As the aging media mogul Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession, Brian Cox is at turns delusional, paranoid, manipulative, blunt, seductive, and both physically and emotionally abusive. Logan Roy is a modern King Lear, an isolated patriarch who must divide his empire but does not truly believe any of his children are worthy of the spoils.

Cox is part of an excellent ensemble on Succession, but even when he’s absent from a scene, he looms large. This is a testament to the Scottish-born Cox’s dangerous charm, honed over a nearly six-decade career in television and film. He has appeared in all kinds of projects over the years, from movies and TV shows to voiceover work in movies like Her and the animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Cox is more than a great character actor: he’s a force of nature who elevates anything he appears in.

Here is a look at seven of his performances which stole the show.

Manhunter

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Image via De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

By the 1980s, Cox had already been acting steadily for twenty years. While his first significant film role was as Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in the creaky 1971 melodrama Nicholas and Alexandra, many American audiences were introduced to him as the first actor to portray the legendary serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Heat director Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Based on The Silence of the Lambs author Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (remade for no good reason in 2002 by director Brett Ratner), Manhunter follows FBI profiler Will Graham (William Petersen) in his obsessive hunt for the nasty killer known as the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan). Like future FBI trainee Clarice Starling, Will must visit the incarcerated murdering psychiatrist Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter (spelled “Lecktor” here) and pick his brain. Anthony Hopkins and Mads Mikkelsen would take over the role in later years, but Cox’s Lector has a dangerous, charismatic smarm all his own. Hopkins’ turn in the role famously won him an Oscar, but Cox’s performance arguably outshines the rest of the movie, and is worth a rewatch.

The Minus Man

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Image via Artisan Entertainment

1999’s indie drama The Minus Man is an under-seen oddity that deserves a second look. The first and to date only film directed by actor and Blade Runner co-writer Hampton Fancher, The Minus Man follows drifter and serial killer Vann (Owen Wilson), who carefully murders people with a poisoned flask of Amaretto liqueur. Vann eventually ends up in a small town and stays with the unhappily married Doug (Cox) and Jane (Mercedes Ruehl). It’s a slow burn of a movie, with Cox’s performance as the discontented, alcoholic Doug punctuating the controlled pace with the promise of violence that Owen’s character avoids.

Super Troopers

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Image via Fox Searchlight

Known for his masterful dramatic chops, Cox switches effortlessly to comedy at the drop of a hat. The Broken Lizard troupe’s goofy, raunchy comedy directed by Jay Chandrasekhar was a modest hit at the time and endures as a cult favorite. The pranks and hijinks of these slacker Vermont state troopers are barely held together by a thin plot, but the stream of gags is the real draw. As captain of the Super Troopers, Cox steals all his scenes as the cranky, tough, hilarious straight man who nevertheless is 100% on board with the chaos.

Adaptation.

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Image via Sony Pictures

Director Spike Jonez’s still-dazzling Adaptation. follows screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s meta look at a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman’s problems with his lazy mooch of a twin brother Donald (both played by an excellent Nicolas Cage), painful shyness, and the hellish task of adapting the unadaptable book The Orchid Thief by New Yorker writer Susan Orlean. In the middle of it all, Kaufman attends the famous storytelling seminar by real-life screenwriting guru Robert McKee, played here with movie-stealing gusto by Cox. A friend of McKee’s in real life, Cox channels the entire world’s narrative experience as he rails at Kaufman for not finding any of it in his own life. In fact,Cox delivers the entire philosophy of the movie in his line to Kaufman: “Your characters must change, and the change must come from them.”

X2: X-Men United

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Image via 20th Century Fox

A half-decade before Marvel Studios would launch an interconnected cinematic universe, fans of comic book movies were content with solid sequels. X2 is a rare superior follow-up, building on Bryan Singer’s X-Men, the movie that arguably created the template for the modern, market-dominating version of the superhero blockbuster. As anti-mutant special ops boogeyman William Stryker, Cox remains the greatest X-Men villain that isn’t Magneto. Stryker has been played by different actors across the franchise, but Cox so fully owned his screen time that his absence has been felt in every Wolverine-centric entry since.

Deadwood (Season 3)

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Image via HBO

Inspired by a real-life Irish actor who went on to become an Idaho state senator, Cox’s Jack Langrishe arrives in Deadwood with a flourish. The great Scot is a delight as an old friend of Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) with plans to found a theater and add culture to this pocket of the muddy crucible that will one day be South Dakota. Deadwood was infamously cut short before creator David Milch could give the show a satisfying ending, with many fans and critics taking issue with the overall direction of Season 3. Some critics claimed the show spent too much time on Cox’s character and his troupe of thespians. It’s an arguable point, but every time Cox swans through a scene, it’s like watching someone from a different universe touring the grim and gritty territory.

RED

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Image via Summit

Like The Expendables franchise showed how audiences would flock to see aging action stars tear it up with tongues firmly in cheek, 2010’s RED provided similar thrills in the same mold. As a “retired, extremely dangerous” ex-CIA operative, Bruce Willis is targeted by Karl Urban and his cute hair. RED is a satisfying actioner, livened up considerably by Cox’s appearances as former Russian agent Ivan Simanov. Chowing down on a heavy accent and smirking his way through his scenes, Cox is a playful delight. His rekindled romance with Helen Mirren’s retired assassin (she once put two bullets in his chest) is one of the film’s highlights.