THREAD.

I'm not even sure where you start when it comes to Sean Connery's career and paying him a fitting tribute. He truly was a one-off who had a remarkable career from start to finish.

Over the coming days there will be a lot of focus on the box office highs of Bond, The Rock, The Hunt for Red October, The Untouchables and so on. But with a figure like him, the true strengths of a body of work often lie in the films they're less well remembered for.

The Frightened City (1961) arguably presented studios with the personality and charisma that would lead to his Bond casting, even though he played a villain.

Between Goldfinger and Thunderball, Connery graced Hitchcock's flawed Marnie, playing an emotionally abusive man in a role that was daring considering his place in pop culture as 007.

He then moved on to a terrific performance in Sidney Lumet's brutal and superlative military drama The Hill, closer in character to Bond but far removed in tone and stature.

Connery continued to enjoy exploring a slightly more villainous side when he teamed with Lumet again for the fun spy caper The Anderson Tapes in 1971, but his best collaboration with the great New York director was to come the year after.

The Offence was arguably the finest performance of his career. Playing an obsessed cop driven to near insanity by his pursuit of a child rapist, he seemingly well and truly put Bond to bed and established himself as one of his generation's greatest actors to go with his stardom.

1974 would see him try his hand, infamously, at sci-fi with the surreal misfire Zardoz whilst reteaming yet again with Lumet for Murder on the Orient Express.

Connery continued to vary his projects wildly, with The Man Who Would Be King once again allowing him to explore a touch of villainy in a dream team partnership with Michael Caine for John Huston's marvellous adventure.

Dalliances with epic war movies (A Bridge Too Far), disaster movies (Meteor) and crime capers (the fun The First Great Train Robbery - pictured below) saw him head into the 80s and a rather more successful science fiction role.

Peter Hyams' Outland saw High Noon decamped to one of Jupiter's moons for a stunning sci-fi thriller where he tackles a corporate-induced drug epidemic and Peter Boyle's slimy mine boss. It was arguably the true unheralded masterpiece of his career.

Connery famously returned to Bond (unofficially, of course) during an uneven mid-80s which saw him grace the daft Highlander before elevating historical murder mystery The Name of the Rose to something very good indeed.

The late 80s would see him return to prominence with defining roles in The Untouchables and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but it was yet another Lumet collaboration, on Family Business, that brought another unheralded performance.

The early 90s, much like the early 80s, proved an uneven period for Connery but the critically mauled Rising Sun was, in all honesty, a film that was enjoyable solely for Connery's mere presence.

The Rock showed he could still run with the young 'uns in Michael Bay's superlative actioner but arguably his last great performance was in Finding Forrester.

He did one or two other pretty good films, too, but you know all about those. There will never be another.