The Great Dane’s Another Round is a favourite at the Oscars – here are his absolute must-see films.
If you know him best as the ‘bitch’ with the money in a Rihanna video, the upcoming Oscars are a great excuse to dive into the works of the Great Dane himself, Mads Mikkelsen.
Despite being consistently great in a wide range of roles, his low-key performances rarely bring him individual awards attention outside of Scandinavia.
But his memorable turn in the quirky Another Round – particularly in the much-loved dancing finale – helped make it his fourth feature to land a Best Foreign Film nomination. Frequent collaborator Thomas Vinterberg has also been shortlisted for Best Director.
You can hardly go wrong with the Mikkelsen filmography, but these would be my picks:
Mad Mads / He has been Hannibal Lecter and a Marvel baddie. And, per the excellent Rogue One, he even designed Darth Vader’s planet-killing Death Star. But Mads’ international breakout role as Bond antagonist Le Chiffre in CASINO ROYALE (2016) remains his finest villainous hour. The film has aged somewhat, but his calmly-menacing turn is still terrific.
Rotten Tomatoes 94% | Netflix
Glacial Dane / With such ice-cold blood running through his veins it’s perhaps more than a semantical coincidence that he starred both in Polar and Arctic – two completely unrelated films which were, confusingly, released within days of each other in 2019. ARCTIC is a gripping take on the survival tale, elevated by rigorous direction and a quiet but muscular performance in a role tailor-made for the Dane.
RT 90% | Starz
Euro Star / Hollywood may have him pigeonholed as a baddie, but at home Mads has been a versatile protagonist for years. In the superior period drama A Royal Affair he slays as the romantic lead. But it’s a willingness to push boundaries that make his work so fascinating. He plays a small town teacher accused of paedophilia in THE HUNT (2012), a spectacularly-tense slowburner that remains his high-water mark.
RT 93% | Pluto TV
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