alt.hn

7/13/2026 at 6:02:11 AM

Sam Neill has died

 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/13/sam-neill-death-actor-dies-aged-78

by j4mie

7/13/2026 at 9:44:02 AM

RIP. Here in Sweden the headlines mention primarily his role in Ivanhoe, a movie that has aired on Swedish TV almost every New Years for over 40 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe_(1982_film)

He posted this video message to the Swedish people for New Years 2023: https://www.svt.se/kultur/ivanhoe-skadespelarens-nyarshalsni...

Great movie.

by 1313ed01

7/13/2026 at 2:23:13 PM

It was great fun to see him interact with viewers regarding this every/many Jan 1. He kind of embodied that global village spirit.

E.g.

https://x.com/TwoPaddocks/status/1212188526348890112 (2020)

I am relaxed, fit , and ready to fight the dreary Ivanhoe once more.

https://x.com/TwoPaddocks/status/1080048522492145664 (2019)

SWEDEN ! I have strapped on my body armor, renewed my courage, got my evils back, and am braced once again to Sweden's MOST HATED. And this year I WILL WIN . #HappyNewYear2019 #Ivanhoe

https://x.com/TwoPaddocks/status/947971082018889728 (2018)

Yes, my annual disemboweling seems to please Swedes every year. #Ivanhoe

Etc, going back to 2015.

by lysace

7/13/2026 at 3:47:10 PM

That was mentioned in the Guardian piece as well-- can you help explain the particular appeal of this film in Sweden?

by rconti

7/13/2026 at 4:38:45 PM

The traditions are present in (probably) every European country. I think it's a combination of:

* One public broadcasting channel 40-50 years ago

* Someone decided to play a movie in the holiday period when most people sat around a TV

Norway has Tre nøtter til Askepott, Germany has Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel (they are the same Czech movie).

by frantathefranta

7/13/2026 at 3:55:14 PM

Not them, but: It's a cozy/calm kind of movie. The cinematography is excellent.

Repeatedly being TV broadcast on jan 1st for many years turned it into a tradition for something to watch while being hung over.

It's also actually surprisingly good, as a whole.

by lysace

7/13/2026 at 11:15:38 AM

I have only ever seen the 1950s Ivanhoe film and part of a... I think it was a 1990s TV miniseries. I'll have to watch this.

by bovermyer

7/13/2026 at 11:54:28 AM

I watched it every Jan 1 with some pizza

by az226

7/13/2026 at 12:33:27 PM

Ivanhoe is a story about a Russian farmer and his tool.

by firmretention

7/13/2026 at 9:59:45 AM

Jurassic Park was the first movie I saw as a twelve year old boy at the cinema, and it not only made me a huge fan of the series but as a boy I was really into dinosaurs and it was really something to see them being "real" on a big screen for the first time.

"I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts[...]That's the difference between imagining and seeing"

Thank you for everything, doctor Grant.

by mindcrash

7/13/2026 at 3:35:58 PM

I really appreciate the attempt by Chris & Jack to make Julysixth Park a thing.

I enjoyed Star Wars, but I kind of feel like a lot of my feelings towards it are just reflected nostalgia from the writers and comedians who grew up a generation before me.

Jurassic Park may not have been the first movie I saw in theaters, but it was still one of the movies of my childhood. The magic of it, and the experience of where we saw it -- the Mesker Park amphitheatre, in an outdoor showing, and then walking back to the car in the dark, past the Mesker Park Zoo, looking into the dark foliage and imagining dinosaurs.

by saalweachter

7/13/2026 at 4:15:14 PM

Same, I was born in '81, and JP is a cornerstone of my childhood, more-so than any other movie I can think of. I saw that movie at the theatre more than any other, at least 6 times that summer.

My favorite was at a drive-in in Kentucky. We used to rent boats at Lake Cumberland over the summer, and one night we watched JP at a drive-in. I remember the drive back to the dock late at night, driving through the woods, and imagining it was a Jurassic jungle. Then, back on the houseboat, going reading through my "Making of Jurassic Park" book with a battery operated book light.

by jawilson2

7/13/2026 at 9:37:16 AM

"I would have liked to have seen Montana..."

You are forever in our hearts, Vasili.

by geocrasher

7/13/2026 at 1:10:36 PM

I’m in Montana now, and I spent the weekend with a very energetic palaeontologist who has unearthed many dinosaurs.

by testing22321

7/13/2026 at 2:59:11 PM

My son isn't college age yet but is interested in this route. Any tips for potential future paleontologists?

by esseph

7/14/2026 at 8:44:06 PM

Sorry, I’m not one myself, and the one I met this weekend I only just met

by testing22321

7/13/2026 at 2:21:29 PM

Sam Neill did a super podcast with Marc Maron a few years ago. He came across as a really stand-up bloke - genuine, funny, smart and kind; and every obit I've seen today seems to echo all that. It's well worth a listen. https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1202-sam-neill

by kayo_20211030

7/14/2026 at 12:56:17 AM

A shame it has Marc Maron in it.

by kroaton

7/14/2026 at 7:38:35 AM

I have rarely had such displeasure from hearing such an interesting interviewee having to cope with such a cretinous interviewer. I’m very surprised you recommended this.

by ballooney

7/13/2026 at 4:15:09 PM

Besides his role in Jurassic Park, I will always appreciate Sam Neill’s understated but important role as Borodin, the reliable and loyal First Officer in The Hunt for Red October. His character’s death (a change from the book) added emotional weight to the story.

by symfoniq

7/13/2026 at 6:57:14 PM

I've seen both films many times and I honestly never realized these two characters are played by the same person.

by conartist6

7/13/2026 at 6:53:20 AM

So sad. Jurassic Park had a tremendous impact on me as a dino obsessed teenager ( was 13 when it came out). RIP.

by Xenoamorphous

7/13/2026 at 2:38:49 PM

That I have a DevOps company working entirely on Linux can be directly attributed to realizing as a kid that Unix was a real thing and I needed to install it on my own computer. Interesting it was soon after this movie came out that FreeBSD and Linux were becoming popular.

by abhiyerra

7/13/2026 at 8:20:26 AM

One of my favorite actors of all time. If you haven’t seen it, watch The Dish.

by pico303

7/13/2026 at 8:30:36 AM

also the Event Horizon, his change of character is something you don't forget..

by the-mitr

7/13/2026 at 12:55:11 PM

Something that is burnt into me is saying "DO YOU SEE?", invoking the final lines of Neill in Event Horizon

by RALaBarge

7/13/2026 at 1:38:01 PM

"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."

by pezezin

7/13/2026 at 8:50:07 AM

Even Horizon is a Warhammer 40k film that has nothing to do with Warhammer 40k.

by s_dev

7/13/2026 at 1:26:24 PM

Can you elaborate for those of us who don't know Warhammer?

by nilamo

7/13/2026 at 1:45:42 PM

In W40k the primary form of FTL travel is the Immaterium or Warp, a realm of pure psychic energy inhabited by the Chaos gods and countless demons. Spaceships traveling through the Warp need powerful protective shields lest they be possessed and consumed by said demons... which is exactly what happens in the movie.

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Immaterium

by pezezin

7/14/2026 at 3:45:55 AM

Kinda reminds of the inter-dimensional angry aliens from The Expanse that made ships disappear when transiting through the ring gates.

by nirav72

7/13/2026 at 9:18:57 AM

That's always the role I remember first when I hear his name, because it seems so unusual for him and because he was so great in it.

by InsideOutSanta

7/13/2026 at 8:32:37 AM

Not my favourite movie though. The horror in space trope is a very tired one.

Alongside the poorly lit spaceship. Spaceships are workplaces and workplaces should provide adequate illumination so you can see what you are doing.

But I LOVE what he did for the New Zealand flag.

by rbanffy

7/13/2026 at 9:58:21 AM

The part I liked in Event Horizon was Laurence Fishburn's character seeing the logs of the crew going crazy and immediately turning it off and saying, "We're leaving."

Probably the smartest decision made in a horror film. Time to get out of Dodge.

by aarond0623

7/13/2026 at 12:54:08 PM

Yeah! Its a great movie if you dont try to nitpick stuff, which is hard for me to do on a lot of things too.

Neill: We can't just abandon this ship, we just found her Fishburn: I have no intentions of abandoning her. We will get far enough away from it and blow it up. Fuck this ship.

by RALaBarge

7/13/2026 at 2:34:35 PM

Australian flag.

* Their Southern Cross is more astronomically accurate (it includes Epsilon Crucis) our one omits it

* They have an additional seven pointed star to represent the six territories/states of Australia, the seventh point being added when they took control of Papua to represent anything else they added to the federation as time went on

* Their stars are white, ours are red

But fully agree, I loved that it the Union Jack was replaced with the Aborigine flag at Sam Neill's behest, because after all, it _is_ the future right?

by EdwardDiego

7/13/2026 at 3:19:31 PM

> Alongside the poorly lit spaceship. Spaceships are workplaces and workplaces should provide adequate illumination so you can see what you are doing.

I always thought the same about CSI. Have the set designers ever been to a lab?

by woodson

7/13/2026 at 7:41:23 PM

I know it was "a long, long time ago", but why hasn't adequate lighting been invented in the Star Wars Universe?

You have a humanoid rich enough to own a couple robots, but their house is apparently entirely lit by about one candlelight.

by IAmBroom

7/13/2026 at 10:03:47 AM

Pretty sure it's "But I LOVE what he did for the Australian flag." - he is a kiwi but that's arguably the Aussie flag with the colonial bit replaced with the local one

by Taniwha

7/13/2026 at 2:38:32 PM

It's got white stars, it has the seven pointed "Commonwealth star", and astronomically, it's more correct as it includes Epsilon Crucis.

Our flag has red stars, no bonus commonwealth star, and for some reason, whoever designed our flag decided that ε Cru could go fuck itself.

And I love him to bits for insisting that in the future, Australia would surely have a) become a republic and b) embraced the Aborigine first peoples. It's a remarkably hopeful vision of the future for a movie where he ends up running around without eyes saying creepy shit.

by EdwardDiego

7/13/2026 at 1:24:21 PM

Not arguably, definitely.

by mkl

7/13/2026 at 9:06:22 AM

Pandorum was pretty crazy (he wasn’t in it, but it was an odd space horror movie, and I feel that Event Horizon kind of paved the way).

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/13/2026 at 10:02:32 AM

Australian flag. The black, red and yellow flag he replaced the Union Jack with is the Australian first nations flag

by steerpike

7/13/2026 at 1:52:38 PM

My bad. I need to retake my geography classes from high school

by rbanffy

7/13/2026 at 2:51:53 PM

You're sweet as mate, we're used to it eh.

Hell, it's why one of our former PMs had a referendum to try to replace our flag.

He got seated under an Aussie flag once at an international big important meeting, thus he decided to spend $21 million getting people to vote on whether or not to adopt a flag that looked like the logo a meat company would stick on a frozen leg of lamb being exported to the EU [0]. We ultimately voted against the meat wrapper.

My personal preference was for either the Black Jack [1] (because I loved how it co-opted the Union Jack with Māori design elements - the curved white koru) and tbh, we do love the colour black, or...

...Seeing as we're having a bit of a silly referendum anyway, good ol Laser Kiwi [2] (the white feather thing is the silver fern/ponga, adopted as our national plant when pteridomania was running rampant in the British Empire, and is often used as a logo for national sports teams, and for naming several female sports teams - Silver Ferns, White Ferns, Black Ferns), because who doesn't love the idea of shooting lasers out of your eyes?

John Oliver had a lot of fun with the whole debate. [3]

Oh, and fun fact, I believe during the anti-ICE protests, some Minnesotans were inspired by Laser Kiwi and brought about Laser Loon. [4]

----

[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/NZ...

[1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/NZ_flag_...

[2]: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/sites/default/files/styles/wide/pu...

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2tL--HMIo

[4]: https://images.thespinoff.co.nz/1/2026/02/Tinas-FeatureImage...

by EdwardDiego

7/13/2026 at 2:04:45 PM

> Spaceships are workplaces and workplaces

...with very constrained sources of power. Lighting places where humans are not is wasting that power.

by dylan604

7/13/2026 at 10:36:48 PM

You have a power plant capable of generating the energy needed to take you to relativistic speeds (at minimum) or punch holes through spacetime (a couple hundred orders of magnitude more) that’ll radiate a Hiroshima per second in waste heat (at 99.99999% efficiency converting energy into movement). You can certainly power a couple light bulbs.

by rbanffy

7/14/2026 at 8:02:47 AM

Yeah but you save a couple bucks per ship if you cut the lighting to the absolute minimum required to keep crew shrinkage at an acceptable rate, and across the entire fleet that adds up to a nice bonus.

by account42

7/13/2026 at 8:31:31 AM

It’s a wonderful little movie. Absolutely adorable.

by rbanffy

7/13/2026 at 11:53:55 AM

Rest in peace. Like many here, his performances were hugely influential on my childhood (and adulthood). One I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is Merlin.

by olivierestsage

7/13/2026 at 1:30:42 PM

His Merlin was always my favorite, though I've never heard anyone else mention it out in the wild.

by nilamo

7/13/2026 at 2:18:11 PM

Same here. The miniseries itself has its quirks and oddities, but I find it charming. Particularly his role as Merlin.

by fnordsensei

7/13/2026 at 5:34:59 PM

The whole miniseries is (or was very recently) free on YouTube. I recommend it, it’s very unique and interesting

by Lord-Jobo

7/14/2026 at 11:57:07 AM

Or Smith in Sleeping Dogs: "I got my eye on you boy!".

by pseudohadamard

7/13/2026 at 9:43:11 AM

I saw him interviewed once and they asked about his cancer and he said that he did not find it very interesting. He said something to the effect of he finds living interesting and there's far more interesting things to talk about than his cancer. Paraphrased I don't recall exactly.

by wewewedxfgdf

7/13/2026 at 10:07:11 AM

It is a touchy subject. When you have it, you don't want to think about it all the time.

by Findecanor

7/13/2026 at 10:44:00 AM

You misunderstand - the message is he was far more interested in living and what he could do with his life and genuinely found the cancer not interesting compared to other things.

He wasn't just being touchy and trying to change the subject.

by wewewedxfgdf

7/14/2026 at 6:11:47 PM

You misunderstand.

When someone is confronted with something as powerful as imminent mortality, it pervades all your decisions.

Both explanations can be true.

by IAmBroom

7/13/2026 at 10:42:43 AM

Bicentennial Man is one of my favourite films of his (also Robin Williams). There's an interesting subplot in there on right to repair which is very much relevant today. It also depicts a future 30 years away which might've seemed bleak when it was first conceived, but is in many ways more hopeful than what we actually got.

by tjpnz

7/13/2026 at 8:53:48 AM

I watched Possession (1981) a few weeks back. One of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen. His acting was so different from his later stuff.

by mulhoon

7/13/2026 at 3:29:26 PM

One of my favorite horror films of the 1980s, Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 Possession.

One quote I heard about it, is that some movies are about madness, and other movies seem to be themselves mad, and Possession is one of those movies. It has this immediacy to it, and an unease that only grows in quantity and tenor. And you genuinely do not know where it is going. Believe me when I say this.

It might be Sam's most memorable performance, for me. The movie seemed to drive its entire cast and crew to exhaustion or worse.

Do not under any circumstances watch the old American cut, the initial release. It was re-edited with scenes out of order and has this bizarro solarization effect at random intervals. It's really really bad. The modern blu-ray and others have the actual movie.

by lopsotronic

7/13/2026 at 9:09:01 AM

Possession is such a fantastically special movie, heavily due to Neill and Adjani’s performances.

RIP to a real one.

by fetus8

7/13/2026 at 6:51:29 AM

I'm getting old, all my childhood heroes die.

by JodieBenitez

7/13/2026 at 7:11:00 AM

Here's to "trying to be someone's childhood heroes"

by phtrivier

7/13/2026 at 7:44:33 AM

Without dancing on TikTok or pulling stupid faces for YouTube thumbnails

by OJFord

7/13/2026 at 8:58:40 AM

Yup, we can dream bigger and give bigger dreams :)

A silver lining in the tech progress is this : I remember watching movies from the 60s or the 70s, in the 90s, and feeling "damn, that looks old". I could only care about movies made after 1984, or something (and, men, did amblin and the "produced by Steven Spielberg-verse" give us good things to watch.)

I suspect that, now that movies are kinda "converging" in terms of visual, it will be easier to share the movies of our childhoods with the next generation.

Besides, they don't care that much about looks : I litteraly witnessed 10 year old kids getting hooked on my 1991 game boy !!!!

by phtrivier

7/14/2026 at 6:12:59 PM

I love you, wholeheartedly.

by IAmBroom

7/13/2026 at 11:54:19 AM

It gets worse. You start realising that the new heroes you're discovering are all younger than you.

by simondotau

7/13/2026 at 1:10:11 PM

... and they are not that interesting / relatable

by kakacik

7/13/2026 at 1:22:00 PM

You’ll fit right in on this site then. It’s mostly elderly Americans sundowning and posting about their youth.

by awnird

7/13/2026 at 1:26:10 PM

I'm not american, but ok, why not :)

by JodieBenitez

7/14/2026 at 6:14:13 PM

"Mostly"? Nah. A HUGE number of contributors are from a myriad of countries.

Using "myriad" loosely. Don't be that "Well acshually" guy.

by IAmBroom

7/13/2026 at 7:35:34 AM

Today New Zealand has lost a national treasure.

Haere atu rā ki te okiokinga.

by benburton

7/13/2026 at 8:48:19 AM

And Northern Ireland.

by nephihaha

7/13/2026 at 9:37:07 AM

And Australia. He lived in Sydney and the Aussie PM just posted a tribute.

by decimalenough

7/13/2026 at 12:11:03 PM

He's as Australian as Russell Crowe and Lamingtons!

by josephcooney

7/14/2026 at 4:03:23 AM

They can have Russell Crowe. But you'll take Lamingtons from my cold dead hands!

by peterashford

7/13/2026 at 9:14:31 AM

An absolute legend. I thought he'd be around for longer. Thanks for making Jurassic Park what it is, Sam.

by bluerooibos

7/13/2026 at 9:09:50 AM

As a kiwi he was the best of us. Creative, talented, willing to roll up his sleeves, maker of exceptional wine. Haere ra

by te_chris

7/13/2026 at 12:40:50 PM

His debut in the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die is in the 1979 film, My Brilliant Career [1].

("Hey, that's a young Sam Neill!")

[1] https://youtu.be/aU3kXBb6Yc4

by JKCalhoun

7/13/2026 at 9:05:43 AM

Ah, that sucks. I’ve always enjoyed him.

One of the inevitable features of getting older. All my cultural icons keep checking out.

by ChrisMarshallNY

7/13/2026 at 1:09:31 PM

If you have not seen Hunt for the Wilderpeople (staring Sam Neil) find it and watch it today!

by krupan

7/13/2026 at 11:40:34 PM

Emphatic "SECOND" to this recommendation. This is a very enjoyable and touching film.

by tanseydavid

7/13/2026 at 11:52:07 AM

Aside from Jurassic Park and the other roles mentioned, I also liked his role in the Merlin TV two part movies. Now I need to rewatch both…

by weikju

7/13/2026 at 8:49:14 AM

Hunt for the Wilder People was fun, as was Reilly, Ace of Spies.

by nephihaha

7/13/2026 at 10:59:42 AM

Loved Hunt for the Wilder People.

by bushwart

7/13/2026 at 12:19:18 PM

I honestly didn't know he was a Kiwi until I saw Hunt for the Wilder People. Absolutely fantastic movie.

by donatj

7/14/2026 at 10:35:27 AM

He's originally from Northern Ireland and spent much of his life in NZ (although he has spent time in the USA, Australia and other parts of the UK.)

by nephihaha

7/13/2026 at 1:20:07 PM

First time I saw him was in Riley Ace of Spies. A great series that was on PBS. Last series I watched was Untamed. He was one of my favorite actors and a credit to his profession. Sad to learn of his passing.

by noefingway

7/13/2026 at 10:34:31 AM

I'll never forget Neill as Damien in Omen III.

I'd very much like to forget Neill as Damien in Omen III. Chilling.

by lapcat

7/13/2026 at 2:45:08 PM

Good performance, not really a good movie. It was a bit of a letdown after parts I and II, but he was well cast. The writing wasn’t there: didn’t quite stick the landing.

by jzb

7/13/2026 at 11:53:40 AM

i saw him around a lot on tv and so on as an australian, just genuinely a pretty good bloke. like i dunno what to say i don't know if i've ever cried about an actor dying before

i'd love to say he was awesome in every role but he always seemed super honest in his performance and i think that hurt him a lot when he had to play bullshit characters lol.

i dunno i'm just some guy

by twelvedogs

7/13/2026 at 8:52:17 AM

I’ve watched “In The Mouth of Madness” so many times. It is in my top 3 most re-watched horror movies list. Perfect Lovecraftian horror, and Sam Neill was perfect in it.

Do you read Sutter Cane?

by TrackerFF

7/13/2026 at 3:43:27 PM

It's a great movie! One of the best attempts at capturing a Lovecraftian vibe, maybe only bested by The Thing or his excellent Event Horizon.

by jhickok

7/13/2026 at 6:14:39 PM

You made me think about the possibility of him being in The Thing - if he was chosen for that film, I wonder who he would have played.

by Vaslo

7/13/2026 at 1:44:02 PM

Sam Neill had a great & prolific career; particularly appreciated his role as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on The Tudors

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000554/

by OrvalWintermute

7/13/2026 at 8:31:39 AM

RIP. Where he's going, he won't need eyes. Wait, perhaps that was an inappropriate quote to use.

by ares623

7/13/2026 at 8:44:56 AM

Event horizon.

by chvid

7/13/2026 at 6:11:34 PM

He was great in it - horribly underrated movie though I concede the gore at a 8 or 9 out of 10 is not for everyone. The deaths were supposed to be far gorier and the film of the prior crew was to be longer and harder to watch until the studio stepped in.

by Vaslo

7/13/2026 at 10:43:51 AM

"Where we're going, we don't need eyes to see".

by pantulis

7/13/2026 at 12:46:16 PM

Remind me to never go to orbit around Neptune.

by sgt

7/13/2026 at 12:57:20 PM

"What makes you think I'll miss?"

by RALaBarge

7/13/2026 at 3:04:46 PM

He was an amazing actor. One of his best roles was “Reilly: Ace of Spies”.

by asimpletune

7/13/2026 at 11:00:07 AM

RIP. Recently watched Series 3 of The Twelve, and thought "No way is he in his 70s", and had just finished reading his autobiography "Did I Ever Tell You This?" - delightful read.

by samsudden

7/13/2026 at 10:40:18 AM

So sad to hear this. Hard to imagine anyone else playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park.

by gautamcgoel

7/13/2026 at 8:21:51 AM

He had a lovely gentle demeanor about him. He was good recently in the Untamed series.

by Neil44

7/13/2026 at 8:20:52 PM

Riley Ace of Spies: RIP Sam

by Danox

7/13/2026 at 8:10:33 AM

Give me a ping Vasily. One ping only please.

Sad.

by vinkelhake

7/13/2026 at 8:33:28 AM

A minute of silence for him. No echoes.

by rbanffy

7/13/2026 at 10:42:38 AM

If someone here likes horror movies I highly recommend watching his work in Possession (1981) and Mouth of Madness (1995).

If you prefer a more family focused comedy, go with Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), from the same director of the excelent What we Do in the Shadows.

by major505

7/13/2026 at 12:40:31 PM

Godspeed. ;~;7

by throwaway29303

7/13/2026 at 8:24:31 AM

To this day, Event Horizon is one of the scariest premises to a horror movie I have ever watched. And it's thanks to Sam Neill's performance that it lives rent free in my head.

Love this guy. Gonna miss him :(

by GenericDev

7/13/2026 at 8:03:58 AM

[dead]

by aaron695