26 Fresh Philip Baker Hall Movies

These are the most acclaimed films of Philip Baker Hall, the prolific character actor who started his career at age 30 in 1961. Hall had an especially strong run in the 1990s, where he appeared in some of the decade’s biggest movies, including Rush Hour, The Truman Show, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Insider, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia. Hall became especially associated with Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed those latter two movies, with their collaboration beginning with 1996’s Hard Eight.

This ’90s renaissance was precipitated by his classic guest appearance in a 1991 episode of Seinfeld, where he plays the relentless, hard-nosed library cop Lt. Bookman, lightly parodying the characters he rose to prominence with in the ’70s and ’80s on TV. Hall appeared in just about every major TV show of those era, including Miami Vice, Cagney & Lacey, and MASH. (And his 1984 film with Robert Altman, Secret Honor where he portrayed Richard Nixon, drew significant acclaim.) Most recently, he had long TV stints on The Loop and Modern Family. Hall had even more uncredited and memorably brief parts in Argo, Enemy of the State, The Rock, Say Anything, Midnight Run, and Ghostbusters II. —Alex Vo