Just as we’re reeling from the loss of David Bowie, beloved character actor Alan Rickman has likewise passed away at the age of 69 following a battle with cancer.
Rickman will of course be best known to younger viewers (and for generations to come) as the stern Professor Severus Snape from the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise. Their parents will revere him as the diabolical Hans Gruber in ‘Die Hard’. What was most amazing about the actor, however, was his tremendous range. He could play flamboyant, over-the-top villains (as in ‘Die Hard’ or ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’) or dial way down to portray heartbreakingly sympathetic characters, such as those in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ or ‘Love Actually’, with plenty of variance in between. One of my favorite of his roles was in ‘Galaxy Quest’, as a classically trained proper theatrical actor who lamented that he’d only ever be remembered for a cheesy sci-fi TV show, until he came to realize just how important that program – and his part in it specifically – was to some very unexpected fans.
Rickman acted in dozens of movies, and directed two as well (1997’s ‘The Winter Guest’ and 2014’s ‘A Little Chaos’). To my knowledge, the following are all of his titles currently available on Blu-ray:
- ‘Alice in Wonderland‘
- ‘The Butler‘
- ‘CBGB‘
- ‘Die Hard‘
- ‘Dogma‘
- ‘Galaxy Quest‘
- ‘The ‘Harry Potter’ series‘
- ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘
- ‘The January Man‘
- ‘A Little Chaos‘
- ‘Love Actually‘
- ‘Quigley Down Under‘
- ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves‘
- ‘Sense and Sensibility‘
- ‘Smiley’s People‘
- ‘Sweeney Todd‘
A couple of terrific movies that still need to be released on the format are Tim Robbins’ hilarious political satire ‘Bob Roberts’ and Anthony Minghella’s touching supernatural romance ‘Truly Madly Deeply’.
Rickman’s voice will be heard later this year reprising his role as the Blue Caterpillar in the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ sequel ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’.
Trond Michelsen
I think you tagged the wrong Galaxy there…
Very sad to see him pass so soon.
Josh Zyber
AuthorWhoops. Thanks for catching that.
Chris B
Yesterday was a really sad day, when I was younger Die Hard was a huge part of my movie-watching habit right up there with ROTJ and BTTF. The hits in 2016 just keep on comin’….
Deaditelord
So sad to hear about Rickman’s passing. Here’s to him sitting up there on a beach, earning 20%.
David Voss
“By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall be avenged!”…
… or “what a savings”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgv7U3GYlDY
Shannon Nutt
I know Alan has at least one more movie coming out – I saw a trailer for it before my viewing of SPOTLIGHT. He plays a military guy in it and he must decide whether to drop a smart bomb on a terrorist that he knows will also kill civilians. Sadly, neither the movie or his performance in it looked very good from what I saw.
Lord Bowler
I watch Die Hard every Christmas!