James Gandolfini is dead. A heart attack in Italy. Too soon doesn’t begin to say it, but as the news makes its way across the wires I find myself, as we always do at times like this, thinking back on the work. And Gandolfini had a wealth of it. You see, he wasn’t always this star, this “name.” He made his hay as a character actor in film after film, always leaving a deep impression, long before “The Sopranos” came calling.

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Gary Oldman has settled into pimps and dwarfs, rednecks and clergymen, kingpins and gangster pawns, punk rockers and classical musicians, crooked cops and noble detectives, political villains and Gothic monsters with equal aplomb. The performances are varied and lived-in. With “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” heading to theaters, we use it as an excuse to count down the best of them.

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