Role Call: Christian Bale

The Prestige: Everett Collection

The Prestige (2006)

THE ROLE In his second collaboration with director Christopher Nolan, the auteur behind such dark fare as Batman Begins and Memento, Bale plays Alfred Borden, a turn-of-the-century Londoner whose escalating rivalry with a fellow magician (Hugh Jackman) turns deadly.

WHAT EW SAYS Owen Gleiberman: ''The Prestige leaps around in time with dizzy abandon, a deliberate strategy to make magic seem like the most concrete, grounded thing in the movie... Jackman, all keen intensity, and Bale, who knows how to push passion to the brink of pathology, are magnetic foils.''