7. "The Usual Suspects" (1995):
Who is Keyser Söze, really? If that question doesn't already sound retro to you,
we won't spoil the specific information only to say that Söze relates to a role
that won Spacey his first Oscar, and a role that, with "Se7en" (released the same
... moreyear) made the actor one of most
sought-after thespians in cinema. In Bryan Singer's breakthrough picture,
Spacey commands the screen as Roger 'Verbal' Kint, one of five suspects rounded
up and questioned by a U.S. customs agent (Chazz Palminteri). An incessant
talker and a stool pigeon with a limp, he's the guy none of the other suspects
(Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak and a wonderfully slurred Benicio Del Toro) respect, but really (and this is a
semispoiler alert here) should. In a performance of almost shape-shifting
cleverness, Spacey plays both pathetic put-upon loser and (spoiler alert)
cunning criminal mastermind with nary a trace of effort. (Gramercy/courtesy
Everett Collection)Close
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