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).
Following a string of box office hits that established the rapper-turned-actor as a bona fide movie star, Smith closed out the 1990s with his first flop. And oh what a flop it was. Also starring Kevin Kline (in dual roles, with one being President Ulysses S. Grant), Wild Wild West reunited Smith with his Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld for a big-budget comedic steampunk western based loosely on the 1960s TV series. And by "big-budget," we mean one of the most expensive movies ever made—which made its seemingly decent worldwide gross of $222 million wildly insufficient to render the movie profitable. Terrible reviews certainly didn't help West's box office performance (though they did help the film collect five Razzie Awards), and it is widely considered one of the biggest duds in movie history.
Smith, by the way, turned down the lead role in another movie in order to make Wild Wild West. That other film? The Matrix.
“The movie is exhausting, utterly without feeling, and pointless -- though Smith looks great in his Western outfit.” —David Denby, The New Yorker
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