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.
Freed from his longtime Paramount contract, Murphy moved to Universal for this 1996 remake of the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy about a scientist who develops an experimental serum to alter his appearance to make him more attractive to the opposite sex. While Lewis's character was a buck-toothed, nerdy weakling, the Murphy remake (directed by Ace Ventura's Tom Shadyac) finds the titular professor—now named Sherman Klump—beginning the film as an obese man (thanks to some Oscar-winning makeup), who then sheds his excess weight to woo Jada Pinkett's Carla Purty. Murphy plays a total of seven characters, including multiple members of the Klump family, who would also feature in the 2000 sequel.
“Not that The Nutty Professor should ever be confused with a good movie, but it is a perfect vehicle for the redisplay of Murphy's neglected talents, steering him away from the smug persona of his recent disasters and whisking him back to the cozy locale of his Saturday Night Live roots.” —Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail
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