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).
Smith's first animated film since Shark Tale 15 years earlier is a 2019 release from Blue Sky Studios (best known for their Ice Age franchise)—in fact, the final film ever released by the now-shuttered animation house. (And it wasn't the middling performance of Spies that did the studio in but rather the acquisition of parent 21st Century Fox by Disney.) The family comedy has Smith voicing the suave spy Lance Sterling (no relation to Sterling Archer—we think) who is turned into a pigeon by his scientist colleague (Tom Holland) as a disguise for a big mission. Critics found the result to be good-natured but forgettable, and definitely (unlike, say, the bulk of the Pixar catalog) for kids only.
“Smith’s easy way with a joke keeps the tone light, and for all the mayhem, this is still pretty fluffy and cute. It’s not 'The Incredibles,' but it’s a reasonable and quite amusing facsimile.” —Roger Moore, Movie Nation
| Stream On |
|
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|