Sam Neill’s final films tell us a lot about who he was as an actor – and why we’ll miss him

‘Sam Neill’s greatest performance was in John Carpenter’s long under-rated Lovecraftian horror movie In the Mouth of Madness,’ Luke Buckmaster writes. Photograph: New Line/Allstar

The beloved actor Sam Neill, who died this week aged 78, will return to the screen a few more times, posthumously gracing us with his presence in three films that say a lot about the kind of actor he was, and the sort of reputation he carved out.

They could hardly be more different: a wacked-out Australian comedy in which he provides the voice of a sweary magpie (The Fox); a romcom set in the Philippines (The Last Resort); and the next instalment in a blockbuster Hollywood franchise about giant mutant stampeding monsters (Godzilla x Kong: Supernova).