The most memorable posthumous film roles

There was already a ton of attention on “The Dark Knight.” It was, after all, a Batman movie, and one that would bring the Joker into Christopher Nolan’s version of the character. Joker was played by Heath Ledger, but then Ledger tragically died before the film came out. “The Dark Knight” became a huge hit, Ledger got a ton of praise, and he would go on to win a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Another instance where an actor won an Oscar posthumously. “Network” has an incredible cast and won a few Oscars, including three for acting. One of those winners was Peter Finch for Best Actor. He played Howard Beale of “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” fame. Now, Finch did technically live a couple more months after “Network” was first screened, but as a posthumous Oscar winner, we wanted to include him. We could have gone with “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Chadwick Boseman but, well, that story didn’t have a happy ending.

Oh, you know, just one of those classic screwball comedies involving Nazis. One of the stars of the film was Carole Lombard, known in her time as one of the top comedic stars. She also happened to be married to Clark Gable, himself one of the biggest actors in the world. Sadly, Lombard was on a cross-country flight that crashed in 1942. She died at the age of 33, and “To Be or Not to Be” was released shortly thereafter.

James Dean is, perhaps, the quintessential “posthumous” actor. Famously, the young star was only in three films, but only one of them, “East of Eden,” came out before his fatal car accident. Thus his iconic work in “Rebel Without a Case” and “Giant” came after his death.

When you’re Ed Wood, and you’re making a movie with zero budget and barely more talent, the show must go on. That’s true even when one of your stars — in this case, Bela Lugosi — dies during filming. Wood hired a dentist (who looked nothing like Lugosi) to walk around holding his cape in front of his face. The end result “Plan 9 from Outer Space” is considered one of the worst movies ever made.

Perhaps we should have paired this one with “To Be or Not to Be.” We mentioned that Lombard was married to Clark Gable at the time of her death. “The Misfits” would prove to be the final movie of two screen icons: Gable and Marilyn Monroe. While Monroe would live for over a year after the movie was released, Gable suffered a heart attack before “The Misfits” came out. The film’s reputation has built quite a bit since its initial release, leaving it a high note to go out on for both actors.

Katharine Hepburn would win an Oscar for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” but her longtime partner Spencer Tracy had to settle for a posthumous nomination. Fortunately for him, he already had two Oscars to his name. A lifelong smoker and alcoholic, one morning a couple weeks after finishing filming “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” Tracy woke up in the middle of the night to make tea, and Hepburn heard a thump in the kitchen, she would later recount. The actor had suffered a fatal heart attack.

If not Dean, Bruce Lee is the king of posthumous releases, though a couple of those were more of the “mixing incomplete footage with archival footage” variety. “Enter the Dragon,” his defining film, was completed and released six days after his death, though. Only 32 when he died, Lee wouldn’t live to see himself become a true martial arts icon.

It’s a famous, if morbid, film fact: John Cazale was only in five films. All five of them were nominated for Best Picture. The last of those films, and a Best Picture winner at the Oscars, was “The Deer Hunter.” While Christopher Walken would win Best Supporting Actor for the Vietnam film, Cazale played a key part in the movie as well.

Blake Edwards loved directing “Pink Panther” films, so much so even the death of Peter Sellers couldn’t stop him. In fact, Sellers died a full 18 months before production began on “Trail of the Pink Panther.” So, Edwards constructed a story about a journalist looking for Inspector Clouseau. Sellers appears as Clouseau, but entirely in old footage, much of it deleted scenes from earlier “Pink Panther” movies.

Anne Ramsey may not be the most famous actor on this list, but you likely would recognize her from “The Goonies” or “Throw Momma from the Train.” However, we wanted to include her because she had a whopping four films come out after her death. “Scrooged” is the best, and most famous, of that quartet.

This is deeply bleak, but the story is infamous, and the film a cult classic, so we are including it. Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce, stars as Eric Draven, who becomes the titular Crow. Sadly, due to an accident with a prop gun on set, Lee was killed. He had mostly finished filming, so a few tweaks were made to the script and “The Crow” was released.

The only narrative film directed by Michael Moore, “Canadian Bacon” is the last of John Candy’s films to be released. It’s…fine. Candy is pretty good in it. However, it isn’t the last film he shot. That would be “Wagons East.” Candy died of a heart attack while filming the period piece comedy, so rewrites and a stand-in were used to finish it.

Poor Raul Julia. His last film would end up being “Street Fighter,” a flop of a video game adaptation. On the other hand, anything positive that anybody has ever had to say about “Street Fighter” largely revolves around Julia’s turn as M. Bison.

Oliver Reed was a talented actor, but even by the standards of British actors of a certain era, he was considered a particularly heavy drinker. That eventually caught up to him while he was filming Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator.” Reed had a heart attack, but as he played a key character in Proximo, the production had to get creative. That included hiring a body-double and using the burgeoning digital effects world to transpose Reed’s face onto the body. This didn’t keep “Gladiator” from winning Best Picture.

The first couple “Harry Potter” films — the ones directed by Chris Columbus and featuring particularly young actors — are generally not considered very good. It also complicated future plans. Richard Harris played Dumbledore, one of the most important characters in the books, in the first two movies, but he died just before “Chamber of Secrets” was released. Michael Gambon stepped into the role of Dumbledore, and became the iconic version of the character.

Bernie Mac had three posthumous releases, one of them “Soul Men.” Now, it’s a forgettable comedy, but we included it because it co-starred Isaac Hayes, who also died before the movie was released. Oddly, “Soul Men” was released the same day as “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,” which featured Mac’s voice.

By the time of the seventh “Fast & Furious” movie, the franchise was already massive. Even though it had a huge budget, “Furious 7” made over $1.5 billion worldwide, so it panned out. A big reason for that is fans of the franchise showing up for the opening weekend to pay tribute to Paul Walker. One of the stars from the beginning of the series, Walker died in a car accident during filming. His brothers served as body doubles to finish production.

Ray Liotta has a few more posthumous releases to arrive, but the “Goodfellas” star did play a posthumous role in a film essentially built to be a cult favorite. “Cocaine Bear” is, well, about a bear that does a bunch of cocaine. It delivered what was promised, with Liotta playing a featured part in it.

“The Rise of Skywalker” was hindered due to the fact Carrie Fisher passed away before filming of the third film in the trilogy. Leia is, you know, kind of important to the world of “Star Wars.” That film ended up taking the “Trail of the Pink Panther” route and using deleted footage of Fisher to get Leia into the movie. However, the previous film in the trilogy, “The Last Jedi” was released after Fisher’s death, a proper posthumous release.