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Top 10 Liam Neeson

There’s often been a muscular note to Liam Neeson’s roles, but for years it’s been in the mode of experienced mentor (sword, beard and long hair optional). Now though, and all of sudden, the 58 year-old from Northern Ireland is a front-and-centre action-man. Here are his Top 10 highlights so far...

His Top 10 Films

Darkman (1990)

For over decade, Liam Neeson had been rubbing shoulders with the great and the good, carving out a film career with strong supporting turns in the likes of Excalibur (his first outing), The Bounty, The Misson and The Dead Pool. But it was a vicious splash of Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man) action that broke him through, as the tortured, disfigured anti-hero at the black heart of this vengeful and very dark comic-horror.

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Schindler's List (1993)

So how to cement a breakthrough? You work hard (seven films in three years), you get the attention of a top director (Steven Spielberg), and you show what you can do with a towering and compassionate performance (Oscar-nominated). Schindler’s was equally transformative for Spielberg, of course, but this potent real-life story of an average German businessman turned saviour served notice of Neeson’s huge dramatic credentials.

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Rob Roy (1995)

Another hero from history, though in this case flung back to the Highlands of the 1700s, here Neeson plays Robert Roy MacGregor, a long-locked Scot who gets into a spot of bother with the Tim Roth’s double-dealing and rather dastardly English aristocrat. It’s a terrific, thumping adventure of kilts, rebellion and suffering for one’s honour, and released four months before Mel Gibson trod a similar path in a modest little film called Braveheart.

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Michael Collins (1996)

And yet another historical figure for Neeson to bring vividly to life, this time the controversial ‘Lion of Ireland’, Michael Collins. Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire) directed this powerful and persuasive account of Collins, as turbulent as the life and times of the country Collins fought to forge; as politician, revolutionary, and key leader of the IRA’s guerilla warfare tactics after the Easter Rising of 1916, which led to the birth of the Republic of Ireland.

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Les Misérables (1998)

Neeson stars as Jean Valjean, a heartless convict who is transformed by a single act of mercy. Uma Thurman is Fantine, the vulnerable prostitute who begs Valjean to raise her only child, Cosette (Claire Danes). And Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush is an ambitious policeman determined to return Valjean to prison.

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Kinsey (2004)

Taking the lead in this life story of Alfred Kinsey, Neeson plays a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of the nation. In 1948, Kinsey irrevocably changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male." Using the technique of his own famous sex interviews, the story recounts the scientist's extraordinary journey from obscurity to global fame.

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Batman Begins (2005)

Years ago, a young boy watched a street thug murder his parents. He left the city for the Far East, where Neeson’s mysterious Henri Ducard hooks him out of a squalid prison camp and then halfway up a mountain. There, he’s schooled in the stealth and combative arts that will, in part, turn him into the Batman. Christopher Nolan’s superb reboot has many fine qualities; Neeson’s stern, shadowy character is most definitely one of them.

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Seraphim Falls (2006)

Although Neeson commands a small posse of pursuers here, this taut Western is essentially mano e mano, a battle of wits and survival between two veterans of the US Civil War. Pierce Brosnan flees over hill and down dale and Neeson tracks him relentlessly through some extreme geography – it’s a superb, allegorical chase thriller with both leads putting it all out there and presumably suffering all kinds of exposure during the shoot.

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Taken (2008)

Much like the start of his career, Neeson’s rebirth into fatherly action-hero has not happened overnight. There have been flashes of intent for years now, but after The Phantom Menace, K19: The Widowmaker and Gangs of New York, comes Action with a capital A. Taken is unfettered by much common sense, but it’s a big, loud and effective vengeance thriller, with Neeson crunching his way through the baddies in pursuit of his kidnapped daughter.

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The A-Team (2010)

Each member of this modernised A-Team had big shoes to fill, but stepping into the plan-loving, cigar-chomping guise of George Peppard’s iconic leader was perhaps most daunting of all. Neeson pulls off the challenge of becoming Hannibal Smith, perhaps thanks to the Taken effect, which has primed us to believe Neeson’s tough physique and towering presence could command a small unit of Iraq War vets, highly skilled in making things come together (and blowing stuff to bits).

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Darren Bignell