6. Tape
This is easily the most unheard of film on this list and perhaps in Hawke's career, yet it is one of his very best and most aggressively energetic. Hawke seems to flourish when he team up with director Richar Linklater, who is just as adventurous in his directorial choices as Hawke is in his acting. Here, Hawke plays another cog in a trio of actors. He is Vince, a drug-addled alcoholic who calls his high school friend (Robert Sean Leonard) to a motel room where he plans on accusing him of rape. The victim, or maybe not, is Vince's old flame, Amy (Uma Thurman) who appears to set the story straight in the end. Tape takes place entirely within the walls of a suffocating motel room where the characters have nowhere to hide from their past, and Hawke's Vince is the fiery antagonist at the heart of the film.