5 - The Contender

4 - Starman

3 - The Last Picture Show

2 - The Fisher King

1 - The Big Lebowski

I was heartened by the response to our most recent Top Five, because it tells me that people do pay attention to character actors. Jeff Bridges has been the star of many movies, but he's not a "movie star." He isn't John Travolta or Will Smith. But he has been very reliable for going on 40 years now, and I think we've got a pretty representative list, so thanks for remembering The Last Picture Show in your voting.

There were only a couple performances I felt really could've made this list that didn't, Fearless and Tron. But his also-rans are highlights on most other resumes: The Door in the Floor, Wild Bill, Fat City, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Seabiscuit, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Iron Man, Arlington Road, Blown Away, The Vanishing, Jagged Edge, The Morning After, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and The Iceman Cometh.

Our list begins with The Contender, in which he's playing a kind of fictionalized Bill Clinton. Now, he looks more like a Clinton-Bush hybrid. Bridges has always played comedy well, and this is one of the better examples, in a movie that's way too damn serious for its own good.

Starman is probably the least heralded title here, even though it's the only Oscar-nominated performance to ever come from a John Carpenter movie. The truth is, the movie doesn't hold up around his performance very well. It's clearly a one-man show, but in terms of his command performances, it might be fourth on that list.

The Last Picture Show is the role that signaled Bridges' true arrival in Hollywood at the age of 21. All of a sudden, he wasn't just Lloyd Bridges kid, anymore. I like the book more than the movie, but I thought Bridges and Oscar winner Cloris Leachman were quite good in the film, as was Ben Johnson, who beat Bridges for the Best Supporting Actor award that year. 

But how Bridges missed getting a nomination for The Fisher King is beyond me. Robin Williams and Mercedes Reuhl received envelopes for their work, but in a Best Actor field that included Hannibal Lecter, Bugsy Malone, De Niro from Cape Fear, and regrettably, Nick Nolte from The Prince of Tides, there just wasn't enough room for both Bridges and Williams. I think the Academy would switch Fisher King nominees now if they could.

Personally, it's my favorite Bridges performance, though I understand why The Dude tops our list. He also didn't get nominated for Lebowski or Fearless, and you figure one of those should've been in the mix. He has four nominations to date, but he probably deserved at least two more.

Finally, there's The Dude. Why? Because he's The Dude.

For next week, we have a big ol' grab bag of movie passes and DVDs. Here's the way this works, as always. If you're a local - meaning, if you live in or around Phoenix - we'll hook you up with movie passes, either to The Express or to Clint Eastwood's The Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie.

As for the DVDs, we've got a bunch of one-offs, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll send you a list after you win.

To get in the running, you just need to help us with next week's Top Five List, which should be as good as this week's: The Top Five Ridley Scott Movies.

Talk about a career. Man, I can think of some hall-of-famers right off the top of my head.

Help us out and win. Shoot us an e-mail with your votes, and please include your mailing address, and you'll have until Thursday night October 9th at 10pm Pacific to get us your lists (Monday night the 6th if you want to see The Express). Please remember to include your mailing address.