The bestRay Liottamovies and TV shows include a wide variety of genres and flavors, although he is best known for his performances in mobster films and the gangster genre. Liotta started as an actor in 1978 when he was cast in the daytime soap operaAnother World, where he appeared for three years. However, he wanted to work in movies, so he moved from New York to Hollywood and got his first major acting role inSomething Wildin 1986, earning a Golden Globe nomination.
That led to even bigger things, when he got a small role in the Kevin Costner movieField of Dreamsthree years later and then the leading role in the Henry Hill biopicGoodfellasin 1990. ThatMartin Scorsese movie helped make Liotta a star,and he built an amazing Hollywood career over the next three-plus decades. Sadly,Ray Liotta died in 2022in his sleep while in the Dominican Republic making a movie calledDangerous Waters. He was 67 at the time of his passing.
Not to be confused with the TV series of the same name, which followed Hannibal Lecter’s origin story, the movieHannibalwas a direct sequel toSilence of the Lambs, which finds Clarice Starling now a disgraced FBI agent after a mission she was on resulted in five deaths. She sets out to rebuild her name by finally capturing Hannibal Lecter, who escaped in the last movie. Julianne Moore replaced Jodie Foster as Clarice,Ray Liotta joined as a corrupt Justice Department official,and Gary Oldman as a serial killer Mason Verger.
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The film was held to a high standard since the original won every major Oscar award and was the first horror movie to win Best Picture.Hannibalhad no chance of replicating that success. However, one of the most iconic moments in the film came when Hannibal was feeding everyone dinner and then showed Liotta with his head cut open, being fed his own brains. The movie was a box office success, but the critical reviews were mixed to negative, leading to a prequel film the following year.
In 2001, Johnny Depp took on the role of American cocaine kingpin George Jung in the biopicBlow. The film tells the story of how Jung built his empire and how it eventually crumbled around him. Joining Depp were Penelope Cruz as his wife, Mirtha Jung, Cliff Curtis as legendary drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, andRay Liotta as Jung’s father, Frederick Jung. It was Fred who tried to convince his son that money was not important after filing for bankruptcy, but it left the opposite message on the young George.
Fred plays a very important part in George’s life, but it was all because George never understood what his dad meant when he told him that money was not “real.” He couldn’t make amends, as his mother denied his request to see his father before he died, but he ended up recording a message for him to possibly hear, trying to bring up their old memories together.Blowreceived mixed reviews, with most of the praise going to the cast and their performances.
Joe Carnahan directed the neo-noir crime thrillerNarc, which was released in 2002 with Jason Patric and Ray Liotta in the lead roles. Liotta took on a role on the other side of the law in this thriller, wherehe and Patrick played police detectives searching for the murderer of an undercover police officer.However, as with many of Liotta’s credits, this involves people taking part in actions that are dubious at best and illegal most of the time. He and Patric’s cop begin to fall into a dark hole that brings out a lot of secrets.
The movie had unexpected twists and turns, and when the final revelation comes, it shows that nothing was as it seemed, and it ends up a tragic tale of deceit — but for the right reasons. The film received critical acclaim, with an 84% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, and most critics praised both Liotta and Patric for their gritty performances. Carnahan received an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Director, and Liotta was nominated for Best Supporting Male.
Hannais a TV series based on the movie of the same name. In the Joe Wright film, Eric Bana was an ex-CIA operative who trained his daughter Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) to be a skilled assassin so she could protect herself. This turned out to be because she was part of a secret program creating young child assassins from which he helped her escape. The TV series had the same basic premise, with Esmé Creed-Miles starring as Hanna and Joel Kinnaman as her trainer/dad.
Hannawas an Amazon Prime Video series that lasted for three seasons and 22 episodes. RayLiotta joined the cast in the third season as Gordon Evans, the Chairman and head of Pioneer, who was pulling the strings behind UTRAX, the organization Hanna escaped from. It was another villain turn for Liotta, and while he was only involved in the final season, he was a significant addition to the cast and helped up the stakes for Hanna and her fight for survival.
After enjoying great success in their collaboration inNarc, Joe Carnahan brought back Ray Liotta for his 2006 action thrillerSmokin' Aces. This movie was more action-oriented than the dramaticNarc, as a Las Vegas magician named Buddy “Aces” Israel is working on an immunity deal with the FBI to testify against mob boss Primo Sparazza.This leads Primo to put a $1 million bounty on Aces' head,and this brings just about every assassin near Las Vegas out of the woodwork to cash in.
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Ray Liotta stars in the film as Donald Carruthers, FBI special agent Richard Messner’s (Ryan Reynolds) partner. Interestingly, despite his big name and recognizable face, he was someone who died in the middle of the movie, but this also showed that no one was safe, as there were multiple deaths from the start to the finish. It is Carruthers' death that causes Messner to do the unthinkable at the movie’s end, making him an integral cast member. The film received terrible reviews but has become a cult classic.
In 2003, Ray Liotta joined forces with director James Mangold after the two worked together onCop Land. However, this was a very different movie that threw off many critics and audience members thanks to its shocking twist.Identityis set up as a slasher movie, but it is really a psychological thriller with sci-fi leanings, causing it to be a very challenging movie at points to follow. The movie is inspired by Agatha Christie’s mystery novelAnd Then There Were None.
The story takes place at an old Nevada roadside motel where 10 strangers find themselves stranded during a torrential rainstorm. Soon, these disparate people begin dying one by one, and the survivors have to figure out who the killer is before they all die. Meanwhile, a mass murderer awaits execution, and his attorney is seeking an insanity plea.Liotta plays Sanuel Rhodes, a correctional officer who is stuck at the moteland who is one of the suspected killers in that part of the story.
James Mangold directed the crime dramaCop Landin 1997, and it was a movie that was a failure upon its release, but it became a cult classic in later years. When asked about the film’s failure, Mangold suggested that the incredible cast involved caused many people to expect more than the smaller crime story that he wanted to tell.The cast included names like Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Robert Patrick, and Janeane Garofalo.
While that cast is strong, the story was a smaller one, with Stallone playing a sheriff working in a community where several NYPD police officers live. They are all designated as “auxiliary transit cops,” which means they live outside their jurisdiction and are mostly immune from internal affairs. Ray Liotta stars as one of these cops, and he and the other officers in the community are involved in highly illegal activities that force the sheriff’s hand when he has to bring them down.
Ray Liotta had quick success in his movie career. His second-ever movie role came in the comedy thrillerSomething Wildin 1986. Directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs),Something Wildtells the story of a yuppie investment banker named Charlie (Jeff Daniels) who agrees to accept a ride from a woman named Lulu (Melanie Griffith), who then robs a liquor store, forces him to call his boss while sexually assaulting him, and continues to ruin his life every step of the way.
Liotta impressed critics and ended up with his first-ever Golden Globes nomination.
With elements of road trip movies and screwball comedies, the film received universal acclaim, with a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score.Ray Liotta stars in the movie as Ray Sinclair, Lulu’s violent ex-convict husbandwho shows up and wants her back, willing to go over Charlie to achieve his goals. While he was still fresh in Hollywood, Liotta impressed critics and ended up with his first-ever Golden Globes nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Field of Dreamsis an inspirational sports fantasy drama starring Kevin Costner as a man named Ray Kinsella, who lives on a corn farm in Iowa with his wife and daughter. Ray is going through a crisis, as he had a broken relationship with his late father John, and he feels he will die without ever accomplishing anything in life. However, he takes the fact that his dad was a devoted baseball fan and begins to hear a voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.“He then starts to build a baseball diamond in his cornfields.
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The “he will come” refers to Ray’s dad, who comes out of the corn fields to make up with his son and allow Ray to reconcile those troubled feelings. However, also coming out of the cornfield are the players from the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, including the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, played here by a young Ray Liotta. With an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score, the film remains a beloved sports movie for fans of baseball and Kevin Costner, and it went on to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
The best movie that Ray Liotta ever starred in was the film that made him a star. Martin Scorsese cast Liotta as Henry Hill, a former member of the mafia turned informant. This film showed his entry into the mafia, his rise up the ranks and success as a member, and then his downfall when he chose to turn evidence and testify against the mafia family who took him in. Joining Liotta in the cast were Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino.
The movie was a minor theatrical success, but it has become known as one of the best gangster movies ever made. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and Pesci won Best Supporting Actor. In 2000, the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry for preservation. WhileRay Liottawasn’t one of the award recipients, he was the lead in what is known as one of the best films in Scorsese’s illustrious career.
