The most important roles of his career

Brad Pitt turns 60 - The most important roles of his career

At the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020, Hollywood icon Brad Pitt (59), who celebrates his 60th birthday on 18 December, finally received the honor that would probably have been his 20 years earlier for his performance in David Fincher's (61) cult classic "Fight Club": For his performance in Quentin Tarantino's (60) instant cult film "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", the sex symbol of the 1990s was awarded an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor" - the actor's only Academy Award in an acting category to date.

Breakthrough with "Thelma & Louise"

Since the mid-1990s at the latest, there has been no way around Pitt in Hollywood. He first literally exploded onto the screen in Ridley Scott's (86) feminist masterpiece "Thelma & Louise" from 1991, in which Pitt plays the sexually appealing seducer J.D., who ends up in bed with the unhappily married main character Thelma (Geena Davis, 67) and then robs her, only appearing very briefly in the film. But these brief scenes were enough to establish Pitt's status as a sex symbol for the rest of his career.

From supporting actor to Hollywood star

In the years that followed, the extremely attractive American with the blue eyes and square chin proved to have a lucky hand when choosing his roles. Twice - in "Aus der Mitte entspringt ein Fluß" (1992) and "Legenden der Leidenschaft" (1994) - he played the romantic hero with long blond hair in epic historical films. His appearance in the romantic bloodsucker classic "Interview with a Vampire" (1994) was similar, albeit completely different. With all these performances, Pitt melted the hearts of numerous moviegoers.

In the cult classic "True Romance" (1993) by director Tony Scott (1944-2012), based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, Pitt also proved his immense comedic talent for the first time. His brief appearances as the pot-smoking, good-for-nothing roommate Floyd remain unforgotten among film fans to this day.

This was followed by a series of more classic Hollywood leading roles - for example in the somewhat lengthy "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997), alongside former star Harrison Ford (81) in the IRA thriller "Familiar Enemy" (1997) and in the rather unusual romance "Rendezvous with Joe Black" (1998).

However, Pitt's work during this period was really defined by his collaboration with director David Fincher. In "Seven", the first of a total of three collaborations between the two creatives, the legendary filmmaker placed Hollywood legend Morgan Freeman (86) at Pitt's side and unleashed his energetic New York detective David Mills on an eternally rainy, gloomy metropolitan hell in which a fanatical serial killer murdered the biblical seven deadly sins.

The sun-drenched finale of this noirish thriller in particular has gone down in film history straight away - and Pitt, who plays a central role in it, with it.

In addition to all these iconic roles in mainstream cinema, Pitt also discovered his slightly strange side during the 1990s. In the still far too unknown serial killer road movie "Kalifornia", for example, he convincingly embodied a rural white-trash sociopath, and in the time travel cult film "12 Monkeys" by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam (83), he played an inmate of a psychiatric hospital who is possibly responsible for the near end of humanity.

"Fight Club": Brad Pitt's possibly best role

Even these masterpieces pale in comparison to David Fincher's subversive pop culture phenomenon "Fight Club" from 1999. In the film - whose ending twist probably puts "Seven" in the shade - Brad Pitt embodies Tyler Durden, a character in whom he was able to put all his charisma, physicality and coolness.

But for a film of this magnitude, "Fight Club" flopped at the global box office and only later became a cult film in its home cinema release. For this reason, Pitt's performance was not honored with the Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor" or other film awards.

From the "Ocean's" trilogy to Quentin Tarantino

With "Fight Club" at the latest, Pitt had finally arrived in Hollywood's Olympus. However, he by no means rested on his laurels in the following decade. In the acclaimed "Ocean's" trilogy from 2001 to 2007, he once again proved his casual coolness alongside co-star George Clooney (62). For German director Wolfgang Petersen (1941-2022), he made a rare foray into the high-budget blockbuster genre in the historical film "Troy" (2004). For "Fight Club" director David Fincher, he aged backwards in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008).

Pitt's more artistically challenging projects also fall into this period. He proved his comedic talent once again in the London gangster cult film "Snatch" by Guy Ritchie (55). In the brilliant comedy, Pitt plays the mumbling one-punch boxer Mickey, who also has some of his "Fight Club" character Tyler Durden in him.

Pitt delivered possibly the funniest performance of his entire career in "Burn After Reading", the wonderful agent comedy by the Coen brothers. Since the film's release in 2008, his lovable and stupid fitness trainer and amateur blackmailer Chad has been immortalized in numerous popular GIFs and has thus found his place in pop culture.

In contrast, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" flew more under the radar. Pitt was awarded "Best Actor" at the 2007 Venice Film Festival for his performance in Andrew Dominik's (56) Indy Western.

Brad Pitt's late work, on the other hand, probably begins with Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" from 2009. In the grandiose Second World War comedy, the star plays the caricature-like Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who says "Buongiorno" in a memorably bad way, among other things. Brad Pitt also clearly fits perfectly into Tarantino's hyper-stylized macho world, as "Inglourious Basterds" made clear long before "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood".

From "World War Z" to "Bullet Train"

Pitt delivered what was undoubtedly one of the best performances of his entire career in 2011 in the gripping sports film "The Art of Winning - Moneyball". However, as the original American sport of baseball never really caught on in Germany, the film, based on a screenplay by Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin (62), was not really noticed in this country either.

Pitt then achieved the surprisingly biggest financial success of his career in 2013 with the zombie actioner "World War Z". It achieved box office takings of 540 million US dollars worldwide.

Meanwhile, Pitt's well-publicized relationship and marriage to Hollywood star Angelina Jolie (48) was framed by two joint film appearances: "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" offered popcorn cinema in the classic sense in 2005 and was extremely successful financially with box office takings of over 487 million dollars. In 2015, however, neither audiences nor critics were impressed by "By the Sea", which was inspired by European arthouse cinema of the 1960s and 70s.

Pitt delivered a more convincing romantic performance just one year later in Robert Zemeckis' (71) underrated Second World War thriller "Allied" alongside Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (48). Meanwhile, in the 2015 satire "The Big Short" by Adam McKay (55), which is critical of capitalism, he played the disillusioned trader Ben Rickert alongside a veritable star ensemble.

But all these grandiose performances may pale in comparison to stuntman Cliff Booth, who played Leonardo DiCapo in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood", who backs up Leonardo DiCaprio's (49) washed-up movie star Rick Dalton. In this acclaimed role, Pitt does and says comparatively little in front of the camera. Instead, he once again relies entirely on his proven physicality and coolness.

His morally questionable character gets into unnecessary fights on the film set and may even have murdered his wife. As mentioned at the beginning, this earned him the only acting Oscar of Brad Pitt's long and successful career to date.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the actor returned to the big screen in 2022 with two exciting new works. In the action comedy "Bullet Train" by "Deadpool 2" director David Leitch (48), Pitt plays hitman Ladybug, who actually wants to do everything differently than before, but falls back into old patterns of behavior through no fault of his own. With box office takings of almost 240 million US dollars, the film was also quite successful at the box office.

In contrast, "Babylon - Ecstasy", Damien Chazelle's (38) large-scale panorama of Hollywood at the transition from silent to sound film, flopped. In the latest work by the "La La Land" director, Pitt plays film star Jack Conrad, who fails precisely because of this transition.