Brad Pitt: Acting's great all-rounder

Dark, morbid and poetic: The film adaptation of Anne Rice's novel was arguably Brad Pitt's international breakthrough. He plays a vampire who is about 200 years old and feels pity for his victims, a story he chronicles to a reporter. In the other leading roles: Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst, who was only eleven at the time.

A serial killer plays a brutal game of cat and mouse with a young detective (Pitt) and his partner Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) in a rainy US city. He stages the seven deadly sins with his murder victims, and eventually turns Mills into a murderer himself with his cruelest "coup." An ingenious mixture of horror, thriller and film noir.

After a tragically failed prank, four boys end up in a home where they are severely abused by the wardens. Years later, two of the four boys track down and shoot their most hated tormentor and end up in court. The prosecutor is the third of the group (Pitt), who, together with the fourth, a journalist, does everything in their power to lose the case and take revenge on the other perpetrators.

In the role of the Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, Brad Pitt once again impressively shows that he is more than a blond pretty boy: His character is rugged, cold, lonely and vulnerable. Commissioned by the Nazis to climb Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas, Harrer falls into British captivity, manages to escape and meets the young Dalai Lama. A deep friendship develops.

The narrator (Ed Norton) is a frustrated office worker who meets a charismatic anti-consumerist, Tyler Durden (Pitt). He encourages Pitt to beat him up, before the two roam the city looking for more men who want to engage in bare-knuckle fistfights. A secret "fight club" is founded, where men fight each other and return to everyday life feeling stronger. But Durden has bigger plans.

The three-part "Ocean's" series got off to a furious start in 2001 with a star-studded cast. Brad Pitt plays Rusty, one of the eleven crooks around Danny Ocean (George Clooney) who want to rob the biggest casino in Las Vegas. With the stellar leads, casually elegant production, fast cuts and the jazzy, funky soundtrack, director Steven Soderbergh delivered perfect popcorn cinema.

A genuine sandal film was apparently still missing from Brad Pitt's repertoire. In "Troy," inspired by Homer's Greek hero saga "Iliad" and shot by German director Wolfgang Petersen, Pitt plays the strong man Achilles. Pitt convincingly portrays the warrior with his heroics but also his human side.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met on the set of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," in which the future spouses both played assassins. Their profession is so secret, however, that neither are aware that the other is a killer. Until, without suspecting it, they are ordered to hit each other. Pitt and Jolie became a Hollywood dream couple after the filming, but in 2016, Jolie filed for divorce.

Quentin Tarantino's classic comedic war film brought together German, Austrian and US actors in a unique ensemble cast. Pitt (right) plays a Nazi hunter in World War II who leads a squad of underground fighters. He encounters the Nazi commander Landa (Christoph Waltz), who is as cruel as he is smart, and of whom he makes a bloody example at the end.

This Tarantino film won Brad Pitt an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. It follows an aging Western star (Leonardo di Caprio) and his stunt double Cliff (Pitt) for 24 hours through Hollywood in 1969, and throws everything in: Drugs, alcohol, hippies and a murderous family, which also provides a classic Tarantino bloodbath at the end.

Hitman Ladybug (Pitt, left) is supposed to do a job on a Japanese bullet train. Unfortunately, he has colleagues on board who get in his way. They each have their own job, but they all seem to have something to do with each other. That's why the hellish journey doesn't end at the final station. The film will be released in German cinemas on August 4.