'Heat' and 'Top Gun' Actor Val Kilmer Dead: Michael Mann, Francis Ford Coppola, and More Pay Tribute

Kilmer had range like few others in his field, also starring in ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘MacGruber.’

Image via Getty/EuropaNewswire/Gado

The truly great Val Kilmer, no doubt one of the best to ever do it (not to mention a beacon of artistic resilience in his later years), is dead. The actor and artist and all-around force of unbridled creativity, whose feature-length film debut came in the comedy Top Secret! back in 1984, was 65.

Per a report from the New York Times, Kilmer, who reprised his beloved role as Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky to soul-rocking emotional effect in 2022’s massively successful Top Gun: Maverick, died Tuesday. The publication cited a statement from Val’s daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, who said that her father died due to pneumonia. In 2017, Kilmer was joined by both of his children, Jack and Mercedes, for a photo shoot in connection with a Hollywood Reporter piece focused on his battle with throat cancer.

“Fame is sort of a mess,” Kilmer said at the time. “You get treated differently, but it doesn’t have anything to do with who you actually are.”

To name key Kilmer roles would be to list his entire filmography, as the Los Angeles-born actor brought his A-game to every character lucky enough to carry his name. In the span of less than a decade, Kilmer enjoyed a blistering run of unforgettable performances in Top Gun, Willow, The Doors, Thunderheart, Tombstone, True Romance, Batman Forever, and Heat..

The latter, directed by Michael Mann, is rather indisputably considered one of the best (if not the best) crime films of all time. Kilmer himself agreed with this assessment, at one point offering no shortage of fond memories of his time with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Ashley Judd during a Reddit AMA.

“We all work hard but when you are with the icons, you get really squared away,” Kilmer told fans of his Heat experience.

Deeper into his filmography, Kilmer starred alongside Robert Downey Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 50 Cent in Streets of Blood, Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Will Forte in MacGruber.

In 2021, Val, a documentary partially filmed by the actor himself, was released to enthusiastic praise following its Cannes Film Festival premiere. The doc provided fans a remarkably candid look at Kilmer’s personal life and creative process, adding yet another dimension to an already layered artist who would one year later bring millions to tears with a brief but impactful moment alongside Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.

Michael Mann, Francis Ford Coppola (who directed Kilmer in 2011’s Twixt), film critic Richard Roeper, and numerous others shared tributes to Kilmer following news of his death. See more below.