He played cocky cops, doomed detectives, corporate fat cats, kindly coaches, and any number of Grade-A All-American assholes — both the sheer range and the overall reliability of the gentleman’s work over four decades is astounding. Yet the one thing the late Gene Hackman, who was found dead in his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Feb. 26, never did was phone it in. He was an actor’s actor, the sort of performer who cut his teeth in theater and TV in the 1960s, alongside fellow future legends like Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, fit in perfectly with the moody-antihero vibes of the 1970s, and excelled at playing powerful and flawed men in the Reagan era of the 1980s. There was something so natural about whatever Hackman did onscreen, whether he was screaming in fury or shyly giving an “aw, shucks” smile. Sometimes he even managed to do both at the same time.

But his body of work attests to someone who was committed to not only perfecting the craft but also pushing himself forward in the name of always locating what made these people tick. The question was never whether Hackman belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Screen Legends. It was, to borrow the headline of Rob Sheffield’s appreciation: Was Gene Hackman a Great American Actor, or the Greatest American Actor?

These 20 roles represent Hackman at his finest — from his breakthrough as part of the Barrow Gang to an aging patriarch conning his way back into his family. There will never be another star like him.