Guy Pearce’s 10 best movies, ranked
The Australian actor's Oscar nomination for his role in 'The Brutalist' is long overdue. Though if you've just been introduced to his genius, we take a look at some of his best films to date
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THE TIME IS NOW, the Pearcenaissance is happening. Guy Pearce has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing the un-redeeming Van Buren patriarch in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. Pearce’s biggest contenders are Kieren Culkin for A Real Pain and Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice. Shockingly (at least to those who’ve known and loved his work for years), this is the Australian actor’s first Academy Award nomination.
Prior to starring across from Adrien Brody in the three-hour long post-war epic, Pearce’s career has earned him critical acclaim for roles that require a deft hand at exploring moral grey area. Taking into account only his films, the Aussie actor has been nominated in all major award precursors for his roles in The King’s Speech and L.A. Confidential. His TV resume is worth a check out too; he earned a Daytime Emmy nomination last year for guest starring on, of course, Neighbours. Awards are just awards, though. A great supporter of local cinema, Pearce has starred in countless Australian productions, famously in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Proposition. The man’s got range.
If you’ve just been introduced to his genius with The Brutalist, take this list as a guide to the Guy Pearce film galaxy.
10. The Count of Monte Cristo, 2002
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those early 2000s films that assembles an international Anglophone cast to play British roles. In the classic tale of Aussie actor heading to England, Pearce plays Fernand Mondego, the antagonist to Jim Caviezel’s Edmond Dantès. By the time of the film’s release, Pearce had already established himself at home and in the US movie business, but Monte Cristo feels more like a side quest.
9. Animal Kingdom, 2010
In Animal Kingdom, Pearce plays a cop’s cop named Leckie. When the case of Joshua Cole (James Frecheville), a young boy who’s been taken in by his extended family who are involved in various criminal activities, comes across his desk, Leckie becomes attached and tries to get Joshua away from their influence. The Australian drama is one of Pearce’s more earnest roles, acting alongside Ben Mendelsohn and Joel Edgerton in the local project, which has gone on to earn cult status.
8. Lawless, 2012
One of Pearce’s truly villainous roles, he plays the brutal and vain US Marshal Charlie Rakes. Set in 1930s Virginia, Rakes is beautifully fashioned in gloves, suits and bowties, and a meticulously kempt middle part. He’s very soignée; handy with a gun and quick with his beatdowns. Pearce is clearly fascinated with exploring this interiority which he’s visited time and time again.
7. L.A. Confidential, 1994
Naturally for a movie set in Hollywood, L.A. Confidential not only introduced Pearce to the North American continent, but also his co-lead (and good friend) Russell Crowe. The two actors effectively paved the way for more Aussie actors to make the journey to Hollywood. In the neo-noir set in the early 1950s, Pearce plays the ambitious sergeant Edmund Exley, who lives in the shadow of his famous detective father, as he undertakes a major homicide case to put the city’s Police Department back in the public’s good graces.
6. The Rover, 2014
The Australian outback is often portrayed as a lawless wasteland; an undesirable part of the country compared to its shimmering harbour cities. How about turning that perception up a dial? The Rover, which takes place a decade after the world’s economic collapse, turns this what-if into a high melodrama starring Pearce as Eric, a bitter former Australian soldier, and Robert Pattinson as Rey, a ne’er-do-well. The two become unlikely travel companions after Rey and his brother, Henry (Scoot McNary), steal Eric’s car. For the role, Pearce earned an AACTA nomination for Best Lead Actor.
5. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is Guy Pearce’s breakout role. Playing Adam Whitely/Felicia Jollygoodfellow, a young gay man coming to terms with doing drag in a conservative society, Pearce saw the role as having the potential to create a positive impact on the queer community in the 1990s. The movie follows Adam and Anthony ‘Tick’ Belrose/Mitzi Del Bra make the journey to remote Alice Springs for a drag performance. As you can imagine, all manner of high-jinks ensues.
4. The Proposition, 2005
In the great tradition of the Australian western, Pearce is a great supporter of the genre. The Proposition sees Pearce play bushranger Charlie Burns, who’s ordered to find and kill his older brother. Clearly having a knack for exploring the moral grey area, The Proposition is a great place to start with his filmography.
3. The King’s Speech, 2010
Pearce nailed the petulance and flamboyance of King Edward VIII, bringing a fresh take to the portrayal. The movie follows the months after the Edward VIII’s abdication, where Colin Firth’s George VI (Elizabeth II’s father) would make his ascension. Pearce and Firth brought real and relatable fraternity to their roles, brawling it out with words (these are royals, after all), taking a stab at each other with their sharpest insults. While Firth took home the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar in 2011, Pearce, shockingly, wasn’t even nominated. The film won Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, though, securing Pearce his only accolade for the role.
2. The Brutalist, 2024
What Pearce has been able to bring to his characters over the course of his career is a hidden vulnerability – a somewhat tricky balancing act for others. We see Pearce in the Brady Corbet-directed movie as the morally ambiguous Harrison Van Buren. Van Buren is a keen patron of Adrien Brody‘s László Tóth, who emigrated to Pennsylvania from Hungary after the Holocaust. Van Buren is the key to Tóth’s American dream, and he dangles the carrot and exploits Tóth’s desires and creativity. A parochial Pennsylvanian, Van Buren takes Tóth in, parading him around at dinner parties like a newly acquired taxidermy. In a film of this magnitude, an epic in every sense, Pearce secured his first ever Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.
1. Memento, 2000
Many – this title included – think of Pearce’s performance in Memento as his best. Pearce is not one of them. In an interview with The Times, the actor hasn’t been able to shake off just how bad he thought his performance was in the Christopher Nolan-directed flick. “I watched Memento the other day and I’m still depressed. I’m shit in that movie,” he said. “I know why I didn’t work with Chris again – it’s because I’m no good in Memento.” But the nominations he earned on the critics awards circuit say otherwise. He won Best Actor at the San Diego Film Critics Society for his role in the neo-noir psychological thriller.
Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, an insurance investigator with short-term memory loss on a relentless hunt for his wife’s killer. His search proves fruitful at every turn with every new lead, but just before he forgets, he writes himself lies. With the film’s technical non-linear structure, the movie continues to be a fan-favourite for Pearce’s nuanced performance given the complex subject matter. Try as he might to disagree, Memento is Pearce’s best movie in our books.
Has Guy Pearce ever been nominated for an Oscar?
Believe it not, Guy Pearce has only been nominated for an Oscar once, for his role in The Brutalist. Playing the unredeeming and parochial Harrison Van Buren, Pearce secured a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the role.
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