Adrien Brody is perhaps one of the more underrated actors in Hollywood who shot to fame back on 2002 when he collected a Best Actor Oscar for The Pianist.
Throughout his career he has moved between small budget movies such as Restaurant to the more blockbuster roles of King Kong. This summer the actor finds himself super busy with Predators and Splice on the verge of release and The Brothers Bloom has already hit the big screen.
So to celebrate the release of Predators this week we take a look at some of Brody's best big screen performances over the years.
Restaurant
Despite kicking off his career back in it was 1998 movie Restaurant, which was directed by Eric Bross that really saw the emergence of Brody.
The movie, which also starred Elise Neal, David Moscow and Simon Baker-Denny was a huge talking points of the L.A. Film Festival that same year.
At the centre of a group of actors, writers and performers who make up the staff of a trendy Hoboken restaurant is longtime bartender Chris, a debuting playwrite who is struggling with the end of recent relationships, while taking his first step toward starting another with the newest waitress/singer at work.
The movie brought Brody his first movie nomination of his professional career as he picked up a nod from Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male.
The Pianist
But it was Roman Polanski's 2002 war movie The Pianist that really grabbed everyone's attention as he took on the role of composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, the movie was based on the musician's autobiography.
A composer and pianist, Szpilman played the last live music heard over Polish radio airwaves before Nazi artillery hit. There, in Poland, Szpilman struggled to stay alive, even when cast away from those he loved.
He spent the duration of the war hiding in the ruins of Warsaw and scavenging for food and shelter. Szpilman eventually reclaimed his artistic gifts, and confronted his fears, with aid from the unlikeliest of sources.
The movie was a huge critical hit when it was released and Brody surprised everyone with his central performance and gained high praise for his work.
The movie was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, picking up three including Best Actor for Brody as well as best Director for Polanski.
The Jacket
The Jacket is a personal favourite of mine when it comes to Adrien Brody movies, which hit the big screen back in 2005 and also stars Keira Knightley.
After recuperating from a gunshot wound to the head, Gulf War veteran Jack Starks returns to his native Vermont suffering from Amnesia.
When he is accused of murdering a police officer and committed to a mental institution, a physician, Dr. Becker, puts him on a controversial treatment regimen in which Starks is injected with experimental drugs, confined in a straight-jacket, and locked for extended periods in the body drawer of the basement morgue.
In his drugged and disoriented state, Starks' mind propels him into the future, where he meets Jackie, and discovers that he is destined to die in four days. Together, they search for a way to save him from his fate.
King Kong
It wasn't long before the blockbuster movies came knocking and it was the role of Jack Driscoll in Peter Jackson's King Kong that saw him move into this genre of film for the very first time.
Flamboyant, foolhardy documentary filmmaker, Carl Denham, sails off to remote Skull Island to film his latest epic with leading lady, Ann Darrow and writer Jack Driscoll along for the ride.
Native warriors kidnap Ann to use as a sacrifice as they summon "Kong" with the local witch doctor. But instead of devouring Ann, Kong saves her.
Kong is eventually taken back to New York where he searches high and low for Ann, eventually winding up at the top of the Empire State Building, facing off against a fleet of World War I fighter planes.
The movie was a big box office success as it went on to gross over $550 million, claiming back it's $207 million budget, and was met well by the critics.
Hollywoodland
Brody led an all star cast of Diane Lane, Ben Affleck and Bob Hoskins in the Allen Coulter directed movie looked at the mystery surrounding the death of Superman actor George Reeves.
An exploration of fame and identity, inspired by one of Hollywood's most infamous real-life mysteries. June 16, 1959. The glamour of Tinseltown permanently fades for actor George Reeves, the heroic Man of Steel on TV's Adventures of Superman, as the actor dies in his Hollywood Hills home.
Felled by a single gunshot wound, Reeves leaves behind a fiancée - aspiring starlet Leonore Lemmon - and millions of fans who are shocked by his death.
But it is his grieving mother, Helen Bessolo, who will not let the questionable circumstances surrounding his demise go unaddressed. Helen seeks justice, or at least answers. The Los Angeles Police Department closes the case, but Helen hires - for $50 a day - private detective Louis Simo.
Simo soon ascertains that the torrid affair Reeves had with Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix, might hold the key to the truth. But truth and justice are not so easily found in Hollywood.
Simo pursues dangerous and elusive leads in both high and low places and, in trying to turn up the heat, risks getting burned.
The detective also uncovers unexpected connections to his own life as the case turns more personal and he learns more about Reeves himself. Behind the icon was a complex man who gave his life to Hollywood in more ways than one.
Predators is released 8th July.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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