Our guide to Oscar Isaac’s best performances

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He starred in a fan-favorite Sci-fi epic, an indie critical darling, and is already set to reprise his role as Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 in Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One), as well as starring in and producing his own Marvel/Disney Plus streaming series, Moon Knight this March.

It is safe to say that Oscar Isaac has been having a good couple of years. Decade, really. Here are some of his best performances.

Inside Lewyn Davis

Isaac already had a fair amount of minor and supporting roles before turning in his titular performance as Davis in this Cohen Bros. helmed dramatic comedy, but this was inarguably the movie that brought him his first real critical notice as a leading man. For his portrayal of Davis, a talented yet unknown folksinger struggling in Greenwich Village’s early 1960s music scene, Isaac received his first Golden Globe nod. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Ex Machina

Isaac’s performance as Ex Machina‘s charismatic and manipulative CEO, Nathan Hamlet Bateman, won him critical accolades and more indie cred. A great example of cinematic hard sci-fi, the film presaged a lot of the work Isaac would be associated with over the next few years. Plus, those dance moves.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Although one could certainly make the argument that Isaac’s Poe Dameron was underutilized in the latest installment of trilogies, that didn’t keep Isaac from throwing himself into the role every time he was onscreen. He certainly makes the most of it in The Force Awakens during his escape sequence with John Boyega’s Finn. While the series didn’t go on to mine the chemistry, they established it certainly exposed Isaac to the biggest audience of his career yet.

Annihilation

Isaac would pivot back to harder sci-fi fare with 2018’s Annihilation, reuniting with Ex Machina director Alex Garland. Isaac adds high-intensity emotional stakes to the movie as the husband of star Natalie Portman. Or is he? Annihilation is a massive brain teaser of a movie switching between extremes of body horror to Arthur C. Clarke level questioning of the very meaning of humanity and our relationship with our planet.

Scenes From a Marriage

In 2021, Oscar Isaac and his A Most Violent Year co-star and former Julliard classmate Jessica Chastain re-teamed to star in Scenes From a Marriage, a remake of famed director Ingmar Bergman’s acclaimed 1973 Swedish miniseries. Made for HBO, the story follows the dissolution of a marriage over the course of its five episodes with an unflinching gaze. Though often grueling, Isaac’s performance was lauded by critics, and his chemistry with Chastain is undeniably electric.

The Card Counter

The Card Counter may be the best movie you never saw last year. The Paul Schrader helmed indie film was released to little fanfare last year, but many are touting it, and Isaac’s performance in particular as Oscar-worthy. In his Hollywood Reporter review of the film, critic David Rooney calls Isaac a “remarkably compelling force” and describes his portrayal of William Tell, the titular card counter, “an intense performance with the dangerous magnetism of Al Pacino in his early Michael Corleone days.”

Dune

It goes without saying that Isaac’s performance as Duke Leto Atreides in Dune was one of the major selling points of the movie. He’s ended up in promotional shots of the film almost as often or more as his co-stars Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, and Jason Momoa. Isaac himself lobbied Director Denis Villeneuve for a role in the film as he was a fan of the books. Isaac slid into the role after Jürgen Prochnow and William Hurt’s turns as the character, but in his own inimitable way, Isaac makes the Duke as much his character as any of the other performances on this list.

Fans can see Oscar Isaac in Disney Plus’s Moon Knight beginning March 30.

Oscar Isaac Brings Gomez to Life in New THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2 Featurette

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The Addams Family has inspired generations of weirdos since the 1930s. That is quite the staying power. But it isn’t a surprise. No one can remain in fashion quite as well as a wonderfully wacky family that relishes most in what makes them unique. Of course, the Addams wouldn’t have survived this long without the wonderful talent that breathes life into them over and over again. Most recently, The Addams Family 2 delighted fans, but no one more so than Gomez Addams’ voice actor, Oscar Isaac. We’re pleased to reveal just how much fun Oscar Isaac had in creating the character with an exclusive look at a new The Addams Family 2 behind-the-scenes featurette.

In the featurette, we get to see a little bit of Oscar Isaac recording for Gomez. Isaac’s energy leaps off the screen and practically scorches us—even in what ostensibly was just one of many takes for any given line or scene. We can’t help but wonder, what came first? The chicken or the egg? Because often Oscar Isaac’s expression and Gomez Addams’ animated ones are practically twins. We could honestly watch Isaac perform his Gomez for hours. His whole body falls into the vocal performance. And his smile? Infectious.

Even in a scene where Gomez is doing little more than snoring and rolling around in bed, Isaac gives his all behind the scenes. He closes his eyes and mimics his counterpart standing up. Call us incredibly impressed.

Danielle Sterling, a producer on The Addams Family 2, sums it up incredibly well. She shares, “Oscar Isaac is fantastic. He has so much energy. He’s just very natural at what he does.”

Isaac also speaks a bit about the role in the featurette. He shares, “Gomez is a character that I’ve loved for such a long time just as a fan. Even reading Charles Addams’ comic strip. And Raul Julia being one of my biggest inspirations and seeing what he did with that character. And so then getting my chance to put my spin on it.”

You can now enjoy Isaac’s entire performance and a plethora of other behind-the-scenes and bonus features because The Addams Family 2 has just been released on Blu-ray and DVD. For those who haven’t watched yet, the official description of the film reads:

Morticia (Charlize Theron) and Gomez (Oscar Isaac) are distraught that their children are growing up, skipping family dinners, and totally consumed with “scream time.” To reclaim their bond, they decide to cram Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz), Pugsley (Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton), Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) and the crew into their haunted camper and hit the road for one last miserable family vacation. What could possibly go wrong?

This movie, which is “creepier and kookier than the first,” is sure to delight every Addams family fan out there. And don’t forget to imagine Oscar Isaac wildly gesticulating behind the scenes while you watch.

X-Men: Apocalypse’s Oscar Isaac Opens Up About His Nightmare On-Set Experience

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X-Men: Apocalypse’s Oscar Isaac Opens Up About His Nightmare On-Set Experience

In 2016, the “X-Men” franchise film “X-Men: Apocalypse” premiered, following up 2014’s time-traveling adventure “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” While the earlier film wowed critics and audiences, earning a 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the 2016 movie didn’t live up to expectations, even with a cast that includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Evan Peters, and Oscar Isaac as the main antagonist, Apocalypse.

Directly inspired by the popular character from the Marvel comics, Apocalypse, also known as En Sabah Nur, is one of the first mutants and has a variety of powerful abilities, both superhuman and not. In “X-Men: Apocalypse,” the character believes in continual evolution and sees mutants as better than humans. As a result, he wants to destroy all humans to allow mutants to take over.

Along with his powers and strong beliefs, Apocalypse also has an intense physical appearance. Alongside the blue skin covered with gray lines, the character wears heavy silver armor and has an imposing size. But in order to look this way, Isaac had to go through a torturous experience everyday on set.

Brian Cox on Hannibal Lecter; Daniel Radcliffe Is Weird Al; Oscar Isaac Is Sleepy in Moon Knight

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Brian Cox opens up about being the first to play Hannibal Lecter back in 1986; Daniel Radcliffe is set to play Weird Al Yankovic; Disney+ drops the trailer for Moon Knight. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.

Scream Hits Big at the Box Office: The fifth installment in the Scream franchise starring Jenna Ortega scored $30.6 million over the weekend, according to Variety, and was projected to get to $35 million by the end of the MLK Day weekend.

Daniel Radcliffe Takes On Weird Al: The Harry Potter star is set to play famous parody artist Weird Al Yankovic in a biopic written by Weird Al himself. The movie is being made exclusively for the Roku Channel and is produced by Tango and Funny or Die.

‘Torrid Celebrity Love Affairs’ Etc: Consider that for a song title, Wilco. Roku said in a release that the Weird Al movie “holds nothing back, exploring every facet of Yankovic’s life, from his meteoric rise to fame with early hits like ‘Eat It’ and ‘Like a Surgeon’ to his torrid celebrity love affairs and famously depraved lifestyle. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story takes audiences on a truly unbelievable journey through Yankovic’s life and career, from gifted child prodigy to the greatest musical legend of all time.”

Brian Cox on Hannibal Lecter: In an exclusive excerpt for MovieMaker, the Succession star opens up about being the first to play Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s 1986 film Manhunter. Cox took a different approach to playing the serial killer than Anthony Hopkins, who ended up playing Lecter in Silence of the Lambs and two other films.

Crazy vs. Insane: “A chief difference between my portrayal and Tony’s was that Tony played him crazy whereas I played him insane, and there’s a difference between madness and insanity. Tony was scary and very Grand Guignol, but that wasn’t my and Michael Mann’s take. Our take was, this guy is an intellectual. He’s very, very clever. But if you saw him in the street you wouldn’t look twice at him. He wouldn’t stand out for his manners or his clothes or some kind of exaggerated charisma. He’s just an ordinary-looking, sounding and acting guy who happens to have an absolutely razor-sharp brain,” Cox writes in his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat.

Joss Whedon Speaks: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator sat down for a long conversation with Vulture to talk about his upbringing, Buffy, and the allegations that brought him back down to earth after a long stretch as a television God. It’s an interesting interview, with Whedon getting super candid about some of the darkest parts of his childhood.

The Last Duel: Is trending on a small scale on Twitter, and a lot of people seem to be noticing the Adam Drive/Matt Damon/Jodie Comer/Ben Affleck medieval epic for the first time after skipping it in theaters. It’s understandable why you’d wait to watch a movie at home during these times, of course. I saw it in theaters myself and I was scratching my head at how fast it seemed to disappear from theaters — I, like many Twitterers, thought it was excellent!

Let Oscar Isaac Have a Nap: Disney+ debuted the trailer for its new Marvel series Moon Knight — which stars Oscar Isaac as a very sleepy gentleman who suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID) and moonlights (pun intended) as the superhero Moon Knight — last night during the NFL Super Wild Card matchup between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams. The series streams March 30. Watch the trailer below:

Main Image: Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector in Moon Knight. Photo Credit: Disney+/Marvel.

Watch: Oscar Isaac has an identity disorder in first ‘Moon Knight’ trailer

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Oscar Isaac can’t tell the difference between life and dreams in the first trailer for upcoming Marvel series, “Moon Knight.”