10 Best Julian Sands Movies, Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes
British actor Julian Sands was recently found and confirmed dead after disappearing during a hike in California's San Gabriel Mountains. Sands was a handsome, talented and incredibly versatile actor, most famous for his swoon-worthy performance as romantic George Emerson in A Room With a View. He also starred as the demonic Warlock and historical figures ranging from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Franz Liszt.
Sands wasn't afraid of playing monsters, including an obsessive surgeon in Boxing Helena, the titular character of Dario Argento's kitschy The Phantom of the Opera, and a pedophile farmer in The Painted Bird. With a career spanning 70 films and more than 50 television shows, Sands leaves behind the legacy of an outstanding character actor.
10 'Warlock' (1989)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 53%
The Warlock (Sands), a son of Satan, is captured and sentenced to death in 1691. Satan propels the Warlock 300 years into the future, bestowing on him a mission to find the three sections of the Grand Grimoire. He is pursued by time-traveling witch-hunter Giles Redferne (Richard E. Grant) and a beautiful waitress, Kassandra (Lori Singer).
The film received mixed reviews, with some critics finding The Warlock a kind of reverse-time travel version of The Terminator. Sands was praised for his “superbly malevolent presence”. He reprised the role in the 1993 sequel Warlock: The Armageddon.
9 'Gothic' (1986)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
On a Summer night in 1816, Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Sands), Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne), Dr John Polidori (Timothy Spall) and Claire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr) hold a séance in a remote Swiss mansion. The group is subsequently haunted by terrifying visitations, based on their worse individual fears. The night inspires Mary to write 'Frankenstein' and Polidori 'The Vampyre'.
Based on a real-life meeting of these literary greats, Ken Russell’s campy Gothic is wildly over the top. Critics were not particularly impressed, but the film has since become a cult favorite. Sands clearly has fun as the wide-eyed, flamboyant Percy, who sees flashes of his own tragic demise from drowning less than 10 years later. Gothic’s portrayal of the Shelleys has an added poignancy given Richardson’s tragic early death at 45, and now Sands at 65.
8 'Tale of a Vampire' (1992)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 56% (audience score)
Before Interview with the Vampire hit the screens, Sands gave an outstanding performance as the melancholy, undead Alex in Tale of a Vampire. Alex mourns the loss of his love, Virginia, but meets a young woman – Ann (Suzanna Hamilton) – who greatly resembles her. Ann is mourning the loss of her own lover, and the two begin a tentative, unhealthy relationship.
Tale of a Vampire is a slow-paced horror film, heavily focused on interpersonal drama rather than traditional blood-sucking tropes. It was the first English film by female Japanese director Shimako Sato, based on the poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
7 'Naked Lunch' (1991)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%
This bizarre surrealist film features Sands in a supporting role as a shape-shifting centipede. William (Peter Weller) is an exterminator affected by his own insecticide, making him hallucinate people as giant insects. He meets Yves Cloquet (Sands) in North Africa, who initially appears as a handsome gentleman from Switzerland.
Critics felt somewhat mixed about Naked Lunch, agreeing the body horror (typical for director David Cronenberg) was not to everyone’s taste. Sands is ironically never more beautiful on screen than as Cloquet in his pre-centipede form.
6 'Impromptu' (1991)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
In 1830s Paris, controversial but acclaimed female writer George Sand (Judy Davis) pursues composer Frédéric Chopin (Hugh Grant). Sand’s confidant is Countess Marie D’Agoult (Bernadette Peters), the mistress of pianist Franz Liszt (Sands) – who secretly wants Chopin for herself.
Impromptu received mainly positive reviews, with critics praising it as an entertaining historical comedy. Sands shines as the sassy, passionate Liszt and has terrific chemistry with Peters.
5 'The Painted Bird' (2019)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%
This brutal arthouse war film follows a young boy’s (Petr Kotlár) horrific experiences during Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Sands is monstrously good as Garbos, a pedophilic, abusive farmer whom the boy is forced to lodge with. His hideous death – tricked by the boy to fall into a pit of rats – is worth cheering for.
Sands’ proved his versatility and range in The Painted Bird, and also his willingness to tackle truly horrific characters. He was acclaimed as being among "the world’s finest character actors” and for giving a “showstopping but nuanced” performance.
4 'Leaving Las Vegas' (1995)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
Ben (Nicholas Cage), having lost his family, friends and job, goes to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death. He meets, and bonds, with Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute working for an abusive pimp, Yuri (Sands).
Sands is memorably chilling as the sinister Yuri, and his scenes with Shue are deeply uncomfortable to watch. Leaving Las Vegas as a whole was critically acclaimed and nominated for multiple Academy Awards.
3 'The Killing Fields' (1984)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
This contemporary historical drama follows the experiences of two journalists – Cambodian Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) and American Sydney Schnaberg (Sam Waterston) – documenting the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
Sands has a supporting role as Jon Swain, a British Journalist who tries to help Pran escape with an unsuccessfully forged passport. Although Sands’ screen time is small, his performance was memorable enough for The Killing Fields to become an early breakout film.
2 'Arachnophobia' (1990)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
Entomologist James Atherton (Sands) discovers a new (horrible) species of spider during fieldwork in Venezuela. The nasty arachnid promptly kills a photographer and immigrates to the US via the latter’s coffin. Atherton and spider (and multiple spider kin) reunite in a small Californian town, where the arachnid family has been brutally busy.
Arachnophobia was lauded by critics as a sharp horror comedy that is still enjoyable today. Sands is perfect as the somewhat snooty British scientist, whose initial skepticism of the arachnid culprit is redeemed in his heroic (if failed) attempt to capture the spiders’ ‘General’.
1 'A Room with A View' (1985)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%
Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), a proper Edwardian Englishwoman, meets the free-spirited George Emerson (Sands) on a trip to Florence. George impulsively kisses Lucy in a poppy field, leading to her chaperon, Charlotte (Maggie Smith), cutting their trip short. Back in England, Lucy becomes engaged to the respectable but snobbish Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis). When George and his father (Denholm Elliot) coincidentally move nearby, Lucy must choose between respectability and repressed passion.
A Room With a View is a beautifully shot romantic period comedy, warmly received by critics and audiences alike. Sands is wonderful as the enigmatic George, shifting from brooding stillness to spontaneous declarations of passion – always with a sincerity that is both believable and endearing.
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