After his film debut
Cowards, He had over 200 guest roles since 1977. He played
Richard Nixon in the one-character film
Secret Honor, reprising the role he had created during the play's original Off-Broadway run.
Roger Ebert said about Hall and the film: "Nixon is portrayed by Philip Baker Hall, an actor previously unknown to me, with such savage intensity, such passion, such venom, such scandal, that we cannot turn away. Hall looks a little like the real Nixon; he could be a cousin, and he sounds a little like him. That's close enough. This is not an impersonation, it's a performance."
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times also praised Hall's "immense performance, which is as astonishing and risky ― for the chances the actor takes and survives ― as that of the Oscar-winning F. Murray Abraham in
Amadeus." In the 1980s, Hall co-starred in various films in supporting roles, including
Nothing in Common (1986),
Midnight Run (1988),
Say Anything... and
Ghostbusters II (both 1989). His television appearances included
Family Ties,
Falcon Crest,
Murder, She Wrote, and
Cheers. He played "Lt. Joe Bookman", a detective pursuing a long-overdue library book in the
Seinfeld episodes, "
The Library" and "
The Finale". His first
Seinfeld appearance led him to be widely lauded as one of the best guest stars on the series, and led to many other jobs. Hall contributed an opening narration, a parody of the announcements one would hear on
Magnetic Reference Laboratory's calibration tapes for analogue tape recorders, on
1000 Hurts, the 2000 album by Chicago post-punk band
Shellac. Hall starred in
Paul Thomas Anderson's short film
Cigarettes & Coffee (1993), which was adapted into Anderson's directorial debut film
Hard Eight (1996). For the film, Hall played a senior gambler who mentors a homeless man (
John C. Reilly). Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times said about Hall, "Here is another great performance. He is a man who has been around, who knows casinos and gambling, who finds himself attached to three people he could easily have avoided, who thinks before he acts." Hall was nominated for the
Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. He later starred in Anderson's other films
Boogie Nights (1997) and
Magnolia (1999). He was nominated for two
Screen Actors Guild Awards for
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Hall starred with
Philip Seymour Hoffman in four films. Hall had turns in a variety of films in the 1990s, including
The Rock (1996),
Buddy (1997),
Air Force One (1997),
The Truman Show (1998),
Enemy of the State (1998),
The Insider (1999), and
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). He played Captain Diel in the
Rush Hour trilogy (1998-2007) (though his scenes were cut from
Rush Hour 2 and he was uncredited for the scene in
Rush Hour 3). and
The Sum of All Fears (2002). Hall also undertook stage work in New York and Los Angeles, but did not appear on
Broadway. ==Personal life and death==