James Gandolfini (1961-2013)

Matthew Guerrero

To call Tony Soprano one of the best performances ever captured on film should be an exaggeration, but in truth it’s an understatement. In six seasons of The Sopranos we followed Tony through every emotion that a human being could experience—from the peaks of highest joy to the depths of self-pitying despair, with frequent glimpses into the existential sorrow underneath it all. We stuck it out with Tony, no matter how bad he got, because he felt real to us, and he felt so real to us because of the work of actor James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack yesterday at 51.

Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo

Gabriel Ricard

If Behind the Candelabra is indeed Steven Soderbergh’s last film (he’s now calling it a sabbatical), then I’d like to make the argument for Soderbergh being one of the five best filmmakers of the past twenty-five years. At the very least, he deserves to be known as one of the most freakishly diverse. It’s sometimes difficult for me to imagine that one filmmaker is responsible for Traffic, The Informant!, Behind the Candelabra, and Magic Mike. A quick look at his filmography still makes me feel as though I’m looking at eight or nine different filmmakers.