Features > Top Lists > Top 10 Christian Bale

Top 10 Christian Bale

Christian Bale is the dictionary definition of committed actor – losing weight or piling it on, devouring research to really embody a character, regardless of whether they’re real-life or far flung fantasy. And here are our ten highlight movies from his career so far...

His Top 10 Films

Empire of the Sun (1987)

It’s not a bad start: at only 12 years old and in only his fourth outing, Christian Bale landed the lead in a Steven Spielberg epic, carrying the story of a young boy surviving WWII in a Shanghai POW camp run by the Japanese. It put him firmly on the map, and although the press attention and classmate adulation was unwelcome, sharing screen time with John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Ben Stiller and Nigel Havers was not.

Rent

American Psycho (2000)

Having developed his craft through teenage years (and 15 roles), Bale announced his presence in the Noughties with an embossed business card, a buffed-up body, and a big, violent bang. Director Mary Harron’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s eye-watering yuppie-gone-loco novel whipped up a storm of complaint and disgust, but this is uncompromising, full-frontal film-making, and Bale is impressive and exfoliated in every department.

Rent Watch Trailer

Equilibrium (2002)

More buffness and a nifty turn in a fictional gun-toting martial art are the basis for this stark, dystopian nightmare, with Bale running up a staggering body-count as a near-future cross between Judge Dredd and Neo. It’s a loud, slick actioner, but scratch at the gloss and there’s more 1984 beneath the surface than there is Matrix, and this is due in no small part to another fierce, committed and emotional performance from the leading man.

Rent Watch Trailer

The Machinist (2004)

Talking of commitment, how about taking a year out, hitting a crash diet of coffee and apples that makes the Atkins regime look like a picnic, and dropping over 4 stone to play skeletal, paranoid insomniac Trevor Reznik in The Machinist? It’s an astonishing, painful showing in a dark, psychological thriller, and evidence of just how far Bale is prepared to go in service of a project that grabs him. He finished the shoot weighing only 8st 9lb.

Rent Watch Online Watch Trailer

Batman Begins (2005)

Warner Bros are going to reboot The Bat. And they want you. Music to most actor’s ears, right? Well, yes, until you remember that the caped scourge of Gotham’s underworld is a terrifying physical threat, and you can’t manage even one press-up. In just six months, Bale loaded on over 7 stone, and muscled his way into Bruce Wayne’s tortured psyche, the dark soul that powers Christopher Nolan’s fantastic, franchise-flying crime thriller.

Rent Watch Online Watch Trailer

Harsh Times (2006)

Bale’s choices have always been marked by what captures his imagination, a criteria that punctuates his career with as many independent movies as blockbusters. Prime among them is this intense, South Central LA slow-burner – ex-Army Ranger Bale plans to settle down with his Mexican girlfriend, but an LAPD posting falls through, and with it, his grip on peaceful, civilian life. Another superb turn, ably assisted by the excellent Freddy Rodriguez and Eva Longoria.

Rent

The Prestige (2006)

The Dark Knight proved that Batman Begins was far from a fluke, but we already knew that from Christopher Nolan’s artful, absorbing, music-box of a movie. Also reuniting with Michael Caine, Nolan pitched Bale against the equally charismatic Hugh Jackman, the Victorian-era magicians’ rivalry consuming everything and everyone it touches, including Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Piper Perabo and David Bowie. Beautiful, brilliant, and really benefits from repeat viewings.

Rent Watch Online Watch Trailer

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

If it’s most Hollywood actors’ dream to play Batman, it’s the dream of most boys across the world to play a cowboy. And although this remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford action Western seems straight-forward enough, it’s given heart and depth and sheer, actorly oomph by two A-listers who always know how to elevate a story: Bale’s struggling rancher pressed into escorting Russell Crowe’s deadly outlaw on a two-day journey to a prison train in Contention, bound for Yuma.

Rent Watch Online Watch Trailer

Rescue Dawn (2007)

Part prison camp drama, part escape/exposure action thriller; all Bale excellence. This impressive tour de force is based on the true story of Dieter Dengler, a US Navy pilot shot down during the Vietnam War, and held in the jungle by the Laos militia. Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies match their co-star’s standards, and this nerve-wracking survival story is one of four films (including The Prestige and 3:10 To Yuma) Bale made in a hectic but productive 2006.

Rent Watch Trailer

The Fighter (2010)

Once again demonstrating his commitment to the cause, Bale shed the beef of Bruce Wayne and Terminator’s John Connor (knowing that he’ll need to pump it all back on again for The Dark Knight Rises) to play another real-life character. Gaunt, wiry and authentic, he’s the wayward half-brother of Mark Wahlberg’s Micky Ward, a light-welterweight boxer who battled to turn pro in the mid-1980s. It's been a very impressive decade, and you get the sense that Bale is just getting into his stride...

Reserve Watch Trailer

Darren Bignell

The Fighter is released 2 February.