Yahoo News Paul Giamatti’s Best Performances: ‘The Holdovers,’ ‘Sideways,’ ‘Private Life,’ and More
If there’s one word to describe Paul Giamatti’s most common type of role, it’s “curmudgeon.” The Yale-trained actor (his father, Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, served as president of the school for six years) has the extraordinary range needed to take on various parts, but his most famous characters tend to have sharp minds and even sharper tongues. His most acclaimed roles, like the wine aficionado Miles in “Sideways,” are irritable and short-tempered with an arrogance and wit that masks their more sensitive interiors.
Giamatti’s latest role leans into that casting type harder than almost any of his other parts, and has clinched the actor his first ever Best Actor nomination. (He was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actor thanks to his role in 2006’s “Cinderella Man,” but lost out to the late Alan Arkin’s performance in “Little Miss Sunshine.”) In “The Holdovers,” which reunites Giamatti with “Sideways” director Alexander Payne, the actor is at his surliest as Paul Hunham: a stuffy and strict English professor at an all-boys boarding school. The ’70s throwback Christmas comedy is an astonishing actor showcase for Giamatti, as well as his two co-stars Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, allowing the performer to demonstrate his capacity for comedy and heart-tugging drama as he effortlessly tracks Hunham’s slow thawing into a more lovable, warmer figure.
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The contrast between who Hunham starts as in “The Holdovers” and the man he ends up becoming is an encapsulation of Giamatti’s range as a performer. He thrives as a loathsome asshole in comedic roles like “Big Fat Liar” or dramatic ones like “Billions.” But he also has an onscreen charm that he can use to various other fruitful ends, making the sour characters he thrives at playing lovable and understandable. What’s most impressive about Giamatti as a performer is how consistent he is, across his over 100 screen credits. Regardless of which project he’s appearing in, Giamatti brings his A-game and it’s better with his presence.
With Giamatti now a Golden Globe winner — and facing off with Bradley Cooper, Colman Domingo, Cillian Murphy, and Jeffrey Wright come the Academy Awards — we decided to revisit his best performances across his career. In addition to considering his film roles, we also included some of his TV credits, such as his long-running Showtime series “Billions” and the HBO historical drama “John Adams.” The titles here are listed based on the quality of Giamatti’s performance, rather than their quality as standalone recommendations. Read on for IndieWire’s list of Paul Giamatti’s best film and TV performances, ranked.
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