Renowned for his stylish crime movies, Michael Mann is one of the most revered filmmakers in the world. He tends to tell stories about criminals and their complicated relationship with the law enforcers that hope to put them behind bars, so it’s hardly surprising that his filmography is filled with memorable characters on both sides of crime.
From the career criminal played by Robert De Niro in Heat to the ruthless contract killer played against type by Tom Cruise in Collateral, these are the greatest characters from Michael Mann movies.
Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Manhunter)
Thomas Harris’ serial killer character Dr. Hannibal Lecter wouldn’t become a global icon until Anthony Hopkins played him in The Silence of the Lambs, but that wasn’t the first time the character was adapted for the screen. Michael Mann directed Brian Cox as a slightly renamed Dr. Hannibal Lecktor in the 1986 thriller Manhunter.
Although Hopkins is undoubtedly the greatest Hannibal ever to grace the big screen, Cox gave a chilling performance that, according to the DVD extras, was inspired by Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel.
Chris Shiherlis (Heat)
Played by Val Kilmer in Heat, Chris Shiherlis is the trusted right-hand man of Robert De Niro’s career criminal character Neil McCauley. Throughout the movie, Chris’s arc focuses on the strain that his life of crime puts on his marriage.
Chris enjoys the most action out of anyone on McCauley’s crew in the movie’s iconic shootout sequence. This sequence is so realistic that it’s often screened for U.S. Marine recruits.
Muhammad Ali (Ali)
Unfortunately, despite its critical acclaim, Michael Mann’s Muhammad Ali biopic bombed at the box office. Thankfully, it’s been venerated as a modern classic in the years since. Will Smith gave one of his all-time greatest performances as Ali.
The movie chronicles the most eventful decade of Ali’s life between 1964 and 1974, covering when he claimed the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston, his conversion to Islam, and his controversial criticism of the Vietnam War, and culminates in his “Rumble in the Jungle” fight with George Foreman.
Vincent (Collateral)
Collateral is a tense two-hander in which a hitman named Vincent holds a cabbie hostage all night while he drives around L.A. and takes out his targets. Tom Cruise played brilliantly against type in the role of a cold-blooded killer.
Vincent is disturbingly calm for someone who keeps taking human lives throughout the night. He’s also startlingly good at reading people, as he figures out the deepest insecurities of his driver within a few minutes of meeting him.
John Dillinger (Public Enemies)
Public Enemies is an action-packed chronicle of the crime wave that rocked America in the Great Depression. There are a bunch of strong performances as historical figures: Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson, Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, and more.
But arguably the strongest performance in Public Enemies is Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, one of the most notorious criminals in U.S. history. Dillinger’s portrayal in the movie is oddly charming despite his novel-length rap sheet.
Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Heat)
Vincent Hanna is the proverbial cat in Michael Mann’s intense cat-and-mouse thriller Heat. Mann paired up Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on screen for the first time (after appearing alongside each other without sharing any scenes in The Godfather Part II) in a cop’s relentless quest to bring down a professional bank robber on the crime-ridden streets of L.A.
Although Hanna is theoretically meant to be the more heroic side of the conflict in the film, Pacino plays the character with an intensity and nuance that makes the moral lines even blurrier. Suffice to say, this isn’t the usual heroic lawman type seen in action movies.
Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (The Insider)
Al Pacino and Russell Crowe anchor Mann’s true-to-life thriller The Insider as a CBS producer and the former Brown & Williamson tobacco company executive who became a whistleblower for a 60 Minutes exposé.
Crowe brings plenty of pathos to the role of Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, who remains a mysterious figure throughout most of the movie as he continually cites a confidentiality agreement with B&W to avoid resolving many of the film's questions.
Frank (Thief)
Michael Mann’s directorial debut Thief is an acclaimed neo-noir actioner starring James Caan as a professional safecracker who wants to go clean and leave his life of crime behind. As with any crime movie about a criminal trying to give up their illicit career, he finds it’s much easier said than done.
Before going straight, like many antiheroes before him, Frank decides to do one last job for the mafia. This is easily one of Caan’s most charismatic performances, and he shares terrific chemistry with Tuesday Weld as his wife, Jessie.
Max Durocher (Collateral)
Jamie Foxx plays a universally relatable everyman in Collateral. Max Durocher claims that he’s just driving a cab temporarily to raise seed money for his limousine business, but he’s clearly lying to himself because he’s been a cab driver for years.
What finally pushes him to pursue his dreams is the hours-long near-death experience he suffers throughout the movie. With a contract killer in the back of his taxi, Max has to use street-smarts he didn’t know he had to survive the night.
Neil McCauley (Heat)
In the cat-and-mouse dynamic of Heat, Robert De Niro plays the mouse to Al Pacino’s cat. Neil McCauley is a professional bank robber who gladly keeps moving from town to town to stay off the grid until he meets a woman in L.A. and quickly falls in love with her, complicating his bank-robbing career.
De Niro’s nuanced acting goes a long way toward humanizing McCauley. He might rob people at gunpoint for a living, but he also has a handful of close friendships and a promising new relationship.