The Power Play: The 5 best Tom Hardy movies to stream right now

ACTING heavyweight Tom Hardy is back on the big screen in Marvel adventure Venom, but he’s no stranger to starring roles. Here’s five of his best films that you can stream now.

AFTER a lengthy absence, British acting heavyweight Tom Hardy returns to the big screen this week with the new Marvel adventure Venom. Here are five ways to stream Hardy at his best. …

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012) *****

Netflix

A perfect end to Christopher Nolan’s astonishingly realised Batman trilogy. The story picks up 8 years after The Dark Knight, with the Caped Crusader (Christian Bale) forced out of self-imposed exile when a band of nuclear-armed anarchists hold Gotham City to ransom. The lead bad guy is Bane, a metal-muzzled menace provoking outright fear and fascination, due to the brilliant acting of Hardy.

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MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015) *****

Netflix

This century’s one true action masterpiece explores an exciting new tangent of the Mad Max myth. The post-apocalyptic nomad Max (Hardy, ably replacing Mel Gibson) joins forces with female freedom-fighter Furiosa (Charlize Theron) on a devastating journey across the baddest badlands imaginable. Once everything begins barrelling forward at ever-increasing speed, there is no turning back.

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INCEPTION (2010) ****

Foxtel Now

Along with Leonardo DiCaprio, Hardy is a key figure in this convoluted tale of dreams within dreams, and burglary of the subconscious. In some scenes, the mind-bending innovation on display suggests it is about to break open into a full-blown classic. Other scenes are so mind-numbingly hard to follow that a collapse into grand folly seems imminent. One of the most divisive must-sees of our time.

LOCKE (2013) ***1/2

Stan, SBS On Demand

A minimalist epic, consisting of nothing but Hardy driving around in a car, making many a stressful phone call while on a one-way journey to possible oblivion. Just why this man is putting his job, marriage and maybe even his sanity at risk is not for me to reveal. That’s the job of Hardy’s hyper-nuanced performance, and his instinctive choices of when to truly act or merely react all prove to be correct.

THE REVENANT (2015) ****

Google, iTunes

Hardy has been a superb screen villain over time, perhaps never more so than in this brutal revenge drama. He plays John Fitzgerald, the black-hearted frontier tracker who not only leaves Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass for dead in the wilderness, but also kills his former workmate’s only child. Just because he can. The gut-wrenching final confrontation of the two leads is as primal as it gets.

Originally published as The Power Play: The 5 best Tom Hardy movies to stream right now