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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Year Of The Dragon (1985): Any movie directed by Michael Cimino, written by Oliver Stone and starring Mickey Rourke has one testicle too many. Rourke plays a police captain in Chinatown whose hair changes color as he screams "it's Vietnam all over again!" and kills everyone he can. Is it ridiculous? Oh yeah.
