Every Will Smith Movie, Ranked Worst to Best
Updated December 1, 2022 to add Emancipation.
First rising to fame in the 1980s as the non-DJ half of the hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, Will Smith moved into acting in 1990 as the star of the hit NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (soon to be rebooted as a Peacock drama series). He would make his big-screen debut a few years later in a few indie movies before quickly moving to above-the-title stardom with 1995's Bad Boys. He has been a major presence in film ever since, with roles in over 30 films, a pair of Oscar nominations, and a cumulative box office gross of over $4 billion.
His newest film, King Richard, is headed to theaters and HBO Max on November 19th and is expected to be an Oscar contender in multiple categories. How does it compare to his past work? In the gallery on this page, we rank every one of Will Smith's films in order from worst to best by their Metascores, which represent the consensus opinions of top film critics. Note that we have excluded titles where Smith's role was limited to a brief cameo appearance (such as in Winter's Tale, Jersey Girl, and Anchorman 2).
While Smith would later appear in DC's Suicide Squad, his first superhero movie was this darkly comedic original story (by Vy Vincent Ngo) that finally arrived in theaters in 2008 after spending over a decade in development. Eventually directed by Peter Berg after previously attached names like Michael Mann and Tony Scott dropped out—and featuring a script partially rewritten by Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan—Hancock finds Smith playing an alcoholic superhero named John Hancock whose destructive behavior renders him unpopular in his hometown of Los Angeles, though a local PR consultant (Jason Bateman) hopes to revive his image. The decade of iterations left the final product a bit muddled, according to the majority of critics, though Hancock was a major box office hit. Still, a planned sequel has remained stuck in limbo ever since, with no concrete plans at the moment to actually make the film.
Hancock kicked off a string of 13 straight films for Smith with mixed to negative reviews. He wouldn't receive another green Metascore until 2021.
“More intelligent than most summer blockbusters and features at its center a thought-out and committed performance by Will Smith. But in the end it's merely ALMOST good. ” —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
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