Joe Morton's 6 Best Movies

 

Virtuoso character actor Joe Morton has graced the screen, film and television, for over five decades, with no signs of slowing down. Here are his best feature films:

6. Ali

Morton's Chauncey Eskridge is one of the real-life attorneys hired to represent legendary boxer Muhammad Ali in his landmark case against the U.S. government, following his refusal to serve in the army during the Vietnam War. After appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, Eskridge's argument prevails and Ali's conviction as an alleged draft-dodger is overturned.

5. Executive Decision

Unquestionably the greatest of the many Die Hard rip-offs, Executive Decision centers on a U.S. Army intelligence consultant, backed up by a team of commandos, who infiltrate an airliner -- midflight -- in order to take down terrorists armed with a biological weapon. Morton portrays one of the commandos, U.S. Special Forces First Sergeant Campbell "Cappy" Matheny, the team's explosives expert. Following a serious injury, Cappy's forced to talk an aeronautics engineer through the process of disabling the terrorists' bomb.

4. American Gangster

Morton portrays Bumpy Johnson associate Charlie Williams, who, at his wake, hands a cash-filled envelope to the Harlem gangster's driver and successor, Frank Lucas. Subsequently, Williams remains an associate of Lucas throughout the heroin kingpin's career.

3. King of the Monsters

Yale-educated geologist Dr. Houston Brooks (Morton) is recruited by kaiju research company Monarch to study long-dormant prehistoric creatures initially detected because of his seismology work.

2. The Snyder Cut

Portraying another technologist, Xenoscientist Dr. Silas Stone's research into alien technology for the Department of Defense unlocks some of the secrets of an Apokolyptian Mother Box, the energy of which he harnesses to prolong the life of his badly-injured son, Victor. An unforeseen consequence of the machine's use is that it imbues the younger Stone with cybernetic enhancements, rendering him a cyborg, as well as granting him superhuman abilities.

Victor later rescues his father and other scientists following their abduction by intergalactic warlord Steppenwolf, alongside other meta-humans. 

1. Batman v. Superman

Morton's Dr. Silas Stone makes his first appearance in a self-made video, obtained by Alexander Luthor and stolen by Bruce Wayne, documenting his son Victor's treatment.