We've seen Patrick Stewart dominate the small screen as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, command the stage in numerous performances of the works of Shakespeare, and conquer Twitter as a charming, dog-fostering, maybe-stoned goofball. But beyond his work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, silver screen success has often eluded him. With Picard ending its first season, it seemed like a good time to delve into the highlights (and lowlights) of the beloved performer on the big screen.
For so many of us, Patrick Stewart was a benevolent element of our childhoods, his melodious voice a source of comfort. Now imagine that voice warped to deliver hateful neo-Nazi rhetoric, as it was in Jeremy Saulnier's sinister Green Room. Stewart plays Darcy, a twisted Fagin figure who riles up his misguided young foot-soldiers and organizes them against our heroes, the members of an unassuming punk band booked to play at Darcy's compound deep in the Pacific Northwest. Things get bloody. (Available on Netflix and Kanopy)
Stewart may have stolen the show in Christopher Ashley's comedy about a young gay man (Steven Weber) working through his fears in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Playing an interior decorator named Sterling, Stewart gives the proceedings the levity and snappy banter that the film needed to rise above its grim subject matter. (Available on Hoopla and Fandor)
Who wins when a young Pete Campbell goes toe to toe with Professor X? Vincent Kartheiser plays a trouble-making hacker who takes on the head of security at the exclusive prep academy from which he's been expelled. A mustachioed Stewart plays the former British Secret Service agent whose work at the school is actually the cover for a sinister plot.
Here's where things get sketchy. This little-seen paranoid thriller stars Stewart as a deteriorating (although only mentally, from the look of his biceps) former government operative sitting on some dangerous secrets. His fears lead him to create a wildly complicated security system that requires his regular interaction, or else the damaging information will be released, but his advancing dementia makes it tricky. (Available on Prime Video and Tubi)
"Death Train" sounds like a fake title that a kid would come up with if you asked him to make up a movie, so we're already sold (it was later renamed Detonator). We were still two years out from Pierce Brosnan stepping into James Bond's Church's Chetwynd shoes, so here he is a special operative chasing down a hijacked train loaded with plutonium, as they so often are. Patrick Stewart remains mostly in the background as an all-knowing member of the "United Nations Anti-crime Organization." (Available on YouTube)
The original Wild Geese was the kind of macho, cigar-chomping adventure nonsense that your uncle might fondly recollect after a cocktail or two, so of course it got a sequel. This time the stars stayed away (save for Laurence Olivier, curiously playing German), and Stewart lurks menacingly over some maps as "Russian General," leaving him mostly off the hook for this serving of schlock.
Ted, Ted 2, A Million Ways to Die in the West, the Emoji Movie
Unfortunately, as Stewart's persona became increasingly Buzzfeed-friendly, it was inevitable that he would be roped into appearing in multiple Seth MacFarlane ventures, and even the dreaded Emoji Movie. These roles mostly involved lampooning his dignified presentation and gravitas, much like how Betty White still gets trotted out to say some swear words on Monday Night Raw every so often. But we don't begrudge the man a paycheck.