Easy Rider
Dennis Hopper was an original when is came to acting as he worked in front of the camera as well as behind it in a career that spanned over fifty years.
His first taste of the big screen came in the classic rebel Without A Cause in 1955 and he went on to work on some of cinema's most memorable movies and created some unforgettable characters.
The actor lost his battle with cancer at the weekend so here at FemaleFirst we take a look at some of his best work.
Easy Rider
Hopper may have had supporting roles in the likes of Gunfight at the O.K. Corrall and Cool Hand Luke but it was Easy Rider in 1969 that really caught everyone's attention.
As well as starring in the movie Hopper also directed and penned the script with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern.
Fonda starred as Wyatt and Hopper as Billy, it traces the hippie duo's adventures as they mount their seriously chopped hogs on a journey to find the real America en route to Mardi Gras.
In Arizona, they visit a commune whose members are having a tough time, and in a small Texas town they're jailed for joining a parade.
But they're quickly sprung by an ACLU lawyer, the quirky, hard-drinking George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who accepts their offer to join them on the trip to New Orleans, eager to visit the best whorehouse in the South.
Easy Rider remains a cult movie even now over forty years later. It was a landmark movie upon release as it paved the way for studios to support new and young filmmakers.
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is widely regarded as one of the best war movies that has ever been committed to film as Francis Ford Coppola brought Vietnam to the big screen.
The movie follows Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), a special agent sent into Cambodia to assassinate an errant American colonel (Marlon Brando).
Willard is assigned a navy patrol boat operated by Chief (Albert Hall) and three hapless soldiers (Frederic Forrest, Sam Bottoms, and Larry Fishburne).
They are escorted on part of their journey by an air cavalry unit led by Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), a gung-ho commander with a love of Wagner, surfing, and napalm.
After witnessing a surreal USO show featuring Playboy playmates and an anarchic battle with the Viet Cong at a bridge, Willard reaches Colonel Kurtz's compound.
A crazed photo journalist and Kurtz groupie (Dennis Hopper) welcomes the crew, and Willard begins to question his orders to "terminate the colonel's command."
While the shoot became famous for budget overruns, Brando turning up overweight and Martin Sheen having a heart attack Hopper created one of his most famous characters.
Hoosiers
In 1986 an Oscar nomination came the way of Hopper, Best Supporting Actor, for his role in Hoosiers.
Directed by David Anspaugh the movie is based on the incredible true story of how a small-town high school's basketball team became Indiana State Champs in 1954.
This film follows the controversial outsider who came to town to teach high school history and coach basketball and who was not afraid to make big waves in a small pond.
Despite praise for his performance Hopper missed out on the Oscar, Michael Caine walking away with the award for Hannah and her Sisters.
Blue Velvet
The same year that he was Oscar nominated for Hoosiers he also gained huge critical praise for his performance in Blue Velvet, which was directed by David Lynch.
After returning to his hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina, in order to visit his sick father, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers a severed human ear in a vacant field.
He befriends Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the daughter of the detective assigned to the case, and uses her information to investigate the situation himself.
This leads Jeffrey to Dorothy Valence (Isabella Rossellini), a sexy nightclub singer whose involvement with a raving psychopath named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) begins to answer some important questions.
Unfortunately, it also draws Jeffrey one step closer to Frank, a menacing figure who inhales from a nitrous-oxide tank and preaches the pleasures of drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
The movie wasn't met well by all the mainstream critics when it was released but the movie is now critically acclaimed.
Despite the criticisms of some this didn't stop lynch picked up his second Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
Rumble Fish
Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is a troubled juvenile delinquent trying to live up to the legendary reputation of his older brother, Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke).
One night, while Rusty James and his friends Smokey (Nicolas Cage), Steve (Vincent Spano), and B.J. (Christopher Penn) are involved in a rumble, Motorcycle Boy returns home from California after a two-month absence.
Rusty James gets stabbed and Motorcycle Boy saves him, but their alcoholic father (Dennis Hopper) is oblivious to the brothers' lives and only Rusty James's girlfriend, Patty (Diane Lane), seems to care about him.
After Motorcycle Boy reveals some family secrets about their mother, both brothers become determined to escape their lives or die trying.
Other great performances that Hopper has put in includes Speed, True Romance, Out Of The Blue and Colors.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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