If there is one actor who has spent most of his career fighting against being typecast, it's Sean Connery. His role in seven James Bond films gave him fame, success, and an image as a suave, ruthless, and athletic man-of-action that was never completely dispelled, despite his best efforts to show his range and ability as an actor. While many of his non-James Bond roles shared some of those qualities — as John Mason in The Rock or William O'Niel in Outland, for example — other roles displayed his capacity for humor, pathos, and hard-earned wisdom.
Connery started to break away from the James Bond mold with films like the Hitchcock-directed Marnie and The Hill, but some of his best was years after his turn as Britain's favorite spy, where he showed off his acting chops.
10 'Dragonheart' (1996)
This Sean Connery film without Sean Connery actually appearing in it was a surprise box office success when it appeared in 1996, long before The Lord of the Rings trilogy made fantasy a bankable genre for studios.
While he may not actually stride across the screen as such, Connery's voicing of the doomed but noble Draco, the last of the dragons, was an important factor in the film's success, giving the dragon a great deal of gravity and empathy, and ensuring Draco's death at the end is both right and tragic.
9 'The Russia House' (1990)
Sean Connery plays Barley Scott-Blair, whose main purpose in life, despite being conscripted by British and American intelligence services, is to publish books rather than assassinate his country's enemies. Given the task of getting in touch with Dante, the Russian author of a manuscript detailing the Soviet Union's wartime nuclear capability, he encounters and falls for Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer), Dante's go-between.
In this 1990 film based on the novel by John le Carré, Barley is a quick-witted, irritable publisher who is as unlike James Bond as possible while still being — technically — a spy. What Barley does possess is the capacity to do the right thing despite the best interests of his handlers and genuinely falling in love with another human being, qualities best noticed by their absence in James Bond.
8 'The Untouchables' (1987)
More fantasy than history, The Untouchables still shows an audience how criminal corruption twists civic institutions such as the police and the courts. Set in Chicago during Prohibition, James Malone (Sean Connery) is a good cop tired of the corruption and who thinks Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is the right man to clean out the city.
Playing a good, tough cop isn't too far from playing a (sometimes) good, tough spy, and Connery convincingly plays the part of the Irish-American Malone with tough Celtic charm. What is different in this case is that he's killed by the bad guys about two-thirds of the way through the film, something that never happened to James Bond during Connery's reign.
7 'Outland' (1981)
An underappreciated sci-fi film, and homage to the great 1952 Western High Noon, Outland has Connery playing another cop, William O'Niel, whose beat is about as far from Chicago as anyone can get... on Jupiter's moon, Io. Like The Untouchables' James Malone, he is engaged in an existential fight against criminal corruption.
Except for The Rock, this film is as close to James Bond as Sean Connery. He is tough, determined, and when called upon, as lethal as 007. However, what differentiates O'Niel from Bond is that he's grounded by his family on Earth, which eagerly awaits him.
6 'The Wind and the Lion' (1975)
A wonderful piece of historical fluff, but with exciting action scenes and great performances from the likes of Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, and John Huston, 1975's The Wind and the Lion surprisingly cast Sean Connery as Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli, a Moroccan Berber rebelling against his nephew, Morocco's sultan. In an attempt to humiliate his nephew in the eyes of foreign powers such as Britain and Germany, Raisuli kidnaps an American family and demands a ransom for their return.
Strangely, Connery's role as Raisuli is eerily similar to his role voicing Draco in Dragonheart: an admirable and almost mythical character. As with Draco, Connery convinces the audience to trust their instincts and side with Raisuli, a warrior with a great and noble heart.
5 'The Rock' (1996)
Action thrillers need more than gunfights and explosions. They need style, and in 1969's The Rock, that comes with the film's two leads, Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. Playing ex-con John Mason and scientist Stanley Goodspeed, respectively, the two actors carry this 1996 film squarely on their shoulders.
Connery, however, is not your everyday ex-con but also an ex-SAS trooper and an ex-MI6 agent (just like James Bond, but without any of the smooth edges). Together with super geek Goodspeed, he wins the day for the goodies. No real surprises as a film and no real stretch for Sean Connery as an actor, but The Rock is a great ride.
4 'The Man Who Would Be King' (1975)
Considered one of the great adventure films of its time, it's hardly surprising that after nearly fifty years, The Man Who Would Be King (1975) is starting to feel its age: the culture that created it now seems antiquated at best, deeply colonialist at worst.
For all that, this 1975 film gave its two stars, Sean Connery and Michael Caine, an opportunity to shine. It would be fascinating to see how director John Huston would have made this film in the 1950s with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart in the starring roles, which had been his original plan.
3 'Robin and Marian' (1976)
Robin Hood has appeared in so many films it's almost impossible to do anything new with him. 1976's Robin and Marian managed it by turning what is traditionally a rousing adventure story with a hopeful and happy ending into a love story with a dark and tragic ending.
Director Richard Lester and writer James Goldman deserve a lot of the credit for pulling this off (and Goldman had achieved something similar with another film set in medieval times, The Lion in Winter), but in the end, it's the on-screen chemistry between Audrey Hepburn as Marian and Sean Connery, playing an emotionally vulnerable Robin Hood who learns that wisdom may have come too late, that convinces audiences they're watching something that matters, no matter how mythical the story.
2 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' (1989)
One of the best-ever adventure films, and arguably the best in the Indiana Jones series (although Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny may change that), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was 1989's most successful release. It was also seen as a return to form for the series after the disappointing Temple of Doom five years before.
An exhilarating ride from the get-go, the father-son relationship between Harrison Ford's Indiana and Sean Connery's Henry Jones gives the film much of its humor, tension, narrative drive, and almost all of its emotional glue. Connery is outstanding as the brilliant and dedicated — if occasionally baffled and self-deluded — archeologist who had inspired his son to follow in his footsteps years before.
1 'The Hunt for Red October' (1990)
It's ironic that Sean Connery's best role as an actor, including his seven outings as James Bond, should be as captain of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine, although a captain trying desperately to defect to the West. If not ironic, it's certainly bizarre that audiences accepted his thick Scottish accent as appropriate for a Lithuanian naval officer; then again, audiences seemed willing enough to accept a Robin Hood and a Berber prince speaking like a working-class lad from Edinburgh, so why not someone from the Soviet Union?
In The Hunt for Red October, Connery plays Marko Ramius, one of the Soviet Navy's best submarine commanders, with solemn authority. The weight of his decision to defect and his responsibility towards his crew are shown in every glance, word, and action. From the start, Connery makes sure the audience knows whose side they're on: the man in the middle. Marko Ramius is easily as tough and courageous as James Bond, but his wisdom and empathy make him a better man.