6. Anthony Hopkins As Richard Nixon Nixon
Buena Vista PicturesOliver Stone has dealt with controversial figures throughout his directorial career, and with regards to that, Nixon is his magnum opus. Charting the life of Richard Nixon, from the child of strict Quakers to the disgraced former president of the United States, Oliver Stone attempts to shed light on the suspect activities of Nixon while also trying to better understand him as a person. Anthony Hopkins, despite looking nothing like Richard Nixon, is totally convincing as the stammering head of state. Hopkins instils Nixon with a sense of forlorn isolation, his Nixon is haunted: his smiles are fleeting and his grins are false. Hopkinss portrait of a broken man sits beautifully alongside Stones direction, which while thoroughly empathetic, is no less damning in its final statement on Nixon. With a few tweaks, Nixon could easily have been a horror film it is frantic, claustrophobic and nightmarish enough, after all.