Lists of top ten Jeff Bridges films tend to focus on his performances, rather than the films, hence Rolling Stone has The Contender and The Door in the Floor in their top ten, two films I haven't even heard of let alone seen. Even recent films such as True Grit and Crazy Heart feature great performances from Bridges but aren’t great films. Film critics have such short memories. I’m focusing on the films themselves; his run of films in the 1970s – from The Last Picture Show to Cutter’s Way (1981, but signifying the end of the 70s) – is almost unparallelled in modern cinema (De Niro’s trilogy of films, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, feel self-conscious and laboured compared to Bridges’ laid back performances). Jeff Bridges is currently featuring in the well-received Hell or High Water (De Niro has almost completely erased his performances in The Deer Hunter and The Godfather Part II et al by years of terrible comedies).

1. Fat City (1972)
2. The Last Picture Show (1971)
3. Cutter’s Way (1981)
4. Bad Company (1972)
5. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
6. The Big Lebowski (1998)
7. The Fisher King (1991)
8. Winter Kills (1979)
9. Star Man (1984)
10. Fearless (1993)

Previously on Barnflakes
A Jeff Bridges too far
Random Film Review: Fat City