The best Rutger Hauer’s thriller movies
Rutger Oelsen Hauer (23 January 1944 - 19 July 2019) was a Dutch film actor. He was well known for his roles in Flesh + Blood, Blind Fury, Blade Runner, The Hitcher, Nighthawks, Sin City, Ladyhawke, The Blood of Heroes and Batman Begins.
Hauer was born in Breukelen, Netherlands, to drama teachers Arend and Teunke, and grew up in Amsterdam. Since his parents were very occupied with their careers, he and his three sisters (one older, two younger) were raised mostly by nannies. At the age of 15, Hauer ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a carpenter for three years while attending acting classes at night school. He went on to join an experimental troupe, with which he remained for five years before he was cast in the lead role in the very successful 1969 television series Floris, a Dutch Ivanhoe-like medieval action drama. The role made him famous in his native country.
Hauer's career changed course when director Paul Verhoeven cast him as the lead in Turkish Delight (1973) (based on the Jan Wolkers book of the same name). The movie found box-office favour abroad as well as at home, and within two years, its star was invited to make his English-language debut in the British film The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Set in South Africa and starring Michael Caine and Sidney Poitier, the film was an action melodrama with a focus on apartheid. Hauer's supporting role, however, was barely noticed in Hollywood, and he returned to Dutch films for several years. Hauer made his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Nighthawks (1981), cast as a psychopathic and cold-blooded terrorist named "Wolfgar" (after a character in the Old English poem Beowulf). The following year, he appeared in arguably his most famous and acclaimed role as the eccentric, violent, yet sympathetic replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi thriller, Blade Runner.
Hauer was a dedicated environmentalist. He fought for the release of Greenpeace's co-founder, Paul Watson, who was convicted in 1994 for sinking a Norwegian whaling vessel. Hauer has also established an AIDS awareness foundation called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Foundation. He married his second wife, Ineke, in 1985 (they had been together since 1968); and he has one child, actress Aysha Hauer, who was born in 1966 and who made him a grandfather in 1988. In April 2007, he published his autobiography All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners (co-written with Patrick Quinlan) where he discussed many of his movie roles. Proceeds of the book go to Hauer's Starfish Foundation.
Blade Runner
8.1/10
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Sin City
8/10
Welcome to Sin City. This town beckons to the tough, the corrupt, the brokenhearted. Some call it dark… Hard-boiled. Then there are those who call it home — Crooked cops, sexy dames, desperate vigilantes. Some are seeking revenge, others lust after redemption, and then there are those hoping for a little of both. A universe of unlikely and reluctant heroes still trying to do the right thing in a city that refuses to care.
Blind Fury
6.3/10
A blind Vietnam vet, trained as a swordfighter, comes to America and helps to rescue the son of a fellow soldier.
Nighthawks
6.3/10
An international terrorist has New York in a grip of panic and it's up to Det. Sgt. Deke DaSilva to take him down.
The Rite
6/10
Seminary student Michael Kovak reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican. While he’s in Rome, Michael meets an unorthodox priest who introduces him to the darker side of his faith, uncovering the devil’s reach even to one of the holiest places on Earth.
24 Hours to Live
5.8/10
An assassin seeks redemption after being given a second chance at life.
The Hitcher
7.2/10
On a stormy night, young Jim, who transports a luxury car from Chicago to California to deliver it to its owner, feeling tired and sleepy, picks up a mysterious hitchhiker, who has appeared out of nowhere, thinking that a good conversation will help him not to fall asleep. He will have enough time to deeply regret such an unmeditated decision.
Fatherland
6.4/10
Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.
Dracula 3D
3.6/10
When Englishman Jonathan Harker visits the exotic castle of Count Dracula, he is entranced by the mysterious aristocrat. But upon learning that the count has sinister designs on his wife, Mina, Harker seeks help from vampire slayer Van Helsing.
Escape from Sobibor
7.4/10
The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
7/10
Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.
Wedlock
5.9/10
A male prison escapee heads for his hidden loot, electronically attached to a female prisoner.
The Poseidon Adventure
4.4/10
A cruise ship succumbs to a terrorist act and capsizes on New Year's eve. A rag-tag group of survivors, spearheaded by a priest and a homeland security agent, must journey through the upside down vessel and attempt an escape.
The Osterman Weekend
5.8/10
The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a weekend in the country are engaged in a conspiracy that threatens national security in this adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel.
Blind Side
5.5/10
A couple visits Mexico to scout a new location for their furniture manufacturing business and hit a cop with their car on the way back stateside. Realizing that if they report it they could land in a Mexican jail (guilty until proven innocent) they clean up the car and return home. A few days later an insistent man shows up wanting a job and insinuating that he saw something in Mexico that he would not want to report, and the couple must make a decision about how far they will allow themselves to be blackmailed. Written by Ed Sutton
Scorcher
3.7/10
The only hope for humanity to survive a natural disaster is to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles.
Dead Tone
4.6/10
As another semester draws to a close at the University of Dreyskill, a simple game dreamt to help students avoid studying becomes a bloody battle for survival.
Eureka
5.9/10
An Alaskan gold prospector lives in luxury with his family on an island which gangsters want.
The Sonata
5.2/10
After a gifted musician inherits a mansion after her long lost father dies under mysterious circumstances, she discovers his last musical masterpiece riddled with cryptic symbols that unravels an evil secret, triggering dark forces that reach beyond her imagination.
Hobo with a Shotgun
6.1/10
A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city's crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how - with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.
