As an actor, George C. Scott was a lot of things, but subtle was not one of those things. He chewed scenery arguably before it was cool, or maybe right around the start of it being cool. His first big roles do pre-date those given by the likes of Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Daniel Day-Lewis, so… you know what? Yeah. George C. Scott was one of the OG scenery devourers. You can’t spell his name without an “O” and a “G,” too, so do with that what you will.
Not all of his roles saw him going too over-the-top, but a fair few saw him giving either forceful performances, or wonderfully hammy ones. It should be noted that even when Scott went big, he was still very much in control (with one exception… maybe). He played some larger-than-life characters and had a knack for taking up the entire screen, yelling, grumbling, and projecting better than the vast majority of his contemporaries. This ranking hopes to celebrate that side of Scott. Here’s to the ones who ham.
8
‘Rage’ (1972)
Appeared as Dan Logan
What’s that? George C. Scott gives a somewhat frenzied performance in a movie that’s quite literally called Rage? Oh no, don’t say it’s true. Interestingly, Scott also directed this one, on top of starring in the lead role, which saw him playing a sheep rancher who gets exposed to some poison gas, as does his son. When he learns his son has been killed by the gas, he kind of gives up, and then goes on a revenge-fueled rampage of sorts.
He knows he doesn’t have a ton of time to live, and so he doesn’t really care, and that does ensure George C. Scott can go pretty big emotionally on screen. Still, Rage, while a thriller, is also pretty downbeat and kind of a drama, too, so there are more over-the-top Scott performances for sure. This one, at the end of the day, though, is more than worth an honorable mention of sorts.
7
‘The Day of the Dolphin’ (1973)
Appeared as Jake Terrell
The Day of the Dolphin is about… just… okay. This one’s hard. The Day of the Dolphin is gonzo. How about that? There are more extreme (and probably less appropriate) words to use, but damn, this one’s weird, and it kind of knows it. Maybe. Anyway, it’s about dolphins that are being trained to potentially execute political assassinations, given their high level of intelligence and knack for carrying out requested tasks.
So, if you’re in a movie like that, and your performance isn’t at least a little bit heightened, you’re probably going to stand out. And George C. Scott puts in an admirable effort at matching The Day of the Dolphin’s bizarre energy, playing a dolphin trainer who wants to stop said dolphins from doing any, you know, assassinating. As if this one couldn’t get any weirder, it was directed by the guy who, just a few years earlier, had directed both Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. The 1960s and ‘70s were a wild time to be alive, maaaan…
6
‘Hardcore’ (1979)
Appeared as Jake Van Dorn
It feels a little weird to call George C. Scott’s performance in Hardcore over-the-top, since the unsettling premise of his movie does put his character in an unthinkably stressful and harrowing position. Essentially, Hardcore is about a businessman’s daughter going missing, and the way he takes the investigation into her disappearance into his own hands after receiving the troubling news that she’s since turned to working in the adult film industry (to put it mildly).
He does go big here, and has some scenes where the emotional intensity is way up, but it’s not exactly over-acting, considering the story.
Scott’s character has a breakdown and goes to great lengths to find his daughter, if he can, and then rescue her (again, if that’s possible). He does go big here, and has some scenes where the emotional intensity is way up, but it’s not exactly over-acting, considering the story (compare it to the freak-out scenes Nicolas Cage had in Mandy; potentially surprising or funny out of context, but much sadder when viewed within the context of the film).
5
‘Firestarter’ (1984)
Appeared as John Rainbird
You know, there is something inherently hammy about a lot of Stephen King stories, but that’s something that makes a good many of them work. The legendary author will hit you with something outlandish, and then you kind of just have to go with it. Usually, it works out. A dome covering a town? An ancient evil (sometimes looking like a clown) returning every 27 years to cause terror? A super-flu that kills more than 99% of the world’s population? Sure, sure, sure.
Firestarter is another King book you just have to go with, but it makes for an exciting and compelling read once you do. The film adaptation, on the other hand, isn’t quite as strong, and George C. Scott was an interesting casting choice, considering the character in the novel is Native American, but he brings a certain amount of menace to the character of John Rainbird, and is just over-the-top enough to make his scenes a little more fun than the non-Scott scenes in Firestarter.
- Release Date
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May 11, 1984
- Runtime
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115 Minutes
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Drew Barrymore
Andrew McGee
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David Keith
Charlie McGee
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Freddie Jones
Dr. Joseph Wanless
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Heather Locklear
Vicky McGee
4
‘The Hustler’ (1961)
Appeared as Bert Gordon
Sports movies where nice things happen to nice people who work hard to achieve said nice things are nice and all, but sometimes, it feels a little more fitting to watch a sports movie that just crushes your spirits. Look no further than The Hustler, if you’re feeling cynical and want a sports-related movie with that kind of flavor, since there’s pretty much nothing but misery (and a little bit of Paul Newman being cool) to this downbeat pool-related drama.
George C. Scott appeared in one of his earliest roles here, and is an appropriately despicable villain as Bert Gordon. He’s not a good loser, and he manipulates things in this film to ensure a tragic outcome happens. He chews a bit of scenery in the process, but is also effectively menacing, making for a great antagonist in a film that was grim enough even without him, just because of how realistic and down-to-earth everything seemed.
3
‘Patton’ (1970)
Appeared as General George S. Patton Jr.
Here’s one of those situations where an actor not going over-the-top would’ve seemed weird. In Patton, George C. Scott truly does play a man who was larger than life: the titular General George S. Patton Jr., who was an instrumental figure during the American war effort in the Second World War. Patton shows the good and the bad of this man, both in terms of what he was able to do and how many people he ended up clashing with.
Scott was the perfect actor to play General Patton, too, as he’s magnetic whenever he has to give a big speech, and seems to fully inhabit the character even in his quieter scenes. Though Scott didn’t accept his Oscar for the role, he definitely deserved it, with this movie – and the performance from its lead actor – showing that, sometimes, it really does pay to go big when you’re playing a real-life figure who was known for being, you know, pretty damn big.
2
‘The Exorcist III’ (1990)
Appeared as Lieutenant William F. Kinderman
Nothing will ever top the first The Exorcist, as far as demonic possession movies go… though, honestly, The Exorcist III comes fairly close, in some regards. It doesn’t try to retread the territory of the first film, instead opting to expand upon it in interesting ways, with the plot here being more centered on a string of killings that may be partially linked to all the exorcist stuff that happened in the original Exorcist movie.
What you get, in the end, is a pretty damn good supernatural horror movie with an especially bold George C. Scott at its center. His big, flashy performance – alongside some infamously effective scares – are what make The Exorcist III surprisingly good; certainly better than you’d expect the third movie in The Exorcist series to be, in any event.
1
‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ (1964)
Appeared as General Buck Turgidson
Though the over-the-top performance wasn’t entirely intended, you can’t really look past Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb when it comes to crowning the most over-the-top George C. Scott performance of all time. Stanley Kubrick did infamously mislead Scott to go particularly big in all his scenes, with the latter not thinking they’d end up in the movie.
But they did, and George C. Scott is all the more hilarious in Dr. Strangelove, as a result, even if he thought that the takes that ended up in the movie were all “rehearsals.” Scott stammers, throws himself around physically, and projects in ways that do have to be seen to be believed, and even if Kubrick and Scott weren’t seeing eye to eye, what did end up coming out of this film was an incredible (and incredibly weird) performance from George C. Scott; one that can still be appreciated for how gonzo it is all these decades later.