Without a doubt, the late Val Kilmer, who died last week at 65, is a first-ballot acting Hall of Famer based on the first 11 years of his career alone. Top Secret!, Real Genius, Top Gun, Willow, Heat, and his turn as the Caped Crusader in Batman Forever lock that up. There are two movies in that run that are not only stone-cold classics but feature knockout performances by Kilmer that sadly didn’t even receive an Oscar nomination, much less earn a win, which would have been more than justified. Those two movies are Tombstone and The Doors.
Tombstone Was Completely Overlooked
Today, Tombstone is considered one of the best Westerns of all time, but it was underappreciated by critics and audiences alike when it was released on Christmas Day 1993. The film, starring Kilmer in a supporting role as the legendary Doc Holliday, is such a fun movie, but it was only a minor success at the box office and didn’t really find its audience until it was released on VHS a few months later.
Kilmer is brilliant in Tombstone. Not only does he deliver many of the movie's classic lines, like “I’m your huckleberry” and “You’re a daisy if you do,” but the way he gets you to believe that he’s a dying man (Holliday had turberculosis), with his sweating, coughing, and lethargy is astounding. Add on top Holliday’s devil-may-care attitude, and you’ve got a performance for the ages. It's a performance you can catch at least until the end of the month with a Hulu subscription.
Unfortunately, the movie didn’t garner any attention during the Awards Season in early 1994. Tombstone didn’t even sniff an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination. While it’s understandable that it wouldn’t compete with the eventual Best Picture winner, Schindler’s List, it’s really too bad that Kilmer didn’t get recognition for his role. Still, that snub isn’t as egregious as the one Kilmer received three years earlier.
The Doors Were A Legendary Band, But The Movie About Them Is Even Better
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not a huge fan of The Doors or of Jim Morrison. I could go on about what I don’t like about the music and Morrison’s persona, but it doesn’t matter because I love 1991’s The Doors starring Kilmer as Morrison and directed by Oliver Stone. I think it’s one of the best -- if not the best -- rock and roll biopics ever made. I loved Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, and I want to see more of him as Dylan, but it doesn’t come close to The Doors and Kilmer.
Kilmer completely disappears into the role of the self-proclaimed “lizard king,” and it’s hard to know where Kilmer ends and the tragic rock star begins in the film. When I first saw the movie as a teenager (when I was a fan of The Doors), I confused the real Morrison for Kilmer’s on-screen version. I really believed I watching the real guy, even though he’d been dead for decades. That’s how good he is. Kilmer is more Morrison than Morrison was at times.
Starring in a music biopic is a sure-fire way to secure an Oscar nod these days. Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, Chalamet as Dylan, Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, and Austin Butler as Elvis Presley have all been nominated for or won Oscars in recent years. But at the 1992 Academy Awards, Kilmer got no love in the Best Actor category, and frankly, as amazing as all those guys are in their roles, Kilmer was better as Morrison.
There are other performances throughout Val Kilmer’s career that I could point to, even later in his career when things came off the rails a little, like his underrated turn as adult film star John Holmes in 2003’s Wonderland, for example. Those two, though -- Doc Holliday and Jim Morrison -- stand out above the rest, and in addition to Iceman in Top Gun, they will certainly be the roles Val Kilmer is best remembered for.
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