4.Jurassic Park
By 1993, Samuel L. Jackson had already appeared in a handful of mainstream blockbusters (“Goodfellas” and “Patriot Games,” for example), but he really popped off in Steven Spielberg’s game-changing crowd-pleaser “Jurassic Park.” As the harried InGen chief engineer John “Ray” Arnold, Jackson chain smokes and sweats his way through the film’s second and third acts. Jackson serves as an audience surrogate — smart enough to know something terrible is imminent but resigned to go along for the ride regardless, while David Koepp’s screenplay provides him with some of the film’s best lines.
5.The Long Kiss Goodnight
“The Long Kiss Goodnight” is the only film listed here to include a dig at the misbegotten mid-’90s spin-off series “Baywatch Nights” (which is truly baffling if you can track it down — David Hasselhoff fights mummies and aliens. Seriously). The weirdly specific barb comes courtesy of writer Shane Black. With his gift for hurling obscenities and imbuing his characters with a lived-in set of idiosyncrasies, Samuel L. Jackson is a perfect match for Black’s signature style, and it’s disappointing that the two never collaborated again.
6.Pulp Fiction
The jerry curl. The handlebar mustache. Bellowing one minute, staid, determined, and quiet the next. Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield embodies all of “Pulp Fiction’s” quirks and contradictions. In what is likely his most iconic role, Jackson is perfectly cast as Quentin Tarantino’s hitman-turned-philosopher. It would be an understatement to say that Jackson crushes every scene he’s in, and Tarantino wisely gives him a series of brilliant monologues (incidentally, the bible verse Jules quotes in the beginning is completely fictional). In Jackson, Tarantino found the ideal vessel for his trademark foul-mouthed verbosity.
