Sam Neill, who died on Monday at the age of 78, was a prolific actor who appeared in more than 150 films and TV shows over five decades. Born in Northern Ireland and raised in New Zealand, Neill was able to apply his rugged charm (and unique accent) to roles across genres, including action blockbusters and cult horror classics.
“I’ve never had an image, nor have I fostered one or wanted one, which has meant that I’ve had fantastic freedom to do whatever it is that appeals at the time,” Neill told The Chicago Tribune in 1995. It’s that spirit of curiosity and flexibility that he’d carry with him throughout his career.
Here is a list of where to stream some of his most memorable work. (“The Piano,” Jane Campion’s 1993 Oscar-winning love story that stars Neill as a rigid and emotionally repressed settler in the wilds of New Zealand, is not available to stream.)
‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
Rent it on YouTube and Prime Video.
Neill was catapulted to star status with his turn as the pragmatic, lovably grumpy paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in “Jurassic Park,” Steven Spielberg’s global smash and the start of one of Hollywood’s most enduring franchises.
In the creature feature based on a Michael Crichton novel, Neill starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough and Samuel L. Jackson — a motley crew brought together to assess a top-secret theme park in which dinosaurs are resurrected for science in theory, but more for profit. When things don’t go to plan, they have to outrun and outlive the prehistoric beasts.
Neill went on to reprise the role in “Jurassic Park III” (2001) and “Jurassic World Dominion” (2022).
“These ‘Jurassic’ films, they’re often known as dinosaur films, but if you’re not interested in the people, the films don’t work,” Neill told The New York Times in 2022. “Dinosaurs are the bit players, albeit awesome ones.”
‘Event Horizon’ (1997)
Stream it on MGM+.
Neill took his talents to outer space for this mind-bending sci-fi horror from Paul W.S. Anderson that was a commercial and critical flop upon release — Anderson “douses almost every scene with glitzy special effects in a futile attempt to cover up a paucity of thought,” our critic wrote — before becoming a cult classic.
Set in 2047, Neill plays Dr. Weir, a mad scientist whose wife had recently killed herself. He is brought on a secret rescue mission to find the Event Horizon, a spaceship he’d designed that was lost years earlier on its maiden voyage before mysteriously popping up near Neptune. Weir had equipped the ship with a magnetic space-folding device that allows for vast distances to be traveled in an instant.
Little do those on the mission know that the ship has been possessed by a malevolent, sentient force that will soon psychologically terrorizes them. And Neill’s performance as a broken man turned evil incarnate — about as far a departure from the reliable Dr. Grant of “Jurassic Park” as could be imagined — is shocking and, for fans of the genre, legendary.
‘The Hunt for Red October’ (1990)
Stream it on Tubi and Peacock.
A few years before his blockbuster turn, Neill starred with Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn and James Earl Jones in this Cold War submarine spy thriller based on a Tom Clancy novel and directed by John McTiernan (“Die Hard”).
Neill plays the idealistic, quietly dignified Soviet Capt. Borodin, second-in-command to Connery’s Capt. Marko Ramius, who goes rogue on the Red October, a sub outfitted with enough missiles to destroy most major American cities as well as a state-of-the art system that allows it to escape detection.
Neill’s performance as the unwaveringly loyal officer till the bitter end may best be remembered for his delivery of possibly the film’s most memorable line: “I would like to have seen Montana.”
‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ (2016)
Stream it on Plex and Prime Video.
In this adventure from Taika Waititi, Neill ventured deeper into comedic territory — but of the heart-tugging variety.
“Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” as our critic Manohla Dargis put it, “takes a troika of familiar story types — the plucky kid, the crusty geezer, the nurturing bosom — and strips them of cliché.”
Neill is the crusty geezer, Uncle Hec. He and his wife, Aunty Bella (Rima Te Wiata), take in an often-rejected foster child, Ricky (Julian Dennison). The couple live at the edge of the forest in New Zealand (Waititi is also a New Zealander) and rely on the land’s bounty for survival. Hec, a no-nonsense outdoorsman, is hiding deep pain with his gruff exterior and at first treats Ricky as a pest he wants to be rid of.
But soon Hec and Ricky find themselves on the run together, and Hec goes from wanting nothing to do with the kid to protecting him fiercely — a trajectory that calls to mind Neill’s story arc in “Jurassic Park.”
‘In the Mouth of Madness’ (1995)
Stream it on Tubi and the Roku Channel. Rent it on Prime Video and YouTube.
The third and final installment of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy,” as the director has called it — “The Thing” (1982) and “Prince of Darkness” (1987) precede it — stars Neill as John Trent, a smug and skeptical insurance investigator dispatched to find the recently disappeared Sutter Cane, a popular author of horror fiction in the mold of Stephen King.
In this Lovecraftian tale that explores themes around the boundaries of reality and the power of mass media, Cane’s readers are increasingly being driven insane by his storytelling.
It doesn’t take long for Trent to start losing his grip as the bizarre phenomenon consumes him, allowing Neill to again showcase his ability to take a character from one extreme to another — here to chilling effect, much like in “Event Horizon” and “The Piano.”
“The film, like Trent, gets nuttier and more unmanageable as the story unfolds,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review.
‘Peaky Blinders’ (2013-14)
In a historical gangster melodrama from the BBC set early in the 20th century, Neill starred as Inspector Chester Campbell for the show’s first two seasons of six.
Campbell is a Protestant cop from Northern Ireland sent to clean things up in Birmingham, England — challenging the dangerous, enigmatic Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), who leads the Shelby crime family.
“The show is mostly about Shelby’s beautiful moodiness (Mr. Murphy’s famously striking eyes do most of the work here) versus Campbell’s moralistic zealotry,” or critic, Mike Hale, wrote of the show’s first season.
In 2012, Neill recalled how he was asked to tone down the Northern Irish accent since the show was to be marketed to American audiences.
The producers “said not to have too strong an accent because we need to be understood, but the Northern Ireland accent is very challenging,” he told the BBC. “I probably had one, but it was well beaten out of me in the playground in New Zealand, there’s not a trace of it now.”
Still, he said, “I enlisted the help of my friends James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson.”
The post Where to Stream Sam Neill’s Best Performances appeared first on New York Times.
