20 Underrated Movies From 2000 You've Probably Never Seen
6. Before Night Falls
Released: 22nd December 2000 (US)
Most people really became aware of the talents of Javier Bardem with his chilling performance as the monstrous Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men. Years earlier, however, he had become the first Spaniard ever nominated for a Best Actor Oscar with his just his first English-language role.
If it's remembered today then it's mostly as "the movie with Johnny Depp in drag", but Before Night Falls has a great deal more to offer than the A-lister's attention grabbing supporting role.
Painter-turned-director Julian Schnabel has made a career out of innovative and artfully shot true-life stories of other artists and writers (Basquiat, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, At Eternity's Gate) and here turned that approach to an impressionistic biopic of gay Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas.
The fragmentary narrative, leaping back and forth between the poet's youth, his years in and out of prison for his sexuality and dying of AIDS in the US, is held together by Bardem's poignant, romantic, soulful central performance. Despite the Oscar nod, it would take a few more years for Bardem to become a star in English-language film, but here his whole incredible acting range is on show.