Tim Roth has been appearing on our screens for more than thirty years. He was one of Tarantino’s first alter egos; he appeared in indie British films, and has become a great character actor and supporting player in many movies (and even some TV shows). Here are Tim Roth’s best performances ranked:
9Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
Released thirty years after the second season, Twin Peaks: The Return showed what David Lynch could do with cable money and no creative intervention, creating this unique piece of television that, like the original series, marched to the beat of its own drum. In this sequel, Roth plays Hutch, a hitman who, with his partner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, gets to create all kinds of chaos and misdeeds. It’s a fun performance by Roth, who asked Lynch to put him in more episodes, as he was having a blast in this world and with this character, in the perfect conclusion for this franchise.
8Pulp Fiction (1994)
Pulp Fiction needs no introduction, and Roth plays Pumpkin, half of the couple that wants to rob a diner at the start and end of the movie. He and his lover, Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer), think they have everything figured out, until they meet Jules (Samuel L. Jackson), who is one of the customers, and everything changes. Roth’s performance as the low-level robber is electric. You believe he thinks he’s smart for thinking of this robbery, while showing all his bravado and love for his Honey Bunny. Once he’s confronted by a truly bad man, Roth is able to show us how his character’s bravery is abandoning him as he understands he’s now playing with the big boys, deciding it’s better to leave with his lover in this incredible movie, that should’ve won the Best Picture Oscar.
7The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & Her Lover (1989)
The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & Her Lover is a unique movie directed by one-in-a-million director Peter Greenaway. The movie uses themes such as greed, decadence, and even gluttony to tell a story that is as sad as it is disgusting. Roth plays Mitchell, one of the criminal associates of the title thief (Michael Gambon). It’s a small role, but one that showed that Roth could play in any kind of actor playground, as the tone, style, and colors of this movie are like no other.
6Rob Roy (1995)
Rob Roy tells the story of the title character (Liam Neeson) as he becomes a Robin Hood-esque hero in Scotland’s highlands in the 1700s. Roth plays the film’s villain, Archibald Cunningham, in a performance that earned him his only Academy Award nomination. His character is the worst of the worst; someone who can kill dogs in the morning and sexually assault women in the afternoon, and Roth relishes being such a bad guy. His performance is cocky, arrogant, and evil. His character has never heard a “no” in his life, because of his family’s money and power. Roth created a great villain (with no historic accuracy) so that Neeson’s Roy had a great nemesis to fight against.
5Selma (2014)
Selma is one of the best movies to honor Black History Month. It’s a great film about one of the most important moments in United States history; the march led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery. Roth plays another villain, a real one, this time, Alabama Governor George Wallace. Wallace was heavily against Martin Luther King Jr. and what he stood for. Roth plays him with no grace notes, as bad as he was. Director Ava DuVernay herself said it best: “He played the heck out of George Wallace.”
4Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead tells the story of two side characters from Hamlet, creating a comedy about life, death, predestination, and free will, with incredibly witty dialogue throughout. This story started as a play; the film was directed by the original playwright, Tom Stoppard, and as such, is a great script for an actor to exercise all their acting muscles. Roth plays Gildenstern to Gary Oldman’s Rosencrantz, in a role cast first to Daniel Day-Lewis, who had to drop out. A character in a tragi-comedy, who has to both be funny and existential is right up Roth’s alley, and he nails his performance.
3Four Rooms (1995)
One of the four directors, Alexandre Rockwell, told Filmmakers Magazine: “Quentin and I had talked [about] each other’s stories. They were similar in edge – kinda comedy but not straight out yuks. But it wasn’t any organic, collective, group mind. Quentin told Allison and Robert to write whatever they wanted – comedy, tragedy, action. No rules, except the bellhop, the hotel room, New Year’s Eve. Everybody went off and wrote cold.”
2The Hateful Eight (2015)
In The Hateful Eight, eight folks stay at Minnie’s Haberdashery, waiting out a snowstorm. Each character has its own agenda and secrets that will be revealed during the night. This is Tarantino’s story that more easily could’ve been a play, and as such, it has great dialogue and monologues, where every actor can dine on it. Roth plays Oswaldo Mobray, a character who doesn’t show his true colors until the last third of the film. Roth looks like he’s having the time of his life, being back with his friend Tarantino. This was his first appearance in a Tarantino movie in 21 years.
About acting for the director after so many years, Tim Roth told Variety: “I missed all the kind of crazy stuff that happens on his sets. I missed a chunk of his evolution going from “Pulp Fiction” to this one (…) I hadn’t seen him in his essence, doing the thing that he loves most, directing. I hadn’t seen that version of him since “Pulp Fiction” or “Four Rooms.” So it was completely an eye-opener for me.”
1Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Reservoir Dogs was Tarantino’s introduction to Hollywood, and also Roth’s, as he had been a British actor who hadn’t hit it big yet in Hollywood. As Mr. Orange, Roth was the lead of the film, playing the undercover cop, who wants to stop the heist from happening, and pays a big price for it. Roth’s performance is spectacular, as he plays doubt (when practicing his speech to the other policeman), bravado (when he tells the speech to the other thieves), terror (when he’s been shot and is probably going to die), disgust (when he sees Mr. Blonde torturing and killing the cop), shame (when he has to admit to his father figure that he’s a cop), and all the emotions in between in what’s one of Tarantino’s best movies.
