A three-time Oscar® nominee, Woody Harrelson is one of modern American cinema’s most adaptable stars, able to easily transition between grounded independent film work and maximalist blockbuster roles. Having broken through on the incredibly successful 1980s sitcom Cheers, Harrelson’s early film career came at a point where television stars had some difficulties getting movie work that didn’t pigeonhole them into similar roles to those which viewers could find on television every week. While Harrelson had considerable success with comedy films, and has continued to do so, many of the more interesting roles he had in the 1990s saw him consciously work with material set to challenge audiences and alter expectations of what he could do.

Our double bill of Harrelson’s 1990s output includes radical, audacious visions of America from two major auteurs: one at the height of his fame and powers, the other the final feature from a key New Hollywood figure. In Oliver Stone’s hugely controversial, satirical thriller Natural Born Killers (1994), Harrelson is, alongside Juliette Lewis, one half of the serial-killer duo, Mickey and Mallory Knox. Adapted from a Quentin Tarantino story treatment, the stylistically audacious film explores how a corrupt mass-media landscape makes superstars out of psychopaths. Two years later, Harrelson worked with Michael Cimino on The Sunchaser (1996), another film highlighting the symptoms of an unhealthy American society. Harrelson plays a wealthy, yuppie oncologist kidnapped by a terminally-ill, half-Navajo patient (Jon Seda), with the demand to take him on a road trip to a famed Navajo healing lake. Two radical and very different tales of manhunts across sprawling desert lands, the pairing cements Harrelson’s reputation as a natural-born movie star.