Sean Connery's 10 Greatest Movie Performances

Connery’s finest ever screen work came clad not in a tuxedo but the robes of a friar. Based on a philosophical novel by Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose was a world away from James Bond and some of Connery’s other historical dramas. It’s a complex, occasionally difficult, utterly engrossing film with an award worthy turn from its star.

Connery plays William of Baskerville, a Franciscan monk in the fourteenth century. He is a man of honour and a man of God, but one who carries a dark past with him, a shroud of guilt that he cannot shake. William was previously employed as an inquisitor; when he refused to deliver a guilty verdict on a man he believed to be innocent, he was tortured until he reversed his decision.

The weight of that terrible choice hangs around William’s neck throughout the film, but it’s no dreary melodrama. The Name Of The Rose is a highly intellectual murder mystery, and Connery is sure to turn on the old charm to ensure matters are given a little levity as needed.