I love Sam Neill. I have a lot of emotions right now. You can read them here. This post, however, is not about my emotions. It's about Sam Neill's incredible, at times bizarre, at times profound, and frequently entertaining body of work.
In February 2021, I made the deeply personal choice to watch all of Sam Neill's filmography. Films, TV movies, TV shows — all of it. And, 50 entries later, I'd watched a sizable chunk of it! As I went along, I rated each film and kept a Twitter thread going with the hashtag #FromSamToBrett (because each film was a gift to me, maybe?). These movies were rated on hotness, of course, as well as quality. I watched a lot of classics, more than a few duds, and MindGamers, which is both at the same time. But with Twitter dead and my account nuked, there's no way to see that list. Until now!
Sam Neill's filmography is, as I've said, wild. The major takeaway: if you want to see the history of Australian film unfold, just watch Sam's work. In between big Hollywood movies, Sam was always taking what essentially amounted to local gigs, small, independent movies filming in either New Zealand or Australia. I just found that to be so incredibly endearing. Maybe you will, too.
So, dive into this list, presented in release date order. Also, note that it is very much not complete, as I was saving a lot of Sam's heavy hitter movies for later in this project. Among the missing: Ivanhoe (1982), Until the End of the World (1991), Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), The Horse Whisperer (1998), The Dish (2000), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Peter Rabbit (2018), Blackbird (2019), and Rams (2020). If I get to 'em, I'll add 'em here.
With that out of the way, read on (and please watch Death in Brunswick).
SLEEPING DOGS
Dir. Roger Donaldson, 1977
Sam plays a reclusive divorced dad who just wants to chill on his own island (he's not rich, he's renting) but a fascist movement in New Zealand keeps harshing his vibe. Important NZ cinema, and Sam's first lead role!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
MY BRILLIANT CAREER
Dir. Gillian Armstrong, 1979
Sam plays a handsome handsome man who, I dunno, wears tuxedos professionally and I'm happy. But he also falls for the wild-haired, wide-eyed, artistic weirdo! What a huuuunk! Criterion approved.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
POSSESSION
Dir. Andrzej Żuławski, 1981
Sam plays Mark, a spy who comes home to a wife who wants a divorce. Two hours of screaming, sweat, blood, hysterics, despair, tentacles—the movie makes you feel like you're in crisis. Sam at his absolute Mad Sam best.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT
Dir. Graham Baker, 1981
Sam plays Satan's child Damien, all grown up. He's unapologetically evil, tears into so many monologues, wears three piece suits and ascots, and is just so damn sexy. Good god, y'all.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
ATTACK FORCE Z
Dir. Tim Burstall, 1981
Sam plays a quiet WWII soldier in Australia's Z Special Unit. The movie has a *lot* of Chinese and Japanese with no subtitles (Prime glitch?), low-budget action, an over-the-top score, and way more M*l G*bs*n than Sam. 😒
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️
FROM A FAR COUNTRY
Dir. Kryzsztof Zanussi, 1981
Sam plays not the pope in this Pope John Paul II biopic. He's top-billed but he's barely in it? I spent an hour of this playing "who's the pope" before I realized that no one is playing the pope in this pope movie. I think...?
HOTNESS: 🔥
RATING: ⭐️
ENIGMA
Dir. Jeannot Szwarc, 1982
Sam plays a KGB agent with a bad rep and big heart. Ridiculously sexy throughout, in handsome '80s Ivy style and in swim briefs (!!!). Sam and water polo, I live. Perfectly fine cold war spy movie. No wonder Sam was up for Bond!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
FOR LOVE ALONE
Dir. Stephen Wallace, 1986
Sam plays a sensitive socialist banker in a movie with iffy ideas about feminism. Seeing Sam in glasses and impeccably tailored suits, I *don't understand* how I *ever* thought I was *straight*. He is devastatingly handsome.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
EVIL ANGELS / A CRY IN THE DARK
Dir. Fred Schepisi, 1988
Sam plays pastor Michael Chamberlain, the real dad whose daughter was taken by that dingo. Raw, fearless performance from Sam. One of his best that I've seen. *Lots* of short shorts (😍) but bad hair.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
DEAD CALM
Dir. Phillip Noyce, 1989
Sam plays a handsome maritime action husband (and damsel in distress!) to Nicole Kidman's Ripley-esque wife. They absolutely destroy Billy Zane. And lord, Sam in the blue shirt and aviators? It's like an Alan Grant prequel.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
DEATH IN BRUNSWICK
Dir. John Ruane, 1990
Sam plays Carl, a disaster who's hired as a bar cook, falls in love with a 19-year-old, accidentally murders a man, and then things get worse! Aussie Coen Bros-esque crime comedy. Sam is so awkwardly hot in this!!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
Dir. John McTiernan, 1990
Sam plays Capt. Vasily Borodin, the Spock to Connery's Kirk (except Russian and underwater). I always assumed Sam was the bad guy, so when he turned out to be the *emotional core of the movie*? I was *floored*.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
FEVER
Dir. Larry Elikann, 1991
Sam plays a stuffy lawyer who is driven to sawed-off-shotgun madness when his GF is kidnapped and he has to team-up with her ex-con ex-BF. *Very* much an HBO TV movie from 1991, but this has some *good* Mad Sam in it!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
JURASSIC PARK
Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993
Sam plays Alan Grant, my favorite film character after Han Solo. My first-ever crush. The hero of my favorite film (after Empire). Cranky, courageous, sexy, snarky — the performance is so uniquely Neill. Thanks, Sam.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE PIANO
Dir. Jane Campion, 1993
Sam plays a frontiersman in New Zealand who looks like a member of The Decemberists (extreme compliment) who buys a mute woman (Oscar-winner Holly Hunter) and her daughter (Oscar-winner Anna Paquin). He is not a good man. Still, there is Sam Neill side-butt.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE RAINBOW WARRIOR
Dir. Michael Tuchner, 1993
Sam plays a police chief tracking down French agents who blew up a Greenpeace ship in NZ. True story! A dry procedural, but Sam's hella handsome and wears great suits (for the '90s). His commitment to NZ film is 👍.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS
Dir. John Carpenter, 1994
Sam plays John Trent, the sexiest / coolest insurance investigator ever. Top-tier Mad Sam—but he also gets to be a goof! "Never throw chips at a driver!" The range of his rage makes this one of his best.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE JUNGLE BOOK
Dir. Stephen Sommers, 1994
Sam plays Col. Brydon, a Brit with a beautiful daughter and even more beautiful mustache. It's the Jungle Book so, some yikes content. I saw this in the theater and it cemented my crush. Again, *what* a mustache.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SIRENS
Dir. John Duigan, 1994
Sam plays real Aussie artist (and saucy scamp) Norman Lindsay in this deeply horny movie about a priest's wife's erotic awakening. Sam is the only person to not get naked or even have sex! Also, consent issues abound!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
CINEMA OF UNEASE: A PERSONAL JOURNEY BY SAM NEILL
Dir. Sam Neill, Judy Rymer, 1995
Sam co-wrote, co-directed, and stars in this history of New Zealand film/autobiography. Who better to tell NZ's film story than Sam? Lots of intriguing movies. Also, the man is a great host!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
EVENT HORIZON
Dir. Paul Anderson, 1997
Sam plays Dr. Weir, a grieving science nerd with great hair who built the Event Horizon. A quintessential Sam movie: lots of emotional nuance plus lots of maniacal behavior. 😵 Also some wet, scantily clad Sam!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SWEET REVENGE
Dir. Malcolm Mowbray, 1998
Sam plays Henry Bell, a man who teams with Helena Bonham Carter to get revenge on their rivals. She's mad, he's nervous. Kooky dark comedy with Sam in some hot British tweed, and also *this* (and also a *g-string*).
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
BICENTENNIAL MAN
Dir. Chris Columbus, 1999
Sam plays the well-dressed patriarch of a family with a robot. One of the formative Sam-Neill-crush films that I saw in the theater. What a curious, ambitious, existentially upsetting movie? The first hour is solid, then it goes wild.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
MOLOKAI: THE STORY OF FATHER DAMIEN
Dir. Paul Cox, 1999
Sam has a supporting role as the prime minister of 18th century Hawaii, a dastardly man with dashing sideburns and stylish vests. The rest of the movie (so, about 97% of it) is about a leper colony. I needed more Sam, obviously.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
JURASSIC PARK III
Dir. Joe Johnston, 2001
Sam plays Alan Grant again, grumpier and lonelier. This one that feels like a TV movie. It has little spectacle (comparatively) and thin characters. Would've been better if Sam and William H. Macy were husbands.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
PERFECT STRANGERS
Dir. Gaylene Preston, 2003
Sam plays a creepy, kidnappy maniac who kidnaps a lady, gets stabbed, dies slowly while the lady falls for him, dies, and spends half the movie in an ice box. Lots of choices made in this! And no Balki.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
WIMBLEDON
Dir. Richard Loncraine, 2004
Sam plays Kirsten Dunst's stern tennis dad. He tries to thwart her romance with Paul Bettany. An okay movie that I would've loved had it been made 25 years earlier with Sam in Paul's role. Also, the '00s were a bland decade.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
LITTLE FISH
Dir. Rowan Woods, 2005
Sam plays a bisexual drug kingpin who wears lots of jewelry. Hugo Weaving kisses Sam!!! Cate Blanchett is good in this, but there's not enough Sam. And while I don't hate the wardrobe (I'm so weird), the combover is no good.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
IRRESISTIBLE
Dir. Ann Turner, 2006
Sam plays the hot husband of an artist (Susan Sarandon) who's slowly being driven mad by Emily Blunt. Lifetime-style thriller with a stream of truly WTF choices that made *me* feel insane. Also, some good Mad Sam moments!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
DEAN SPANLEY
Dir. Toa Fraser, 2008
Sam plays Dean Spanley, a cleric / reincarnated spaniel who reminisces about his dog life after drinking Hungarian wine. Beyond quirky. Sam delivers some nice dog monologues. Hot beard, but I can't call a dog turned dean sexy.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SKIN
Dir. Anthony Fabian, 2008
Sam plays the father of Sandra Laing (Google her, it is too much for a tweet!) in apartheid era South Africa. Brutal history, strong acting, some A+ Mad Sam moments. Beard and glasses? Yes. But Sam plays a racist, abusive dad. No.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
DAYBREAKERS
Dir. The Spierig Brothers, 2009
Sam plays vampire CEO Charles Bromley, a greedy blood magnate in a world of vampires. He is deliciously evil, ice cold but so hot. Very jealous of Ethan Hawke, who had the pleasure of having his neck "bitten" by Sam.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
UNDER THE MOUNTAIN
Dir. Jonathan King, 2009
Sam plays Mr. Jones, an ancient alien Fire Raiser and curmudgeonly mentor to twins who can halt an alien invasion. His look? Hard-luck college professor. The movie? A bit slow. Still, *love* Sam's commitment to NZ film.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
THE DRAGON PEARL
Dir. Mario Andreacchio, 2011
Sam plays an archaeologist (with reddish hair for some reason?) searching for an emperor's tomb. It's a harmless, bland kids' adventure movie. Mostly I'm just happy Sam got to take a trip to China.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️
THE VOW
Dir. Marc Sucsy, 2012
Sam plays amnesiac Rachel McAdams' stern dad. He tries to thwart her romance with Channing Tatum. This mediocre rom/dram is Sam's *biggest non-dino hit* in the US! So many US viewers may only know him as a mean (yet handsome) dad!!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️
ESCAPE PLAN
Dir. Mikael Håfström, 2013
Sam plays Dr. Kyrie, a doc on a detention center ship who remembers that whole Hippocratic Oath thing after talking to Sylvester Stallone. *Very* handsome (love a side-part). The cast is ridiculously stacked. Wanted more Sam.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE ADVENTURER: THE CURSE OF THE MIDAS BOX
Dir. Jonathan Newman, 2014
Sam plays Otto Luger, a villain searching for Midas' box (really a gun) in a steampunk YA franchise nonstarter. We got *bearded Sam* in a waistcoat camping it up with Michael Sheen. This is a romp!
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
UNITED PASSIONS
Dir. Frédéric Auburtin, 2014
I had *no* idea that I hit "play" on an expensive, FIFA-funded propaganda film about the heroic and definitely NOT corrupt executives! A 0% on RT, $918 at the US box office! *Wow*—Sam looks handsome in some of the suits, tho.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️
MINDGAMERS
Dir. Andrew Goth, 2015
Sam plays a genius neo-priest who manipulates a group of Hot Topic goth hackers to use brain WiFi to cure paralysis by harnessing the arts of parkour and dubstep. This movie is an abyss of nonsense and I *highly* recommend it.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️ // ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE COMMUTER
Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra, 2018
Sam plays Capt. Hawthorne, the hottest cop in NYC. Like, *oh my god*. The movie is a formulaic Neeson thriller (still fun) with a before-they-were-famous cast. Sam's onscreen for maybe 5 minutes total, but those 5 minutes?
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
PALM BEACH
Dir. Rachel Ward, 2019
Sam plays one of a group of old chums reuniting at a beach house to hash out *feelings* and I *swoon*. A lovely entry in one of my favorite genres: the adults drinking wine and dancing in kitchens genre. Love this man.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
RIDE LIKE A GIRL
Dir. Rachel Griffiths, 2019
Sam plays the father of Michelle Payne, the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup. A horse racing sports movie that had me invested and almost teary at the big win moment? Whodathunk?! Lots of rugged farmhand Sam.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION
Dir. Colin Trevorrow, 2022
Sam plays Alan Grant one last time. He's awkward, incredulous, and damn handsome. The movie is thoroughly ridiculous, but in a fun way — and it gives me more Alan and Ellie scenes. I love this man.
HOTNESS: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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