I was talking about him in another thread and thought I'd share my favorite Michael Caine movies:
The Man Who Would Be King (1975) (I've already mentioned this one at length in an earlier post)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Alfie (1966)
Gambit (1966)
The Italian Job (1969)
Get Carter (1971)
Sleuth (1972)
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Educating Rita (1983)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) [Hello... Oscar
]
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Without a Clue (1988)
Noises Off... (1992)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Mandela and de Klerk (1997) [Poitier & Caine.. in the same movie? awesome!]
The Cider House Rules (1999)
again
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) [wasn't this perfect casting?]
The Quiet American (2002)
Secondhand Lions (2003)
The Statement (2003)
Around the Bend (2004) [with Christopher Walken.. as his son!]
The Prestige (2006) [the movie was predictable, but I enjoyed his scenes]
Sleuth is brilliant, and Caine is brilliant in it. The very first time I saw it, I had no idea he was playing the inspector in the second half of the movie. Can't wait to check out the remake!
The original
Get Carter is another classic.
It's a shame Caine was filming the dreadful
Jaws: The Revenge the night he won the Oscar for
Hannah, and couldn't attend the ceremony. Still, it was a well-deserved role in one of Woody Allen's best movies.
I actually like all three of Caine's Harry Palmer movies, and consider them to be amongst the best of the 60s spy films/Bond knockoffs.
The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and
Billion Dollar Brain are worthwhile viewing. The Palmer character himself is interesting, as he isn't a typical spy. Len Deighton, who wrote the novels on which the films are based, actually didn't name his spy. He's anonymous in the books. I'm not sure where the name Harry Palmer came from. The third film,
Billion Dollar Brain, had been a rarity for years, at least in the U.S. (it has since been released on DVD). In one scene, the album sleeve of a Beatles album (I think it was "A Hard Day's Night") could be seen, and because of that, the film was in legal limbo for years.
Brain was also one of director Ken Russell's first features. Caine reprised Palmer in one or two TV movies in the 1990s.