Best Tommy Lee Jones Movies, Ranked | Pretty Reel

Tommy Lee Jones is a well known and respected actor and director who has been in the business for many years. He was a football star during his college days, but instead of embarking on a sports career, he moved to New York and started acting instead, where he made his Broadway debut. The first movie role he landed, playing a college student in Love Story, was coincidentally written with Jones as the inspiration for his character.

As he began to earn nominations for his performances, Jones became a more popular and recognizable actor. His career began to pick up and he starred in many successful films which cemented him as an iconic actor. Throughout his career, he has acted in many action films, but he has not limited himself to these, sometimes taking roles in political films or dark dramas, quite dramatic as well, and directing even a handful of excellent films, including the three great films The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Sunset Limited and The Homesman. No matter what he starred in, however, he fully embraced his role and directed many memorable films.

7 The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Sony Pictures Classics

The Three Melquiades Estrada Burials are inspired in part by the real-life murder of a teenager in Texas and in part by Faulkner’s famous novel As I Lay Dying. Estrada works in Texas as a cowboy and kills a nearby coyote before entering his herd of goats. Norton, a nearby Border Patrol officer, mistakes the shot for an attack and shoots Estrada, killing him. Instead of reporting this and getting in trouble, Norton buries the body to hide the evidence. His body is later found and reburied at a local cemetery, but evidence that Border Patrol may have killed him is ignored by the sheriff. Peter Perkins, having discovered that Norton killed his friend, kidnaps Norton and forces him to accompany him on the trip as he takes Estrada’s body to be buried in his hometown.

Jones has two roles in this film: not only does he play the role of Perkins, but he is also the director of the film. He knows exactly how to play the role of the vengeful friend who doesn’t really care what happens to his captive and is just looking to fulfill his friend’s dying wish. At the Cannes Film Festival, where the film debuted, Jones won Best Actor, with his film nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or. The film remains a masterful example of neo-Western film and is still hauntingly tense to this day.

6 Lincoln

Walt Disney Studios movies

The historical drama Lincoln is a biographical film about the last four months of President Lincoln’s life. It is loosely based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, a biography written by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The last four months of Lincoln’s life were perhaps among the most significant and memorable moments of his presidency, besides the Emancipation Proclamation. As the Civil War draws to a close, Lincoln fears that the return of the Confederate States will mean they ignore his proclamation, so he hopes to have it passed as the Thirteenth Amendment before that happens.

The film recounts the difficulties Lincoln faced in attempting to abolish slavery in the country. Jones plays Thaddeus Stevens, a supporting role in the House of Representatives. Stevens represents a critical moment in the House debate, as he argues for the amendment as the Confederates are about to discuss peace terms, the last moment Lincoln will have to push the amendment through without them. Jones picks up the slack and delivers that crucial speech in unforgettable fashion. He received Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Satellite Awards.

5 Coal Miner’s Daughter

Universal images

Another biopic, Coal Miner’s Daughter is also something of a musical, telling the story of country music singer Loretta Lynn. From her early teens, the film shows how she started out in a poor family with several siblings and got married at the age of 15. At 19, she is already a mother of four children and has started singing occasionally in local honky-tonks. and radio stations on weekends. Norm Burley, owner of the Zero Records label, hears Loretta sing during one of her radio appearances and gives her and her husband the money they need to travel to Los Angeles, where a demo of his first single is performed. They plan to go on a promotional tour to break the record, but tragedy strikes, fame knocks, and life gets hectic.

Jones plays Doolittle Lynn, Loretta Lynn’s husband. As someone there to support Lynn and bring tough issues into her life, Jones shows us how the two can still work side by side and really brings out the sides of who Doolittle was as a person. He’s sultry but also firm here, where he also earned his first Golden Globe nomination with his performance.

4JFK

Warner Bros.

JFK is a political conspiracy-theory thriller examining the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and his alleged cover-up through the eyes of former District Attorney Jim Garrison, adapted from the books On the Trail of the Assassins and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. After Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of a police officer and is also suspected of being Kennedy’s assassin, he is killed. Jim Garrison and his team begin to investigate possible links to the JFK assassination in New Orleans, but the feds reprimand the investigation and it is closed.

Years later, he reopens it after reading the Warren Report, believing it to contain multiple inaccuracies. Now he is once again trying to see if he can find out what really happened, believing Oswald to have been framed by the government. Jones plays Clay Shaw, the person Garrison’s investigation leads him to and who he attempts to bring to justice for the actual murder. With the way Jones played Shaw, it’s impossible to tell if he was truly guilty or not, regardless of the court’s final verdict. With surprising flamboyance and an eerie Southern charm, I’m an endlessly interesting character to whom Jones brings great depth. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars and BAFTAs.

3 men in black

Sony Pictures release

Men In Black could very well be one of Jones’ most iconic films. The Men in Black is a secret government organization created after first contact with extraterrestrials in the 1960s. They keep tabs on extraterrestrial activity on Earth because the public does not know, and should not know, that it there are aliens hidden among them, disguised as humans. Agent J is recruited by the Men in Black as a new member, and together with his partner, Agent K, they investigate an alien accident in upstate New York. There they find a hostile creature searching for something he and his race can use to put an end to another alien race, and they must try to stop it before it’s too late.

Jones plays Agent K, the seasoned officer tested with the new. He comes across as a tough, aloof guy, but Jones shows us he still has a soft side as he cares about Agent J’s well-being. He received a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Satellite Awards. .

2 The Fugitive

Warner Bros.

The action-thriller The Fugitive is based on the 1960s TV series of the same name, but it’s so much more realistic and tense than that show. Chicago surgeon Richard Kimble returns home to find his wife has been fatally injured by an intruder with a prosthetic arm. After struggling with his killer, he loses and the killer escapes, leaving little evidence behind. The evidence they had, however, wrongly incriminated Kimble as the murdered, who is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. He and his fellow inmates attempt to escape as they are transported to death row, and although they do not all make it out alive, Kimble survives the escape attempt and manages to escape as well. the police, returning to Chicago in order to track down the real murderer, take his revenge and clear his name.

Jones plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, who can be seen as an antagonist in the film. He spends his time chasing after Kimble after his escape, trying to stop him once again. It’s a complicated role, chasing down the man you learn is trying to prove his innocence, but Jones doesn’t hesitate and brings his A-game to the screen. He won the Oscar and Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the same award at the BAFTAs.

1 No country for old people

Miramax Movies

No Country For Old Men is a neo-western based on a book of the same name. It follows the stories of three men whose lives intersect: Llewelyn Moss, a veteran, Anton Chigurh, a hitman, and Ed Tom Bell, a sheriff. Moss is hunting in the desert when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, with several dead men and a two million dollar briefcase. He takes the money for himself, but is quickly chased, suddenly on the run in an attempt to keep the money. Chigurh is hired to retrieve the money now that Moss has it, by searching for it in the currently abandoned house. This break-in catches Bell’s attention and leads him to follow the trail as well.

Jones plays Bell, the sheriff trying to put the pieces of the crime back together. Although his story seems overshadowed by Moss and Chigurh, there’s a solid argument to be made that Jones is actually the film’s centerpiece, not just in a dramatic sense but also thematically and ethically, something the end of No Country For Old Men makes it a bit clear. Jones still does a phenomenal job of showing an honest cop struggling and unable to understand and stop the violent crimes he suddenly seems surrounded by. He truly is one of the countryless “old men” here, and his melancholy, slightly humorous, and harsh performance is just spot on. He won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor.