Curated playlist
Best Male Lead Independent Spirit Award winners
- Adam SandlerAdam Sandler once made a Western comedy that critics almost universally panned. On the 6th of January 2016, Netflix announced that the film, The Ridiculous 6, had been watched more times in thirty days than any other movie in the service's…
- Matthew McConaugheyMatthew McConaughey, the American actor, won the part that launched his career by walking up to a stranger in a hotel bar. At the time he was a film student at the University of Texas in Austin. He had gone out with his girlfriend to the…
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen came out as gay on BBC radio in 1988, while Parliament weighed Section 28.
- Samuel L. JacksonSamuel L. Jackson learned to cope with a childhood stutter by pretending to be other people.
- Robert DuvallRobert Duvall died at his farm in Middleburg, Virginia, on the 15th of February 2026, at the age of 95. His wife, Luciana Pedraza, announced his death in a public statement. He had worked for seven decades, and on screen he rarely seemed…
- Javier BardemIn 1989, the Spanish actor Javier Bardem put on a Superman costume for a sketch on the comedy show El Día Por Delante. The job left him wondering whether he wanted to be an actor at all. That doubt makes sense for a man who never planned…
- Sean PennIn Kyiv in November 2022, Sean Penn handed an Oscar statuette to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "This is for you. It's just a symbolic silly thing...When you win, bring it back to Malibu." That was the whole speech. Penn is an…
- River PhoenixRiver Phoenix was an American actor and musician, and at the 92nd Academy Awards his brother Joaquin spoke one of River's lyrics aloud. Accepting the Best Actor prize, Joaquin told the room that River wrote it at 17: "run to the rescue…
- Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman was an American actor whose career the director Joel Schumacher summed up in 2000 with bad news and good news. Schumacher put it this way: "The bad news is that Philip won't be a $25-million star. The good news is…
- James FrancoFor five weeks, James Franco spent twelve hours a day in a gully built as a film set, and he left it only to use the lavatory. Between takes he read books, including academic textbooks, just to keep busy. The American actor and filmmaker…
- Ryan GoslingRyan Gosling was suspended in grade one for throwing steak knives at classmates.
- Timothée ChalametDirector Paul King cast Timothée Chalamet as Willy Wonka without an audition. King had watched Chalamet's high school performances on YouTube and decided that they proved his singing and dancing. Chalamet is an American and French actor…