The Long Good Friday (1980)
Baroque (ie, wildly OTT) London gangster movie about redeveloping Docklands, with Helen Mirren as the moll: great final sequence when Hoskins is driven away by the IRA to meet his maker, the camera holding his face. (He won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for this role; also for Roger Rabbit, below.)
Mona Lisa (1986)
Hoskins is an ex-con gangster given the job of looking after high-class tart Cathy Tyson by his boss Michael Caine and gets too involved. Won him his only Oscar nomination.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Preposterous, enjoyable blend of cartoon and live action directed by Robert Zemeckis, Hoskins attempting an American accent as the drunk private investigator Eddie Valiant. Harrison Ford passed on this role.
Twenty Four Seven (1997)
The second feature by Shane Meadows: Hoskins plays it straightas a sympathetic boxing club manager who never gives up on his boys.
Unleashed (2005)
For some, their favourite Hoskins remains Arthur Parker in the TV series Pennies from Heaven, or his creepy role in Atom Egoyan’s William Trevor adaptation, Felicia’s Journey. I love this crazy martial-arts thriller in which he plays a monstrous loan shark who has trained up Jet Li from childhood to be his attack dog rather than a human being. Hoskins was always best making nasty — and if you agree but haven’t caught this, you’re in for a pulpy treat.
