Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada (born March 9, 1979) is a Guatemalan-American actor. He made his film debut in Illtown (1996), with Michael Rapaportc Lili Taylor, and Tony Danza. Other early films include All About the Benjamins (2002), with Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Eva Mendes, and Tommy Flanagan; and Pu-239 (2006), with Paddy Considine and Radha Mitchell. He portrayed Saint Joseph, husband of Mary, in The Nativity Story (2006), with Keisha Castle-Hughes (as Mary), Hiam Abbass, Shaun Toub, Alexander Siddig, Ciarán Hinds, and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Other films in the mid to late 2000s include The Life Before Her Eyes (2007), with Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, and Brett Cullen; Steven Soderbergh‘s Che: Part One (2008), with Benicio del Toro; Ridley Scott‘s Body of Lies (2008), with Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, and Mark Strong; and Balibo (2009), with Anthony LaPaglia – for which he won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Films in the 2010s include Robin Hood (2010), with Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Strong, Mark Addy, Danny Huston, Eileen Atkins, and Max von Sydow; Sucker Punch (2011), with Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm, and Scott Glenn; 10 Years (2011), with Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan, Justin Long, Kate Mara, Rosario Dawson, Lynn Collins, Brian Geraghty, Ari Graynor, Ron Livingston, Anthony Mackie, Max Minghella, Aubrey Plaza, Scott Porter, Chris Pratt, Aaron Yoo; and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011), with Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks;
More films in the 2010s include W.E. (2012), with Cornish, Andrea Riseborough, Richard Coyle and James D’Arcy; For Greater Glory (2012), with Andy García, Eva Longoria, Rubén Blades, Peter O’Toole, and Bruce Greenwood; Revenge for Jolly! (2012), with Brian Pestos, Elijah Wood, Adam Brody, Gillian Jacobs, Bobby Moynihan, Ryan Phillippe, and Kristen Wiig; Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy (2012), with Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney, Joan Allen, Stacey Keach, and Glenn; and Won’t Back Down (2012), with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Rosie Perez, and Holly Hunter.
Issac received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Joel & Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), with Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham, Justin Timberlake, and Adam Driver. Other films around this time include In Secret (2013), with Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton, and Jessica Lange; The Two Faces of January (2014), with Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst; A Most Violent Year (2014), with Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola, Brooks, Elyes Gabel; Ex Machina (2014), with Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Sonoya Mizuno; and Mojave (2015), with Garrett Hedlund, Mark Wahlberg, Louise Bourgoin, and Walton Goggins.
Isaac has appeared as Poe Dameron in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015 – 2019), which. collectively featured Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Driver, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Von Sydow, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, del Toro, Frank Oz, Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Ian McDiarmid, and Billy Dee Williams; and as mutant supervillain Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, and Lucas Till.
Other films in the late 2010s include The Promise (2016), with Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale; George Clooney‘s Suburbicon (2017), with Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Noah Jupe; Annihilation (2018), with Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny; Operation Finale (2018), with Ben Kingsley, Lior Raz, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson; Triple Frontier (2019), with Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal; and he provided the voice of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family (2019), with Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and Allison Janney.
Upcoming projects include Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021), with Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem; Big Gold Brick (2021), with Emory Cohen, Andy Garcia, Megan Fox, Lucy Hale, Shiloh Fernandez and Frederick Schmidt; and Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter (2021), with Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish, and Dafoe.
Isaac starred as politician Nick Wasicsko in the HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero (2015), with Bob Balaban, Jim Belushi, Jon Bernthal, Dominique Fishback, Ilfenesh Hadera, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Catherine Keener, Terry Kinney, Alfred Molina, Natalie Paul, Peter Riegert, Carla Quevedo, and Winona Ryder – which earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. In 2016, Time named Isaac one of the 100 most influential people in the world on the annual Time 100 list. In 2017, Isaac was described as the “best dang actor of his generation” by Vanity Fair. In 2020, The New York Times ranked him #14 in its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Illtown (1996) – directed by Nick Gomez
- All About the Benjamins (2002) – directed by Kevin Bray
- Lenny the Wonder Dog (2004) – directed by Oren Goldman
- Pu-239 (2006) – directed by Scott Z. Burns
- The Nativity Story (2006) – directed by Catherine Hardwicke
- The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) – directed by Vadim Perelman
- Che: Part One – The Argentine (2008) – directed by Steven Soderbergh
- Body of Lies (2008) – directed by Ridley Scott
- Agora (2009) – directed by Alejandro Amenábar
- Balibo (2009) – directed by Robert Connolly
- Robin Hood (2010)* – directed by Ridley Scott
- Sucker Punch (2011)* – directed by Zack Snyder
- Drive (2011)* – directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
- W.E. (2012) – directed by Madonna
- For Greater Glory (2012) – directed by Dean Wright
- Revenge for Jolly! (2012) – directed by Chadd Harbold
- The Bourne Legacy (2012) – directed by Tony Gilroy
- 10 Years (2012) – directed by Jamie Linden
- Won’t Back Down (2012) – directed by Daniel Barnz
- Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)* – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
- In Secret (2013) – directed by Charlie Stratton
- Making a Scene (2013) – directed by Janusz Kaminski – short
- The Two Faces of January (2014) – directed by Hossein Amini
- Ticky Tacky (2014) – directed by Brian Pestos – short
- A Most Violent Year (2014) – directed by J.C. Chandor
- Mojave (2015) – directed by William Monahan
- Ex Machina (2015) – directed by Alex Garland
- Show Me a Hero (2015) – directed by Paul Haggis – miniseries
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)* – directed by J.J. Abrams
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)* – directed by Bryan Singer
- Lightningface (2016) – directed by Brian Pestos – short – also executive producer
- The Promise (2017) – directed by Terry George
- Suburbicon (2017) – directed by George Clooney
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)* – directed by Rian Johnson
- Annihilation (2018) – directed by Alex Garland
- Operation Finale (2018) – directed by Chris Weitz – also producer
- At Eternity’s Gate (2018) – directed by Julian Schnabel
- Life Itself (2018) – directed by Dan Fogelman
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)* – directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman – voice cameo
- Triple Frontier (2019) – directed by J.C. Chandor
- The Addams Family (2019) – directed by Conrad Vernon & Greg Tiernan
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)* – directed by J.J. Abrams
- The Letter Room (2020) – directed by Elvira Lind
- Dune (2021) – directed by Denis Villeneuve
- Big Gold Brick (2021) – directed by Brian Petsos
- The Card Counter (2021) – directed by Paul Schrader
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)* – directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, & Justin K. Thompson
- Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (2024) – directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, & Justin K. Thompson
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