Sir Sean Connery (1930-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Sean Connery at the 76th Oscars. Courtesy of HO/AMPAS

The Oscar winning superstar Sir Thomas Sean Connery has died two months after his 90th birthday. Connery's acting career began in 1953 as part of the chorus of a production of the stage musical South Pacific. Four years later his movie career began in earnest with several small roles the debut being a crime drama No Road Back.  Global fame would take another five years to arrive. It happened as the original 007 in Dr. No (1962), making Connery the figurehead of an colossally successful movie franchise. It's still running to this day 37 years after Connery let his license-to-kill expire.

He's the only James Bond to win an Oscar via 1987's mobsters vs cops drama The Untouchables. He retired from the screen after 2003's would-be franchise launch League of Extraordinarily Gentlemen but he remains beloved to multiple generations. After the jump, 12 essential Connery films to track his career (if we've written about them the link will take you there).

We lumped all Bond films into one because his career was so much larger than just the super spy...

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Remembering River Phoenix on his 50th Birthday

by Camila Henriques

This Sunday marks what would have been River Phoenix’s 50th birthday. A talent taken away from us much too soon, he went from adorable teenage prodigy to Oscar nominated scene stealer to Volpi Cup winner in less than five years.  Seeing the work that other actors of his generation, who also started young, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale, have delivered from the mid 90s until now can be heartwrenching. They make it impossible not to wonder what could have been if that fatidic night in 1993 had not happened...

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Wilford Brimley (1934-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Wilford Brimley and 80s child star Barret Oliver in Cocoon (1985)

A beloved character actor passed away this weekend. Wilford Brimley was born and died in Utah, but he became a fixture in mainstream Hollywood for a couple of decades for his earthy appeal and facility with adorable curmudgeons. Though he'd been acting since the 1960s he didn't crossover into true fame until the mid 80s...

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Alan Parker (1944-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Alan Parker and Madonna on the set of "Evita"

We were remiss Friday in sharing the news that we've lost another fine talent. The director Alan Parker who brought us gangster comedies, oddball indies, multiple musicals, and prestige literary adaptations has died at 76 years of age of an undisclosed lengthy illness. His 14 films netted a combined 27 Oscar nominations and 6 wins, and he himself received two Best Director nominations (1978's Midnight Express and 1988's Mississippi Burning).

Parker burst onto the scene as a scrappy young British director with 1976's playful gangster musical spoof Bugsy Malone and its all kid cast (Scott Baio and Jodie Foster headlined)...

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Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020)

by Nathaniel R

We have long dreaded this day coming so it's with heavy hearts that we share that the iconic Olivia de Havilland has passed away. We have celebrated her several times here at The Film Experience, most notably in 2016 with a multi-film retrospective for her Centennial. Having been a true screen immortal for the past (gulp) 80 years, it was hard to picture this woman as an actual mortal. Pictures of her happily bicycling in Paris in her centenarian years were popular around the web but all things eventually end. The Oscar winner, who had just celebrated her 104th birthday on July 1st, died peacefully yesterday in her Parisian home...

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