Because of the nature of streaming, actors have increasingly transitioned effortlessly between film and television over the last decade. Great character performers, such as Michael Stuhlbarg, have delivered outstanding performances in both genres long before it became fashionable. Before his big role in Joel and Ethan Coens’ 2009 dark comedy A Serious Man, Stuhlbarg was a relative unknown. In the near future, Stuhlbarg will star in both a major blockbuster and a prestige television series. He’ll soon be seen as David Rudolf in the HBO Max miniseries The Staircase, and in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he repeated his role as Nicodemus West. Here are Michael Stuhlbarg’s top nine roles to date.
1. Call Me Your Name (2017)
Director- Luca Guadagnino
In the early 1980s, seventeen-year-old Elio spends his vacation in his family’s summer villa in northern Italy, amid the lush Mediterranean landscapes of a tranquil and golden summer. Apart from his father, Mr Perlman, a professor of Greco-Roman culture, and his translator mother, Annella, Oliver, a twenty-four-year-old American PhD student, works there as an intern. Now, against the backdrop of perpetual summer boredom, a tentative relationship between Elio and Oliver will create the basis for an unforeseen bond, as the uncharted emotions of first love begin to boil over over the course of six transitory weeks.
2. Fargo (TV Series 2017)
Created By- Joel and Ethan Coen
Stuhlbarg’s oddball tastes are ideal for Noah Hawley’s oddball series. Although the third season of Fargo is the poorest, Ewan McGregor as the twin brothers Emmit and Raymond Stussy gives an outstanding lead performance. Emmit is the most prosperous of the two, having built a lucrative parking lot company. Stuhlbarg plays Sy Feltz, Emmit’s best friend and devoted servant, in a key role.
3. Boardwalk Empire (TV Series 2010-2014)
Created By- Terence Winter
The story of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, the treasurer of Atlantic County, Atlantic City, New Jersey, is set during the Prohibition era in the 1920s. The Federal Government becomes interested in him as a result of his connections with mobsters and political links. His extravagant lifestyle appears to be at odds with his position, and the neighbourhood is notorious for bootlegging. Stuhlbarg’s Rothstein, a major gangster in the rising scene, is one of Enoch Thompson’s most dangerous adversaries.
4. A Serious Man (2009)
Director- Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Larry Gopnik, a Jewish physics lecturer in Bloomington, Minnesota, in 1967, is a serious and put-upon guy. His daughter is stealing from him in order to save money for a nose operation, his stoned son only wants him around to fix the TV aerial, and his useless brother Arthur is an unpleasant house guest. When Larry’s wife Judy, who wants a divorce, moves her lover, Sy, into the house, both Arthur and Larry are thrown out, and they remain there even after Sy’s death in a car accident.
Larry is tempted to accept a bribe given by a student to give him an unlawful test pass grade, as his legal fees for his divorce, Arthur’s criminal court appearances, and a land conflict with a neighbour increase. And the rabbis he consults only provide platitudes. Yet, as Larry and his family will discover, God works in mysterious and not always pleasant ways.
5. Lincoln (2012)
Director- Steven Spielberg
As the American Civil War draws to a close in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln works to pass a momentous constitutional amendment that would permanently abolish slavery in the United States. However, his mission is a race against time, for peace could come at any time, and if it does, the returning southern states will block the amendment from becoming law. Before peace arrives and it is too late, Lincoln must gain enough votes from a resistant Congress by practically any means possible. Nonetheless, the president is conflicted, because a quick agreement will save thousands of lives. As the country wrestles with its conscience over the freedom of its entire population, Lincoln must choose between ending slavery and ending the war.
6. Arrival (2016)
Director- Denis Villeneuve
An ominous alien pod, out of a total of twelve, comes to a halt in the clear skies of Montana, hovering barely a few feet above the verdant plains, during an unprecedented worldwide incidence of simultaneous first contact with extraterrestrial life forms. As panic spreads, Colonel G.T. Weber assembles a team of experts, including renowned linguist and dialectologist Professor Dr. Louise Banks and theoretical physicist Dr. Ian Donnelly, and assigns them the impossible task of deciphering a coded dialogue with the extraterrestrial visitors.
7. Steve Jobs (2015)
Director- Danny Boyle
From 1984 until 1998, a full-length portrait of Steve Jobs was taken, capturing three major product introductions. Although all three events were SRO, product acceptance was mixed. The film is fast-paced and gives insight into the life of the legendary Job. There are numerous flashbacks that provide additional context. While Steve Jobs’ numerous achievements will never be matched, his manner was as formidable. His relationships are scrutinised, and you must assess their impact on him and others close to him.
8. The Shape Of Water (2017)
Director- Guillermo del Toro
Elisa Esposito, a desolate and lonely mute woman who works as a night cleaner in a top-secret underground research facility in early-sixties Baltimore, is still at the height of the space race and the Cold War. Elisa will be overjoyed with the sudden appearance of an Amazonian Amphibian Man at the huge corporation, as she has only two friends: Zelda, her solicitous coworker who does all of the talking for both of them, and Giles, her ageing painter neighbour. The enigmatic scaly creature is undoubtedly the centre of attention when kept on a short leash within a small swimming tank. However, as a tentatively blossoming sympathetic and even magical relationship between species emerges, the entire life of this rare creature rests in the hands of an improbable and feeble saviour.
9. Miss Sloane (2016)
Director- John Madden
Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain) is the most sought-after and fearsome lobbyist in D.C. in the high-stakes world of political power brokers. She has always done whatever it takes to win, and she is known for both her cunning and her track record of success. But as she faces her most powerful opponent yet, she discovers that victory may come at too high a cost.
