Since Gary Oldman was recently knighted, I wanted to do a celebratory post for one my long-time favorite actors and list 10 of my favorite performances from him.

1. Sirius Black – Harry Potter (2004, 2005, 2007, 2011)
   • A lot of you will probably be upset that this is so low, but that has less to do with Oldman’s performance and more with the fact that I dislike Harry Potter (not a big fan of wizard stuff in general, actually). However, Gary still does a great job as Sirius, an English Gryffindor-affiliated wizard and (shockingly for an Oldman character) is one of the good guys. Even though by his own estimation in interviews that his acting here isn’t up to par with the rest of his career, he’s still an absolutely iconic character and I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing the role.
2. Mason Verger – Hannibal (2001)
   • This is Oldman’s most unrecognizable role, as the maimed and disfigure victim of Hannibal Lecter, the famous fictional cannibal. A deeply disturbing character, even for Oldman standards, he is almost as despicable and gruesome as Hannibal himself, even befriending Idi Amin and crucifying migrants. Nevertheless, as far as the acting went, Oldman was excellent never broke immersion.
3. Harry Truman – Oppenheimer (2023)
   • Oldman plays the US President who took over for FDR after he died during WWII, and ultimately was the one who dropped Oppenheimer’s premier invention, the first atomic bombs, on Japan. His role is very minimal, as he’s only given one scene in Nolan’s stacked 3-hour film that had just about every Hollywood actor ever in his blockbuster biopic, but he is perhaps still the best on-screen version of Truman I’ve seen to date. “Don’t let that crybaby back in here!”
4. Jim Gordon – The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005, 2008, 2012)
   • I’m not a huge Batman guy (really, he’s just a brooding rich guy in a bat suit with Spider-man’s moral code) but hey, the Nolan movies received high acclaim and they were a big reason for the superhero market that succeeded it in the next decade. And Bale and Murphy and Hardy all gave great performances, but an underrated one is Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon, a comic-favorite and one of Batman’s longest trusted allies.
5. Pontius Pilate – Jesus (1999)
   • Yes, Gary Oldman was in a Jesus movie and he played Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who oversaw Jesus’s crucifixion. His Pilate is perhaps my favorite depiction of the biblical character, who is often ambiguous in the original text. Yes, he did crucify an innocent man, but he at first wanted no part in the trial and attempted to absolve himself of the matter several times, only to acquiesce to the mob in the end. This Jesus movie added some extra non-biblical scenes to try to accentuate Pilate’s character, including a fictitious play where Oldman’s Pilate is seen arrogantly laughing at Jewish customs and people, perhaps to remind folks that Pilate was never one of the good guys, but merely an extension of Roman imperialism, classism, and self-righteous superiority.
6. Drexl Spivey – True Romance (1993)
   • True Romance is the most Quentin Tarantino-esque film that wasn’t directed by Quentin Tarantino (just written by him), but if you saw Gary Oldman’s performance in this, you would not recognize him, and if you did, you’d find him repugnant. A slumlord drug kingpin with dreadlocks, a scar on his left eye, and an absolutely sinister vibe – Oldman oozes intimidation and creepiness at once. Only a few brief scenes from him in this one, otherwise this entry would be higher up.
7. Winston Churchill – Darkest Hour (2017)
   • Now that Oldman’s played both Churchill and Truman, we need him to play Stalin so we get the full Potsdam trio! Seriously, though, Oldman’s versatility to play so many historic and powerful figures convincingly is a talent not many actors have, and he clearly shines in Darkest Hour where he won his first Oscar. Oldman undergoes a complete transformation to become the monolith that is Winston Churchill, but he’s completely in his element and is a force on screen, and captures much of Churchill’s intensity and vigor, a complete dynamo in his day as described by his peers, and exactly who the Allies and Britian needed during WWII. “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in it’s mouth!” How much the world could use some of that wisdom right now.
8. Zorg – The Fifth Element (1997)
   • What a trip this film is. Even though Oldman himself dislikes the film, I think his performance was brilliant anyway. The outfits may have been ridiculous, and his accent may have made no sense really, it’s still an adventure of a movie that wouldn’t be as complete if it didn’t have Gary Oldman. Or Bruce Willis. Or Milla Jovovich. Here, Oldman plays Zorg, an evil industrialist and mercenary leader. Zorg’s character, if anything, is a emblem of a society over reliant on its technology and gizmos to see past its own mortal flaws. Huh, isn’t that a little familiar.
9. Carnegie – The Book of Eli (2010)
   • An incredibly underrated role where Gary, of course, plays yet another villain in this post-apocalyptic epic where humanity has been pushed to the brink of barbarism. Oldman’s character is baron-like, hence the not-so-subtle name Carnegie, but he is also painstakingly paranoid. When Denzel Washington’s character Eli comes into his town with one of the last remaining Bibles in the world, Carnegie realizes he can use the power of religion to control the masses, and he throws all of his men and resources into pursuit of Eli, only to recover the Bible and realize it was in Braille, and Eli was blind all along. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have what you want so close, and it might as well be a million miles away.”
10. Norman Stansfield – Léon: The Professional (1994)
    • This is perhaps the most distinctive and vintage Oldman character, and also the most quotable. “I like these calm little moments before the storm, it reminds me of Beethoven.” What should have been Oldman’s Oscar moment, but I digress, his performance as the corrupt, drug-abusing, and fairly psychotic DEA agent Norman Stansfield is about as antagonistic as it gets. Stansfield’s character represented everything wrong with the New York police department at the time, and perhaps the war on drugs as a whole, and overdramatic as he may have been, he was simply frightening on screen. Fun fact, did you guys know Oldman’s famous “EVERYTHING!” line was actually improvised in an attempt to make director Luc Besson laugh?

One of the most versatile actors ever, some even claim him to be one of the greatest ever because of his range and diversity across roles, and he really never misses. Sometimes accused of overacting like some of his peers (*ahem* Nicolas Cage) however it’s much to Gary’s strength than anything. I’d much rather see an actor put in effort than to see an ultimately flat performance. Thank God that the world of cinema has an actor like Gary Oldman.