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Top 10 Dustin Hoffman

For some of cinema’s living legends, selecting just 10 highlights is nigh on impossible, and Dustin Hoffman is a case in point. So, instead of trotting out a glittering but perhaps rather obvious list of award-winners, we’ve decided to pick two shining moments for each decade of his career so far...

Dustin Topten

The Graduate (1967)

After studying the method acting technique under Lee Strasberg in New York, and some TV and off-Broadway work, Hoffman landed the role of Benjamin Braddock when Warren Beatty and Robert Redford said no. Naïve recent college graduate Ben is seduced by Anne Bancroft’s Mrs Robinson, really complicating things when he falls in love with her daughter. And Hoffman earns an Oscar nod right out of the gate...

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Midnight Cowboy (1969)

...which he promptly followed up with a second Academy Award nomination only two years later (the film itself won Best Picture), as the anything-but-naïve Ratso Rizzo, schooling fresh-faced country-boy Jon Voight in the rites of street hustler passage in NYC. Not bad for a guy who was apparently voted 'least likely to succeed' – along with Gene Hackman – by the Pasadena Playhouse, his pre-New York acting school.

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Papillon (1973)

With success came big movies and massive co-stars – namely, Laurence Olivier, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and, here, the late great Steve McQueen. Hoffman is a convicted forger, banged up on the Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where McQueen (playing French like Sean Connery plays Russian, but no less brilliant for that) befriends him and repeatedly tries to escape. Based on a true story, emphasis on the based.

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All the President’s Men (1976)

The 70s saw Hoffman give a searing portrayal of US stand-up Lenny Bruce (his third Academy Award nod), get his teeth checked by Olivier’s Nazi dentist in Marathon Man, and finally win an Oscar for Kramer vs Kramer in ‘79. But for us, his second spotlight moment of the decade was with Redford - as investigative Washington Post reporters Woodward & Bernstein, the pair uncover the Watergate scandal, and topple President Nixon.

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Tootsie (1982)

Panto is largely unheard of in America. But they get their fix of men dressing up as women in the perennially popular drag act, which has also – perhaps bizarrely – been a staple of cinema for its entire history. Hoffman turned it into his fourth Oscar nomination (cf. Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot), donning foundation, frock and fright-wig as unemployed actor Michael Dorsey becomes Dorothy Michaels, and finds her/himself as the centre of a daytime soap.

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Rain Man (1988)

In 1987, Hoffman’s near perfect record was blemished by Ishtar, a troubled and soon infamous Warren Beatty movie that took a critical and commercial pounding. But only a year later, Hoffman had another Oscar – one of four won by director Barry Levinson’s powerful drama – for his arresting portrayal of an autistic savant being fleeced by yuppie brother Tom Cruise for their late father’s fortune. Cruise is excellent too, adding Serious Actor credentials to his A-list presence.

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Hook (1991)

Hook was widely regarded as indulgent, bloated and Steven Spielberg’s first flop at the time. Wrong on all counts, frankly – this Peter Pan update is lavish, graced with wonderful set pieces, and a treasure trove of stars. Alongside Robin Williams’ boy-who-tries-to-un-grow-up, Julia Roberts’ Tinkerbell, Bob Hoskins’ Smee and Dame Maggie Smith as Wendy, Hoffman is grand, decadent and sinister as Captain Hook; a touch of darkness that gives the film the edge it needs.

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Outbreak (1995)

As if any further evidence of his versatility was required, the post-grad/conman/forger/reporter/drag-act/savant/pirate turns army boffin here; a scientist colonel despatched into the field when a deadly Ebola-like virus from Zaire breaks out in smalltown California. Again surrounded by strong names – Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland, Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr – Hoffman is a learned, impassioned presence at the centre of one almighty What if? scenario.

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Runaway Jury (2003)

Hoffman and Hackman were New York roommates after the Pasadena Play- house’s pessimistic pronouncement. Almost 40 years, huge success and two Oscars apiece later, and the pair finally appear on screen together here, which makes especially delicious this John Grisham-based legal thriller – Hoffman’s good-guy lawyer trying to get justice for his gun-crime victim client, while Hackman’s consultant (and John Cusack & Rachel Weisz) monkey with the jury.

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Last Chance Harvey (2008)

As Hoffman moved into a fifth decade largely made up of fine supports (Finding Neverland, Meet The Fockers, the excellent Stranger Than Fiction) and voicework (Racing Stripes, Kung Fu Panda), lead roles became less frequent. Though no less accomplished – as TV jingle composer Harvey Shine, he’s about to be replaced at work and, seemingly, in his daughter’s life by her step-dad. But while in London for her wedding, Harvey meets Kate (Emma Thompson)...

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Darren Bignell