling. Nicholas Nickleby isn’t the most transformative adaptation, but it’s one that still works, especially for young viewers wanting a simplified plot for their book reports.

Genre: Adventure, Drama

Actor: Alan Cumming, Andrew Havill, Angela Curran, Angus Wright, Anne Hathaway, Barry Humphries, Bruce Cook, Charlie Hunnam, Christopher Plummer, Daisy Haggard, David Bradley, Edward Fox, Edward Hogg, Eileen Walsh, Gerard Horan, Hugh Mitchell, Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson, Kevin McKidd, Lucy Davis, Mark Wells, Nathan Lane, Nicholas Rowe, Phil Davis, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Romola Garai, Sophie Thompson, Stella Gonet, Timothy Spall, Tom Courtenay, William Ash

Director: Douglas McGrath

Rating: PG

In Marlowe, Liam Neeson joins the lofty lineup of actors who have stepped into the shoes of Raymond Chandler's titular detective, famously played by Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Elliott Gould. These are big boots to fill — and, if you’ve been paying attention to Neeson’s career over the last decade or so, you’ll be aware that he hasn’t exactly been stretching himself, dramatically speaking.

But Marlowe is something of a happy anomaly in Neeson’s filmography, because it has more than just adrenaline-pumping ambitions. Written by director Neil Jordan (of Michael Collins fame) and William Monahan (the screenwriter behind The Departed), the 1930s Hollywood-set plot is steeped in noir’s characteristic cynicism, giving it the seductive pull of that well-loved genre. It’s true that a not insignificant portion of the dialogue is so hard-boiled you can see the cracks — a clunkiness that’s repeated in a couple of the phoned-in supporting performances and the movie’s awkward action sequences. However, with a couple of bright spots in the starry cast, handsome production values, and a labyrinthine plot that just about passes muster as homage and not muddle, there are enough noir trappings here to keep the movie slinking along well enough, even if it ultimately isn't nearly as memorable as Marlowe’s previous screen incarnations.

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alan Cumming, Alan Moloney, Colm Meaney, Daniela Melchior, Danny Huston, Darrell D'Silva, Diane Kruger, François Arnaud, Gary Anthony Stennette, Ian Hart, Jessica Lange, Julius Cotter, Kim DeLonghi, Liam Neeson, Mark Schardan, Michael Garvey, Minnie Marx, Mitchell Mullen, Patrick Muldoon, Roberto Peralta, Seána Kerslake, Stella Stocker, Tony Corvillo

Director: Neil Jordan

Rating: R