Running On Empty: The Heartbreaking Acting Of River Phoenix 

Props to unsung hero Judd Hirsch in this one as well. My guy is always rock solid.

He was really talented. Even his minor role in Sneakers was a stand out performance. His take on a young Indiana Jones was absolutely perfect.

One of my favorites of all time.

I definitely need to see this movie again. Haven't seen it since it first came out and I'd probably appreciate it more now that I'm a parent myself. Phoenix had amazing range, he wasn't just a brooding pretty boy. I loved him in Sneakers as the young hacker among the older computer pranksters played by Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn and Sydney Pointier. That movie had an amazing cast and he held his own. I think it was one of the last movies of his that got released before he died.

This has been a favorite film of mine for a long time. I appreciate the way you covered it here. So many emotionally true scenes, both charming and devastating. I will say, I thought Judd Hirsch pushed the cutsie schtick a bit too far in some scenes, but in general he's as strong as the rest. I know this essay was about Phoenix, and he is perfect in the movie, but the scene between Christine Lahti and Stephen Hill, when she asks him to take in Danny, always destroys me. Hill kills it, in a single scene. You feel his pain, shame, and loss, and his love all at the same time. Lahti's amazing in the whole movie, of course.

I felt the same when River died. Was a true man crush I would watch anything he was in. This movie especially is one of my favorites. Some of my friends at the time still give me a hard time. Was gone way too soon. Also a fan of night in the life of jimmy reardon.

One of my favourite River performances was in the film I love you to death

An interesting fact that I think probably influenced his performance was that River himself grew up in a transient Hippie family that travelled across the US and didn’t attend public school before joining the Children of God cult for a time. I imagine this film must have been quite personally relatable to River.