Matthew McConaughey is back in Bernie, out April 27, and it is another chance for the native Texan to portray a character also from the Lone Star State. More on Bernie to come this week -- we just thought it was a good time to look back at the career of the man who busted onto the cinema scene by extolling his passion for redheads. Here are the Movie Fanatic Top 10 Matthew McConaughey movies.
10. We Are Marshall
2006’s We Are Marshall was so much more than an opportunity for McConaughey to portray a coach of the sport that is his absolute favorite. The college football lexicon has few tragedies as devastating as when the 1970 Marshall University football team perished in an airplane crash. The actor gives an incredible portrayal of Coach Jack Lengyel and his astounding effort to not only pull a football program out of the ashes, but to reinvigorate a community yearning for some joy after terrible sorrow.
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9. Reign of Fire
Reign of Fire may seem like an odd choice for our Top 10. But there is something about the story of dragons destroying modern day Earth and the band of survivors seeking to reclaim our planet -- led by McConaughey and Christian Bale -- which we find unbelievably compelling. McConaughey channels a military character so seeped in revenge for a race that is all but wiped out. It is powerful.
8. Bernie
Out April 27, fans of the Texas native get a chance to delight in a role he was born to play. The film itself is a sharp-as-a-tack portrayal of the real life Bernie, a Texas man who could not have been better liked in his small town -- even after he shot dead the town’s nastiest citizen. McConaughey is the DA charged with bringing this man to justice. It is astounding to watch his inability to find anyone in his hometown that could fill a jury and return a guilty verdict, despite having a confession!
7. A Time to Kill
John Grisham’s prose and Matthew McConaughey's characterization of a Southern lawyer seeking to find justice when it seems there is none to be found, and A Time to Kill kills us every time we see it.
6. Tropic Thunder
His role in Tropic Thunder was minimal, but by providing the yin to Tom Cruise’s yang in the Ben Stiller film, McConaughey captured the spirit of a movie man grasping at straws. The fact that he gets to show some comic chops in this film has us wondering why he doesn’t do more smart comedies.
5. U-571
Telling a story of World War II that in effect showcases how the tide of the war was turned, U-571 is a thriller of the sub variety that ranks with the best of that genre. McConaughey plays a leader by situation and not by career elevation, who must rally his soldiers to accomplish the impossible.
4. Contact
Perhaps it’s us, but Contact is one underrated film. One of the great joys of this Robert Zemeckis-directed movie is the repartee between Jodie Foster and McConaughey. The fact that it was based on a Carl Sagan book takes the stakes even higher. The cast, led by the two leads, brings it and captures a story of alien life unlike any we’ve seen since.
3. Lone Star
John Sayles is a visionary storyteller and having the combination of Texans Sayles and McConaughey on Lone Star’s riveting murder mystery is the stuff of movie magic. If this film has missed your radar, run… don’t walk to rent it.
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2. Dazed and Confused
So many of the fantastic Dazed and Confused quotes come from McConaughey’s David Wooderson. This Richard Linklater film (he also directed Bernie!) was a little Texas movie that could. It also gave us the career that is McConaughey’s. At the time of making Dazed and Confused, he was a struggling actor and also attending the University of Texas. The summer he made the film changed his life and moviegoers' as well.
1. Amistad
When McConaughey made the move from Texas to Hollywood, he probably would have laughed if someone had told him he’d be working with Academy Award winners Steven Spielberg, Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins. That is exactly what he achieved in 1997 with Amistad. The story of the 1839 mutiny aboard the titular slave ship is illustrated through a courtroom trial, led by the man who adores playing attorneys, Mr. McConaughey.