Stream ‘Jurassic Park’ icon Sam Neill’s best film, TV roles
Stream ‘Jurassic Park’ icon Sam Neill’s best film, TV roles
The prolific actor passed away on Monday at the age of 78, remember his work by watching his most memorable performances.
Sam Neill, the internationally celebrated actor whose career spanned more than five decades, died Monday at age 78. Best known to generations of moviegoers as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” Neill brought intelligence, understated humor, and quiet authority to an extraordinary variety of roles across American, British, Australian and New Zealand productions.
His eclectic filmography included acclaimed dramas such as “The Piano” and “My Brilliant Career,” thrillers like “Dead Calm” and “The Hunt for Red October,” cult favorites “Possession,” “In the Mouth of Madness” and “Event Horizon,” and the beloved Taika Waititi comedy “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.”
Neill was equally accomplished on television, earning acclaim for projects including “Reilly, Ace of Spies,” “Merlin,” “The Tudors,” “Peaky Blinders” and the Australian legal drama “The Twelve,” which is unfortunately not currently available to stream in the United States.
Over the course of his career, he received three Golden Globe nominations, two Primetime Emmy nominations, and numerous Australian and New Zealand honors, including lifetime-achievement recognition, being named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and being made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Whether anchoring a blockbuster, unsettling audiences in a horror film or lending warmth and wit to a smaller production, Neill became one of the screen’s most dependable and versatile presences — and Dr. Grant remains one of modern cinema’s most enduring heroes.
During his career, Neill received nominations for three Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a British Academy Television Award
Movies
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Sleeping Dogs
July 13, 1978Recluse Smith is drawn into a revolutionary struggle between guerrillas and right-wingers in New Zealand. Implicated in a murder and framed as a revolutionary conspirator, Smith tries to maintain an attitude of non-violence while caught between warring factions.
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My Brilliant Career
August 17, 1979A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.
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The Final Conflict
March 20, 1981Damien Thorn has helped rescue the world from a recession, appearing to be a benign corporate benefactor. When he then becomes U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Damien fulfills a terrifying biblical prophecy. He also faces his own potential demise as an astronomical event brings about the second coming of Christ.
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Possession
May 27, 1981A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.
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Attack Force Z
June 1, 1982Sent to rescue survivors from the site of a plane crash in the South Pacific during WWII, Captain Kelly and his elite squad of Australian commandos must keep tabs on a defecting Japanese official who could hold the secret to peace.
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Evil Angels
November 3, 1988Based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain who, during a family camping trip to Ayers Rock in central Australia, claimed she witnessed a dingo take her baby daughter, Azaria, from their tent. Azaria’s body was never found and, after investigations and two public inquests, she is charged with murder.
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Dead Calm
April 7, 1989An Australian couple takes a sailing trip in the Pacific to get over the recent loss of their son. While on the open sea, they come across a sinking ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.
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The Hunt for Red October
March 2, 1990A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius. The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. Lone CIA analyst Jack Ryan has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it - because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find Ramius, too. The hunt is on!
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Memoirs of an Invisible Man
February 28, 1992After a freak accident, an invisible yuppie runs for his life from a treacherous CIA official while trying to cope with his new life.
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Jurassic Park
June 11, 1993A wealthy entrepreneur secretly creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening day, he invites a team of experts and his two eager grandchildren to experience the park and help calm anxious investors. However, the park is anything but amusing as the security systems go off-line and the dinosaurs escape.
This Steven Spielberg masterpiece tore through box office records when it was released in 1993. Featuring breakthrough GCI animation, a perfect John Williams score, and performances by Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, and Wayne Knight, this movie is pure popcorn perfection.
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The Piano
May 18, 1993When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited pre-teen daughter Flora to the wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
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In the Mouth of Madness
February 3, 1995An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.
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Event Horizon
August 15, 1997In 2047, a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and salvage the starship Event Horizon which disappeared mysteriously seven years before on its maiden voyage. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors.
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The Horse Whisperer
February 1, 1998The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl’s equally injured horse.
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Bicentennial Man
December 17, 1999Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family’s children. “Bicentennial Man” follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don’t have an ordinary robot.
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Jurassic Park III
July 18, 2001In need of funds for research, Dr. Alan Grant accepts a large sum of money to accompany Paul and Amanda Kirby on an aerial tour of the infamous Isla Sorna. It isn’t long before all hell breaks loose and the stranded wayfarers must fight for survival as a host of new — and even more deadly — dinosaurs try to make snacks of them.
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The Zookeeper
November 22, 2001Jonah Ludovic is a custodian at a small municipal zoo. After a night of heavy shelling Ludovic arrives at his job to find the staff abandoning the zoo. He joins a skeleton crew that includes an elderly guard and a veterinarian. Their purpose: to keep the animals alive until help arrives from an international zoological mission.
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Hunt for the Wilderpeople
January 22, 2016Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive.
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Thor: Ragnarok
October 2, 2017Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok, the destruction of his home-world and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of a powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela.
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Peter Rabbit
February 7, 2018Peter Rabbit’s feud with Mr. McGregor escalates to greater heights than ever before as they rival for the affections of the warm-hearted animal lover who lives next door.
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Jurassic World Dominion
June 1, 2022Four years after Isla Nublar was destroyed, dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.
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Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
March 25, 2021Peter Rabbit runs away from his human family when he learns they are going to portray him in a bad light in their book. Soon, he crosses paths with an older rabbit who ropes him into a heist.
TV Shows
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Reilly: Ace of Spies
September 5, 1983Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatising the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the British. Among his exploits, in the early 20th-century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.
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Merlin
April 26, 1998The legendary wizard Merlin sets out to raise young Arthur as true and noble, hoping to bring peace and harmony to the land, but reckons without scheming Queen Mab’s interference and her influence on Morgan Le Fey.
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Jessica
July 18, 2004Set in the Australian outback at the turn of the twentieth century, this family based drama follows a young woman who is unjustly institutionalised.
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The Triangle
December 5, 2005A shipping magnate hires four experts from various fields to investigate what happened to his ships that went missing in the Bermuda Triangle. The team discovers a threat that might unravel time itself and cause the world to end.
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Merlin's Apprentice
April 14, 2006Merlin and a young thief embark on a dangerous quest to find the Holy Grail and save Camelot.
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The Tudors
April 1, 2007The Tudors is a history-based drama series following the young, vibrant King Henry VIII, a competitive and lustful monarch who navigates the intrigues of the English court and the human heart with equal vigor and justifiable suspicion.
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Crusoe
October 17, 2008Crusoe is a television adventure drama based loosely on the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The series’ 13 episodes aired on NBC during the first half of the 2008–2009 television season. It follows the adventures of Robinson Crusoe: a man who has been shipwrecked on an island for six years and is desperate to return home to his wife and children. His lone companion is Friday, a native whom Crusoe rescued and taught English.
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Happy Town
April 28, 2010The residents of Haplin, Minnesota - also known as “Happy Town” - have enjoyed an uneasy peace while haunted by a number of unsolved kidnappings. Now facing a disturbing new crime that brings unresolved fears to the surface, Haplin’s most prominent citizens come under scrutiny as their own secrets are revealed.
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Peaky Blinders
September 12, 2013A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England and centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby, who means to move up in the world.
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Invasion
October 21, 2021Earth is visited by an alien species that threatens humanity’s existence. Events unfold in real time through the eyes of five ordinary people across the globe as they struggle to make sense of the chaos unraveling around them.
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Apples Never Fall
March 14, 2024Follow the Delaneys, who from the outside appear to be an enviably contented family. Former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are parents to four adult children. After fifty years of marriage, they have finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. But after Joy disappears, her children are forced to re-examine their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh eyes.
