With a wonderful career spanning many decades in the spotlight, Val Kilmer has embodied the brilliance of American cinema with consummate professionalism and an ability to deliver a wide variety of roles, whether in action-heavy blockbusters or independent movies.
It’s hard to look beyond Kilmer’s impressive effort as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors, but he has also come through with the acting good in the likes of Heat, Tombstone, The Saint and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a testament to his sheer prowess as a Hollywood legend.
With such a long and rich history in the movie industry, Kilmer has been well-placed to offer his judgments on the productions that have come out since he arrived on the scene, and when he appeared in an AMA session on Reddit, he named his favourite movies of the 2010s.
Kilmer began with the 2016 coming-of-age drama Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. Starring Trevante Rhodes and Mahershala Ali, the film tells of three stages of the main character’s life: childhood, adolescence and early adulthood and dives into the issues of sexuality, identity and abuse he faces.
“I’m not gay and I’m not black, my mom wasnt a drug addict but I sure have a feeling for that quiet kid in the corner now,” Kilmer noted. “You never know someone’s story. We are all much more delicate than we act. I love how he became this jailbird heavy armed tough guy, in an hour… Film can really educate us.”
The neo-western crime film Hell or High Water, directed by David Mackenzie and starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster, is another of Kilmer’s recent favourites. He called it “a classic story. Extremely economic. Really well acted and shot and directed and edited. Great soundtrack. Great surprise.”
Elsewhere, Kilmer admitted his love for the 2016 Gareth Edwards film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first instalment of the Star Wars anthology series, which also serves as a prequel to the first movie in the franchise from 1977. Starring Felicity Jones, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker, the film tells of a group of rebels who plan to steal the plans for the Death Star.
Michael Keaton’s performance in the 2016 film The Founder, in which he plays Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, also drew admiration from Kilmer, as did Natalie Portman’s in Jackie, where she portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy and was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award.
Val Kilmer’s favourite movies of the 2010s:
- Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
- Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie, 2015
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, 2016)
- The Founder (John Lee Hancock, 2016)
- Jackie (Pablo Larrain, 2016)