“I was with a writer the other day, who was saying that you can’t really talk about what you do. I disagree with him. What ultimately happens is something mysterious that you can’t say. But you can talk about how you approach what that mysterious something is, how you try to get at that thing that you really can’t say.” —Philip Seymour Hoffman, interview with June Stein in Bomb Magazine, 2008

Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014) first gained attention playing a prep school student in Scent of a Woman (1992), and within a few years was recognized as one of the most versatile character actors in Hollywood. Hoffman seemed at home in every film genre, from intimate arthouse dramas to the most spectacular Hollywood blockbusters. Even amidst ensembles of top-notch actors, he had the gift of seeming like the most recognizably human character on screen.

Hoffman’s collaborations with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson gave him some of his most memorable parts. Still, the list of other filmmakers he worked with over the course of his all-too-brief career is equally notable and includes Robert Benton, Cameron Crowe, Joel and Ethan Coen, Charlie Kaufman, Tamara Jenkins, Spike Lee, Sidney Lumet, David Mamet, Anthony Minghella, Mike Nichols, and Todd Solondz.

Programmed in conjunction with the spring season of our ongoing Oscar Sundays series, which will feature several of Hoffman’s Oscar-nominated films, this limited series celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his Oscar-winning performance in Capote alongside an eclectic selection of his projects.