One of the most anticipated Oscar hopefuls this year is A Single Man; based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood and directed by Gucci fashion designer Tom Ford. Colin Firth plays George Falconer, an English university professor working in Los Angeles in the early sixties. After his partner Jim (Matthew Goode) meets an untimely end in a car crash, we follow George over the course of a day as he attempts to come to terms with his loss.
Falconer is a welcome addition to the growing faculty of movie academics so this week we have a look at some of the more long-standing members.
Doc Emmett Brown (Back to the Future Trilogy)
With his Einstein hairdo, his "interesting" fashion sense and the tendency to go off on scientific tangents that nobody around him can understand, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) is the ultimate mad academic. He seems endlessly curious and is fascinated by everything around him in an endearingly childlike manner. While he worked for a while as Professor for Physics at Hill Valley University, he soon left the steady job so he could tool around in his garage with a Delorean and a flux capacitator. Great Scott!
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Young Frankenstein)
It's pretty tough to make a name for yourself as a serious academic when your grandfather is a notorious mad scientist. Frederick (Gene Wilder) spends an exasperating amount of time trying to distance do just that - becoming a respected medical professor, patting down his crazy hair and insisting that his name is pronounced Fronk-en-steen. Unfortunately when he travels to his grandfather's old castle the temptation to tinker around with life and death becomes too much to handle and he picks up where his grandfather left off.
Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)
Jeff Goldblum could have appeared in our list for any number of boffin characters (from The Fly to Independence Day) but we've gone for Dr. Ian Malcolm - if only for the fact that he wears leather rather than khaki for a scientific field trip in the jungle. He may be a mathematician and expert in chaos theory but he could never be accused of being a fusty old academic. He's also quite the charmer, even having a crack at Dr. Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) right in front of her partner, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill).
Professor Henry Jones Sr. (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Ok, so his adventure loving, whip-toting son might be the ultimate example of the action academic but this time we're voting for the senior Professor Jones (Sean Connery); what can we say, we love a bit of tweed! Even though he's obsessed with his life long quest to find the Holy Grail and he's a bit of a gruff disciplinarian to his son, Henry is also a bit of a dark horse - he can hold his own in a fight and even had a bit of success with Nazi totty Elsa.
Professor Grady Tripp (Wonder Boys)
Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is the closest thing on our list to your regular college professor - crumpled and grumpy and certainly not glamorous but with a great line in acerbic wit. Having written one bestselling book, Tripp landed himself a job lecturing while struggling to rekindle his inspiration. When he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant, he undergoes something of a mid-life crisis aided and abetted by his students James (Tobey Maguire) and Hannah (Katie Holmes); who has a penchant for the academic type.