Luckily, even before he renewed his momentum with the unbilled appearance in "Seven," Spacey told the makers of the 1993 Sundance grand prize winner, "Public Access," that he'd love to work with them. Director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie put together their next collaboration with him in mind. It became "The Usual Suspects" (1995), a supremely crafty entertainment and a career milestone for Spacey. This story of five felons who form a top-flight crew after they're tossed into a lineup lays its cards on the table, then reshuffles and switches decks without anybody noticing. It's equal parts gunplay and mind game: a perfect cocktail for Spacey.

Spacey's Verbal Kint is a con artist sporting a bum leg and hand and a comic-book bad guy's haircut. (Spacey shaved his shoe-bottoms and pasted together his fingers to maintain a crippled appearance; the director said he first guessed the film would work when he saw Spacey's revamped, V-like hairline.) Verbal is the weakest of the bunch, and the sole survivor of their attempt to horn in on a supposed $91 million drug deal between Hungarians and South Americans. The Customs agent who's investigating demands to grill Verbal even after the D.A. cuts him a cushy deal. Meanwhile, in a nearby hospital, the only Hungarian to leave the crime scene alive tells an FBI man that he looked into the eyes of Satan -- or at least a barbaric criminal genius known as Keyser Soze. As the twin interrogations close like pincers, what kicks off as a caper movie becomes demonically complicated, with Spacey's Verbal always at the center. Although "The Usual Suspects" never dives into the metaphysical deep end, the mythic character of Keyser Soze -- as delivered (in more ways than one) by Verbal Kint -- brings back the specter of encroaching evil that gave old master-criminal movies the gleam of adult fairy tales. The filmmakers key the movie off of Spacey's jabbering crook, who uses cascades of words as a smokescreen or a weapon. Spacey is brilliantly jittery in the role -- his mental yolk vibrates under not-quite-hardboiled skin. He earned his Oscar for it.

And he should have earned another one two years later for "L.A. Confidential," in which he played Jack Vincennes, a '50s prototype of the show-biz cop. Jack preens in the spotlight as the technical advisor to a "Dragnet"-like TV show called "Badge of Honor." He is both a glamour-hound and a nowhere man. He likes the sizzle of Hollywood and the spare cash floating around it; for a while he thinks nothing of conducting raids for tabloid cameras and collecting generous tips for his labors. But Jack knows in his bones that he joined the force to do some honest police work. The writer-director, Curtis Hanson, told Spacey to think "Dean Martin," and it's delightful to see him acting breezy and on top of the world. But Spacey keeps insinuating hints of self-doubt and insecurity, so when an unexpected murder slaps him out of complacency, you believe in his quest for justice. "Don't start trying to do the right thing," warns his boss. "You haven't had the practice." Jack's strange mix of vice and morality gives him a touch of poetry. He gets the film's biggest laugh (in a gag about Lana Turner), but also its most memorable moment: looking at his reflection in a saloon mirror before laying his blood money on the bar and ruefully walking away.

Aside from his voice work in "A Bug's Life," Spacey hasn't acted in a worthy movie since. The film version of David Rabe's Hollywood-is-hell play, "Hurlyburly," mostly made me curious about why Spacey goes blond when playing virtuoso cynics. "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" buried him in humid torpor. "The Negotiator" took 45 minutes to get started and then failed to hand either Spacey or co-star Samuel L. Jackson the right tricks for a high-class battle of wits. (To be fair, it was no worse than Spacey's directorial debut -- another exercise in hostage melodrama called "Albino Alligator.") And "American Beauty" lays a glossy veneer on the same sour Middle America that low-budget indies have been excoriating for years. The stock figures of derisive fun include the go-getting real estate saleswoman and rabid homemaker (Annette Bening) who grows more frantic about career and "presentation" as her husband (Spacey) goes to seed; the homophobic former Marine next door with the cowed-to-the-point-of-catatonia spouse and the marijuana-dealing son (the film's conscience!). Of course, two smiling gay professionals are the jolliest couple on the block.

Yet Spacey does get a chance to act. He pulls off a reverse De Niro. His character's yen to be attractive to a high school girl compels him to shed pounds and work out. As an actor, Spacey didn't let his regimen exhaust his resources: He's funny when the man regains his youthful joie de vivre, and touching and upsetting in his ardor. If only Spacey were in a film where the lyricism weren't ersatz and the sensitivity not bogus. At a critical point in "American Beauty," the husband tries to persuade the malignant Marine that he isn't gay. Spacey told Playboy that the movie dramatized the hazards of false impressions. "If you presume something about another person, it leads you to make all kinds of assumptions. If your perception is wrong, it can lead to tragedy."

I hope this kind of message-mongering doesn't become a recurring motif. Spacey's talent is too large and his connection to the Zeitgeist too strong for him to get mired in irrelevant controversy. As long as he stays focused on his gift, I'll see everything he does -- whether he's playing a boring boomer in a mid-life crisis or a fiendish grasshopper in "A Bug's Life."

For Spacey's career can't be summed up in any slick magazine's game of Truth or Dare. What he stands for is Truth and Dare. Even when his performances are self-revealing, he hints at a deeper honesty and taunts you to find it. Reportedly, the movie he most loves is "Lawrence of Arabia." That's a wonderful, towering enigma. So is Spacey.

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