Brett White’s Favorite Sam Neill Films of 2021

Neill plays the titular Dean Spanley, a cleric / reincarnated spaniel who openly reminisces about his dog life after drinking a specific Hungarian wine. The movie is beyond quirky but has a huge heart, not unlike a dog. Neill delivers possibly the most mesmerizing performance of his career, and it’s while he’s delivering what I can only describe as inner dog monologues. Plus, he looks incredibly hot with the beard.

Stream Dean Spanley on Paramount+

Neill plays a KGB agent with a bad rep and big heart. Sidenote: Neill, born in Northern Ireland and raised in New Zealand, always played Russians — and rarely with a Russian accent, mind you. Anyway — Neill’s wardrobe in this film includes incredibly handsome ’80s Ivy style and a few water polo scenes where he dresses very appropriately.

Neill and water polo, I live. This is a perfectly fine Cold War spy movie, especially worth watching if young Martin Sheen is your thing. Between this and the debonair TV series Reilly, Ace of Spies, no wonder Neill was up for Bond!

Stream Enigma on Tubi

Neill plays Satan’s child Damien, all growed up. He’s unapologetically evil, sinks his teeth into so many monologues, and wears so many perfect three piece suits and ascots. Good Lord, Neill is really great in this even if the movie is very hit or miss. But really, I could watch Neill yell about “the Nazarene” for hours (which, come to think of it, is essentially what watching Final Conflict is like).

Where to watch Omen III: The Final Conflict

Neill plays a handsome, maritime, action husband (and dude in distress!) to Nicole Kidman’s Ripley-esque wife. This couple absolutely wrecks a quasi immortal Billy Zane. And come on — Neill in a blue shirt and aviators? This is like the Alan Grant prequel that we (or specifically I) need.

Where to watch Dead Calm

Neill plays a reclusive divorced dad who just wants to chill on his own island (he’s not rich, he’s renting) but a fascist movement in New Zealand keeps harshing his vibe. Watching this film after a year where New Zealand seemed like the only country on Earth taking the pandemic seriously, was a trip. New Zealand’s fascist nightmares of 1977 looked too familiar to this American in 2021. This is incredibly important New Zealand cinema and it was Neill’s first lead role. This is why the man is a national treasure and why RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under needs to have the man on as a guest judge. A Kiwi won Season 1, for Christ’s sake!

Stream Sleeping Dogs on Tubi

Neill plays pastor Michael Chamberlain, the real dad whose real daughter was taken by that very real dingo — which was a real life event! This is such a raw, fearless performance from Neill, one of his best that I’ve seen and on par with Meryl Streep. Also, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mention that he wears lots of short shorts in this.

Stream A Cry in the Dark on HBO Max

Neill plays one of a group of old bandmates reuniting at a beach house to surf, reconnect, drop bombshells, and hash out their feelings. I swoon. This is a lovely entry in one of my low-key favorite genres: the adults drinking wine and dancing in kitchens genre. Plus Richard E. Grant and Neill’s bestie Bryan Brown? This movie has it all (and would best be paired with a bottle of Two Paddocks).

Where to watch Palm Beach

Neill plays a handsome, handsome man who falls in love with a wild-haired, wide-eyed, artistic weirdo and, I dunno, wears tuxedos professionally? That seems like it was a full time job back in the late 19th century. After Sleeping Dogs, this Criterion-approved movie accelerated Neill’s career. It’s easy to see why! Young Sam Neill had big international hottie energy, like the Robert Pattinson of his day.

Stream My Brilliant Career on HBO Max

Neill plays Dr. Weir, a grieving science nerd with great hair who built the Event Horizon, a spaceship that he designed to look like a medieval torture chamber and then sent so deep into space that it touched Hell. This is a quintessential Sam Neill movie: he delivers lots of emotional nuance (I’m sorry, but I’m rooting for Dr. Weir up until the point he gouges his eyes out) and lots of maniacal behavior. And sure, the scenes where he wakes up from cryo-sleep are as hot as those water polo scenes in Enigma.

Stream Event Horizon on HBO Max

Neill plays John Trent, an impossibly, implausibly sexy and cool insurance investigator. The man’s seen it all, which you can tell because of his chain smoking, and is always clad in a double breasted suit or and/or cowboy boots. This is some top-tier Mad Sam—but he also gets to be such a goof! “Never throw chips at a driver!” The range of his rage makes this one of his best performances.

Where to watch In the Mouth of Madness

Neill plays Carl, a middle-aged disaster who’s hired as a bar cook, falls in love with a 19-year-old, accidentally murders a man, and then things somehow continue to get even worse. This is an Aussie Coen Bros-esque crime comedy and, let me tell you, it’s an absolute must watch if the phrase “Aussie Coen Bros-esque” piques your interest. Neill is so awkwardly hot in this; he’s always wearing a leather jacket and Ray-Bans but somehow never seems cool — because he’s not cool. He’s Carl.

Watch Death in Brunswick on Vimeo

Neill plays Mark, a spy who comes home from a mission to a distant wife who wants a divorce. This movie is two hours of screaming, sweat, blood, hysterics, despair, tentacles — the movie makes you feel like you’re in as much of an emotional crisis as Mark. This is Sam Neill at his absolute Mad Sam best, and it’s also the one Sam Neill movie that I actually got to see in a theatre in 2021. God bless Metrograph (and fingers crossed Metrograph brings Possession back to its streaming platform soon).