Its 20 years to the summer that Alan Rickman made a rather immediate impact as the villain in the quintessential 1988 action hit "Die Hard."

I'm not sure that Rickman had any notable film credits prior to that, but it was literally as if he materialized out of nowhere to give the screen a truly classic villain. Actually, Rickman got the "Die Hard" role as consolation for his Broadway role in "Dangerous Liasions" going to the more famous John Malkovich in that movie.

I see James Mason in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest"(1959) as a precursor to Rickman's smooth "Hans Gruber": elegant of voice, sexy of manner, witty of dialogue, expensive of tailoring -- and a leader of killers with no compunction about killing anyone at any time.

Bruce Willis became a star playing the Average-Joe New York cop pitted against "pseudo-terrorists" in an LA skyscraper, but without Alan Rickman to play against as the smug mastermind brought low by a mensch, Willis might not have seemed so great himself. Rickman channelled his British accent into a German one to play Gruber, and then in one scene, added a twist: Gruber fakes an AMERICAN accent to fool Willis' cop when the two meet by accident in the innards of the high-rise. At that point: a Britisher playing a German imitating an American!

A few critics though Rickman was robbed of a "Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination for "Die Hard." And when a REAL Oscar winner, Jeremy Irons, played Gruber's brother in the inferior "Die Hard (3) with a Vengeance," Rickman proved a very hard act to follow (same with the US military villains in "Die Hard 2.")

I haven't seen all the Rickman films since "Die Hard." I know that Rickman has a fine reputation in a "nice" role in "Truly, Madly, Deeply." I watched Rickman suffer through some villain roles that lacked the strong dialogue and characterization of Hans Gruber (in a Tom Selleck Australian Western and as the Sheriff of Nottingham versus Kevin Costner's "Robin Hood" come to mind.)

I thought Rickman was charming as Emma Thompson's possibly errant husband and Laura Linney's compassionate boss in the all-star confection "Love Actually" of 2003. Though the character was probably a cheater (not with Linney, with his secretary), Rickman still played him as a conflicted, nice guy. No villain, he.

Last year, Rickman returned for a very choice piece of villainy as the supercruel judge in "Sweeney Todd," doing well by his poignant and suspenseful singing duet ("Pretty Women") with Johnny Depp. That was two class acts in a pretty great scene in a pretty good (if gory) musical. Rickman ALMOST reached Hans Gruber levels as the Judge.

And so now here's Alan Rickman in what sounds like a pleasant and sympathetic role in a wine movie. I might see it on his presence alone.

In any event, a toast to Alan Rickman on the 20th Anniversary of Hans Gruber:

Yippie-kai-ay mother---

Wasn't he snape in Harry Potter?

As another poster mentioned, Rickman plays Snape in the Harry Potter series, and is about as perfectly realized a Snape as one could ask for.

Rickman also does a fine comic turn in "Galaxy Quest" as a serious actor trapped in the Spockish role of Dr. Lazarus.

Rickman is perfection personified as Snape. And, although the original poster denigrated his role as The Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner's [correctly] maligned "Robin Hood," I have a very distinct memory of that movie being the moment when Alan Rickman took a prominent place on my own personal radar. In what was otherwise a piece of dreck, he shown like a jewel.

OP is back to note that Rickman WAS good in "Robin Hood," but the structure and look of the movie, the story, Costner's bizarre miscasting, etc was such that the material worked against Rickman rather than with him, as "Die Hard" did.

All these years later, "Die Hard" is looking more and more like a rather classic piece of entertainment. As against other Joel Silver-produced 80's and early 90's action movies, "Die Hard" has a certain elegance of structure and wit of lines that, say, "Lethal Weapon" or "Cliffhanger" did not have.

"Die Hard" became a template of sorts : Die Hard on a bus (Speed); Die Hard on a luxury liner (Speed 2), Die Hard on a battleship (Under Siege), Die Hard on a train (Under Siege II), Die Hard at a hockey game (Sudden Death).

None of those films quite had a villain who matched the villainy of Rickman's Hans Gruber in look, manner, voice. (The villains in those others included such more-familiar faces as Dennis Hopper, John Lithgow, Gary Busey, Willem Dafoe, Powers Boothe, and even Eric Bogosian, not to mention Oscar Guy Tommy Lee Jones in one of them.)

I didn't check Rickman's imdb listing, so I forgot all about his playing Snape, which, in the first film, was great "twist casting": Snape looked to be the villain of the piece (because Rickman played the role) , but wasn't.

In "Die Hard," there was the matter of first impression: that deep, sonorous voice; a face with a handsome, sympathetic pleasantness to it, a disingenuous toothy grin, and a "manner" (Gruber is a crook masquerading as a terrorist, amused by his own facade) that was just too fun not to enjoy. I recall Rickman's genuinely perplexed facial expressions when confronted by Hart Bochner's hustling Yuppie slickster who addresses him with "Hans...Boobie!" Hans Gruber is a cool guy when not killing people; he probably kills Bochner just on general principles for being a schmuck.

Anyway, 20 years ago. Man. Time flies.

Re: the casting of Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood". I've never been all that fond of Costner, but just FYI, his casting in that movie was a trade-off: in order to get the studio to make "Dances with Wolves", the film he was fighting for, he had to sign on to "Robin Hood". He knew he was wrong for the part just as practically everybody who saw it did. But sometimes you not only have to bite the bullet, you have to swallow the whole damn rifle.

Oh, and another vote for Rickman in "Galaxy Quest". If you haven't seen it, you really should. Nobody does frustrated, snarky exasperation like Rickman. He can do more with one frown than most actors can do with ten lines. Just watching him sign those convention pictures was an unreal joy.

Also played the very poignant, understated Colonel in "Sense and Sensibility." Hadn't seen if that had been mentioned already. AR is an excellent character actor.

...and a better one could not be found, I'm convinced. I knew from the first moment he swept into the classroom in the first Potter movie they had the right guy.

The PERFECT guy, in fact.

His (Rickman's) Southern accent in "Something the Lord Made" was cringeworthy. Mos Def was geat however. Still, love him as Gruber and Snape.

Luca, I will never forgot my first viewing of "Die Hard". Alan Rickman had me at "...but it's Christmas, it is the time for miracles."

If you're looking for a good Rickman as bad guy movie check out the hard to find Closetland. It's a film that stars Alan Rickman as an interrorgator for an undisclosed authoritarian government and Madaline Stowe as a childrens' book author accused of using subversive themes in her stories. The whole movie is shot in one room with only the two actors so it has the feel of a play. Rickman is very cold and menacing as he psychologicaly and physically tortures Stowe during and interrogation that lasts the length of the film. The movie was sponsored by Amnesty International.

No one mentioned AR in "Rome", he played Julius Ceasar, and was great.

Another vote. Galaxy Quest was a weird sort of film, a little bit too intelligent and too subdued to be a popular spoof, and a little light to be taken with critical seriousness. Good casting all around though, even Tim Allen. A few good lines too.

Rickman was also great in Dogma, as another poster noted, as a bitter, alcoholic angel. Now that movie should have been a whole lot better, but only Rickman (and George Carlin) really showed the skills to make it simultaneously dark, subervisive, and funny.

All this swooning over Mr. Rickman sent me to his "Bottle Shock," in which his true star charisma proves to be invaluable.

The Napa scenery is nice and the actors are all good, but this is really a sub-par narrative.

Its not fair, but as I watched a scene in a law office between Bill Pullman(dull and/or overacting, from scene to scene) and Joe Regalabuto that was meant to deal with issues of office politics and nasty personal history, the whole thing seemed at a basic, perfunctory "Dick and Jane" level compared to the sharpened wit on display right now on "Mad Men." We long ago reached the point, I guess, where a basic cable TV show can be better written than a theatrical film even when the theatrical is an "independent film." So why did I PAY to see "Bottle Shock", again? (Rickman, of course.)

Meanwhile, the young actors are asked to carry some WB-level romantic triangle stuff. The blond and the blonde are cute. Freddy Rodriguez ("Six Feet Under") is personable but can't outfox, again, an "A-B-C" basic script. (He's secretly making his own wine! Pullman fires him! What's gonna happen?)

Which brings us to Alan Rickman, hired to play the British wine expert based in France, with a commanding knowledge of German (see? Die Hard paid off) who comes to California to see if Napa vintners have the right stuff for an international competition. The movie literally comes alive when Rickman shows up, and the IQ of the piece rises with his every elegant utterance and well-honed raise of the eyebrow.

"Bottle Shock" is a very, very, very basic script. Alan Rickman was worth every penny they paid him to anchor the thing and make it look better than it is.

Honorable mention: Dennis Farina pairs up for a few fine scenes as Rickman's American-in-Paris pal. Back in the summer of 1988 when Rickman was the villain in "Die Hard," Farina was the villain in "Midnight Run" ("I'm going to kill you," his mob boss told Charles Grodin, "then I'm going to go home, have a nice hot meal...and kill your wife.")

How fun to see these two robustly-aged 1988 movie villains paired for gentle buddy-comedy in 2088. Like Rickman, Farina has a great voice (American-throaty version), a great face, and great presence.

I'd like to see "Alan Rickman and Dennis Farina Go to White Castle."

P.S. "Galaxy Quest" was a perfectly cast hoot; with Rickman out-Spocking Spock. Loved Sigourney Weaver's perma-cleavage, too.

I guess I can't say "the actors were all good" and then remark on how bad Bill Pullman was.

He wasn't THAT bad, but he wasn't good (the script lines were often really bad for his character, as well) Indeed, some of the actors were just passable. But they were all good sports.