Critics are calling Mickey Rourke‘s titular performance in The Wrestler an Oscar front-runner—and easily his best in over twenty years. What this really means is that it’s been that long since the sleazy loudmouth made a movie that film critics could even blink at. In the gallery, we recommend ten films of wildly varying quality that will help the curious understand how a new Marlon Brando quickly became the (very) poor man’s Bruce Willis—and why everyone’s excited for his comeback.
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Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man (1991): Rourke and Don Johnson team up to ride bikes, stop drug dealers and entertain no one. Best scene: a wounded Rourke screams "horse shit in a bear's ass!" Why? You'd have to ask him.
