Arguably one of the most intense and deeply dark performances of Hugh Jackman's career, 'Prisoners' put him under the direction of Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve ('Arrival') in a crime thriller that goes beyond the usual for the genre. Here, Jackman plays the desperate father of a missing girl who decides to take matters into his own hands when the police must release the only suspect for lack of evidence. What follows is a journey to the limits of a man's will and morality, in the hands of the actor himself.
Another renowned director with whom Jackman has collaborated is Christopher Nolan, in one of his perhaps less elaborate but also more forgotten productions. In 'The Prestige', he plays Robert Angier opposite Christian Bale, who plays Alfred Borden. The two are rival magicians obsessed with outdoing each other in their magic shows, something that takes them from a battle of wits to something much more sinister.
Any journey through Hugh Jackman's career inevitably leads us to 'X-Men', the first adaptation of Marvel's popular comic books that launched his career. The film managed to faithfully capture all the complexity expected from the story on the big screen—regardless of what we think of the leather costumes—and while the entire cast is phenomenal, it is Jackman who steals the show in the role he seemed born to play.
'X-Men', for better or worse, left a long chain of sequels and spin-offs of highly variable quality, and the character Logan/Wolverine is the best example of this. Fortunately, the end of his story—and Jackman's farewell to the role—was more than satisfying, drawing inspiration from the 'Old Man Logan' comic saga to propose a violent adult story full of melancholic tones.
Want to see Hugh Jackman more laid-back in the role of Wolverine, laughing at himself all the time? Then watch 'Deadpool & Wolverine', a movie that deals with this unlikely duo after Marvel's purchase of 20th Century Fox, placing them in this fragmented and reconstructing (or is it destructing?) universe.