‘Sexy Beast’
Jonathan Glazer is (rightfully!) being heralded as one of the best directors of his generation, thanks to The Zone of Interest, one of this year’s Best Picture nominees at the 2024 Oscars. Like so many directors of his era, Glazer got his start in music videos — “Virtual Insanity,” anyone!?! — but graduated to the silver screen way back in 2000 with Sexy Beast, a stylish heist thriller starring Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone, and Ian McShane. The movie is one of the great masterpieces of the crime genre, thanks in large part to the ferocious and utterly frightening performance that Ben Kingsley — who once won an Oscar playing Gandhi! — turns in here. It’s currently being featured as part of a triumvirate of Glazer’s films on The Criterion Channel, and serves as the inspiration for the quite underrated Sexy Beast series on Paramount+ (which is a prequel to the events of the movie).