Every Eddie Murphy Movie, Ranked
Updated January 2023 to add You People.
After a successful stand-up career in the 1970s and a wildly acclaimed run on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s, Eddie Murphy launched his film career (while still on SNL) in 1982 and has been appearing on the big screen fairly steadily in the decades since, starring in over 40 titles. To date, Murphy's films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide, but only occasionally has the material on screen matched Murphy's comedic talents—and, even when it has, reviews have sometimes been less positive than you might expect. In the gallery above, we rank all of his films to date (including his newest, Coming 2 America) from worst to best by Metascore, which reflects the consensus of professional critics for each film.
Murphy's career nadir came in this 2002 sci-fi comedy—one of three (!) lousy Murphy movies released that year—that saw Murphy playing two roles: one as a smuggler turned nightclub owner on the moon, and the other as (spoiler alert) his clone. It's not only the worst-reviewed movie of Murphy's career but also one of the biggest box office flops in history: Pluto Nash grossed just $7 million worldwide against a budget north of $100 million.
“So unremittingly awful that labeling it a dog probably constitutes cruelty to canines.” —Lou Lumenick, New York Post