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 first movie for Disney (technically, Hollywood Pictures) after previously working for Paramount exclusively, this fairly forgettable 1992 political comedy finds Murphy playing a Florida con man named Thomas Jefferson Johnson who manages to get himself elected to Congress by impersonating the district's current (and now deceased) officeholder with a similar name.
“The film is content to remain at the level of the mildly entertaining, with no real surprises and not much sass.” —Jay Carr, The Boston Globe