Guy Pearce
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
(2010)
Guillermo del Toro (screenplay), Matthew Robbins (screenplay), Nigel McKeand
3 nominations.
A young girl sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend believes that she has released creatures from a sealed ash pit in the basement of her new home.
L.A. Confidential
(1997)
James Ellroy (novel), Brian Helgeland (screenplay), Curtis Hanson (screenplay)
Won 2 Oscars. Another 81 wins & 77 nominations.
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Lawless
(2012)
Nick Cave (screenplay), Matt Bondurant (novel)
1 win & 8 nominations.
In 1931, in Franklin County, Virginia, Forrest Bondurant is a legend as immortal after surviving the war. Together with his brothers Howard and the coward Jack, the Bondurant family has a distillery and bootlegging business. When the corrupt District Attorney Mason Wardell arrives in Franklin with the unscrupulous Special Deputy Charles Rakes, the Bondurant family refuses to pay the required bribe to the authorities. Rakes pursues the brothers and unsuccessfully tries to find their distillery. Meanwhile Forrest hires the waitress Maggie, a woman with a hidden past in Chicago, and they fall in love with each other. Jack courts the preacher's daughter Bertha Minnix and deals a great load of alcoholic liquor with the powerful gangster Floyd Banner. Jack shows off in Franklin attracting the attention of Rakes that finds the location of their distillery. When he kills the crippled Cricket Pete, the locals join forces to face the corrupt authorities.
Memento
(2000)
Christopher Nolan (screenplay), Jonathan Nolan (short story "Memento Mori")
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 54 wins & 55 nominations.
A man juggles searching for his wife's murderer and keeping his short-term memory loss from being an obstacle.
The Hurt Locker
(2008)
Mark Boal
Won 6 Oscars. Another 109 wins & 117 nominations.
An intense portrayal of elite soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming bombs in the heat of combat. When a new sergeant, James, takes over a highly trained bomb disposal team amidst violent conflict, he surprises his two subordinates, Sanborn and Eldridge, by recklessly plunging them into a deadly game of urban combat. James behaves as if he's indifferent to death. As the men struggle to control their wild new leader, the city explodes into chaos, and James' true character reveals itself in a way that will change each man forever.
The Proposition
(2005)
Nick Cave (screenplay)
13 wins & 26 nominations.
A lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him nine days to kill his older brother, or else they'll execute his younger brother.
The Road
(2009)
Joe Penhall (screenplay by), Cormac McCarthy (based on the book by)
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins & 31 nominations.
It's a post-apocalyptic world, several years after whatever the cataclysmic event, which has in turn caused frequent quakes as further potential hazards. The world is gray and getting quickly grayer as more and more things die off. A man and his pre-teen son, who was born after the apocalypse, are currently on the road, their plan to walk to the coast and head south where the man hopes there will be a more hospitable environment in which to live. The man has taught his son that they are the "good people" who have fire in their hearts, which in combination largely means that they will not resort to cannibalism to survive. The man owns a pistol with two bullets remaining, which he will use for murder/suicide of him and his son if he feels that that is a better fate for them than life in the alternative. Food and fuel are for what everyone is looking. The man has taught his son to be suspect of everyone that they may meet, these strangers who, out of desperation, may not only try to steal what they have managed to scavenge for their own survival, but may kill them as food. Although life with his father in this world is all the boy has known, he may come to his own thoughts as to what it means holistically to be one of the good or one of the bad. Meanwhile, the man occasionally has thoughts to happier times with his wife/the boy's mother before the apocalypse, as well as not as happy times with her after the apocalypse and the reason she is no longer with them.