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.
In this 1998 flop from Bill & Ted director Stephen Herek, Murphy stars opposite Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston as a self-help guru named G who gets a gig on a home shopping network. Budgeted at a reported $60 million, Holy Man only managed to gross $12 million, making it one of the actor's biggest box office failures to date—though a few more would follow not long thereafter.
“It's ... troublesome that Murphy, a generally charismatic actor, is downright dull here. He and Goldblum are curiously flat in their line readings; they don't seem convinced by the story they're asked to act out, and with good reason.” —G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Examiner