Every Brad Pitt movie role, ranked

Pitt sure has come a long way from being in cheesy rom-coms like Happy Together, in which he plays a college student who parties and skips class. There's not much more to the part, and there's even less to the film. 

What do the bottom two films have in common? Oh, let's see: they both came out in 1989, they both see Pitt skipping class, and they both are really boring. They also gave Pitt a chance to show off his charisma, which he does in a number of scenes on the basketball court. 

In this 1990's drama, Pitt plays another athlete who is better than everyone else around him. There's a stiffness to his performance that doesn't scream "future star," but the actor's good looks carry him a long way. 

In one of the oddest and most unsuccesful films of his career, Pitt plays the husband of Elizabeth McGovern, who asks her friend to sleep with her crush so that way she can experience the affair vicariously. The very premise is a doozy, especially since Pitt is in the role of an unattractive husband. I mean, this is Brad Pitt we're talking about! 

Not gonna lie. This should have been a home run. It's actually still hard to believe that Ridley Scott teaming up with Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender resulted in such a generic potboiler. The Counselor isn't bad. It just sort of happens. There's none of the cocaine-energy you'd expect from a movie about cartel members moving cocaine. 

This movie does everything but step on your blue suede shoes. It assaults you with tone, music, bad acting and terrible outfits. That said, Pitt is electric as the wanna-be musician who will do anything to make it big. 

The dark side of Pitt's career. When the actor was still working out his ticks, like the finger on the lips and the water in the eyes, but still couldn't make them land with any sort of gravitas. Here he plays a man with a rare kind of skin disease, which means he's stuck inside all day doing nothing and wearing leather. 

When researching this list, I was shocked to find a movie I had never even heard of. And here are a few reasons why: Cool World is a literal knockoff of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the animation is so bad it's good, and Pitt is the only good thing about it. He nearly saves the film with his green-screen acting, playing the gum-shoe detective who has to track down bad guys a la Humphry Bogart. 

Pitt only has a cameo in this Julia Roberts rom-com, but he makes the most of it. We won't spoil how it plays out, but we will say it's one of the best parts of the film. 

Sleepers is fine, and Pitt is fine in it. There's not really anything else to add, other than that this story about Hell's Kitchen could have used more spice. 

Playing a version of yourself can go wrong in so many ways. Obviously, you can be too vain or too messy, but Pitt and Angelina Jolie played their parts perfectly. They took their own marital arguments and turned them into a movie, which is one of the most daring acts of cinema to come along in the 21st century. It's just a shame the movie couldn't live up to their performances.

Pitt has never been one of those actors who puts on weight or a wig, except when he starred in this espionage thriller. Lesson learned. The actor is much better when he's allowed to act naturally, something he can't do when he's saddled with an Irish accent and a silly outfit. 

Riding the wave of Fury's success, Pitt suited up for another war film that allowed him to play head honcho. This time he would be spoofing war, though the satire gets lost in a duststorm of moronic caricature. 

There are many problematic elements in this romantic action flick, whether it's the stale script or racist undertone. But Pitt ain't one of them. He brings a wacky energy to the relationship that makes his scenes far more watchable than Julia Robert's, who seems to have been asked to scream all her lines at a soprano pitch. 

Wondering what Brad Pitt movie to watch with the youngsters? Sinbad is your best bet, thanks to its gorgeous animation, rip-roaring action, and lively vocal performances. This PG-rated adventure steers more toward children than adults, but that's not a bad thing when it comes to family entertainment.

Allied is a solid espionage thriller and Pitt is solid as Max Vatan, an undercover operative in charge of finding documents during World War II. The movie takes its cues from Casablanca, with a romance being the focal point of this wartime rollick. 

Pitt has no right to be as good as he is in this thriller from Dominic Sena. As a psychotic killer, he grins, mugs and thugs his way through a decent indie with the charisma of a venerable star. He seems out of place next to everyone else, only cause you can't stop looking at him while other actors are delivering their lines. 

In the strangest and most self-aware performance of his career, Pitt shows up as a romance novel character come to life. He kicks butt and he's drop-dead gorgeous. It's what all of us think of when we think of Pitt and he plays off that persona in this rom-com starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum.

The real star of Troy is Pitt's naked body, which gets more screen time than the actual fight scenes. Along with his acting, which can be ferocious and romantic, the movie gets a lot of mileage out of Pitt's looks even as it struggles to tell the story of Homer's Illiad.  

We can all agree on one thing about Burn After Reading: it's crazy. It's the kind of movie that slices audiences in half and then devours the pieces whole. I honestly don't know if I liked the experience of being a banana in the Coen Brother's bowl. Still, there's no denying the energy of Pitt's performance as a personal trainer who makes most frat bros look like Einstein. 

Pitt and Jolie displayed more chemistry in Doug Liman's action flick than they did in By the Sea, and there's no denying how much fun they are having. It rubs off on the audience when these married spies go head-to-head in a battle of wits, looks and machine guns. It's the perfect movie for a date night or a Sunday morning when the alcohol wears off and all you want to do is be entertained. 

After years of serious dramatic roles and Oscar bait, it seems Pitt has finally initiated Movie Star mode. All he wants to do is kick butt, look cool and play off the persona Hollywood made for him. Bullet Train is a chance for Pitt to let loose on a train while multiple spies try to stop him. What more could you want from a Brad Pitt vehicle? 

Yes, Pitt is only in this for a few minutes. But anytime he gets to play off actors like George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Sam Rockwell, it's a treat. 

Many actors think it's "too cool" to do voice work for animated films. Can you imagine seeing Tom Cruise's name on a Megamind poster? But there's real worth in doing something like Megamind, especially when it's as funny as this alien invasion comedy. 

Considering it once appeared to be an unspoken rule that every actor needed to be in a zombie movie, Pitt puts in his bid here, doing the most he can with rehashed material. He brings a fine amount of stoicism to the role, which is basically just a Robert Redford part transplanted into a monster mash. 

Like zombie flicks, every actor must do a three-hour drama about a real person. Pitt does an excellent job portraying the real life of Heinrich Harrer, though he can never quite nail the accent. He does give the Austrian mountaineer enough depth to make us care about what happens during the final climb. 

By the time Pitt got to the second Oceans film, he knew the character like the back of his hand. With one heist under his belt, he could now up the quirks of his character (notice how much he eats) while still remaining the same Rusty Ryan we know and love. It's a shame the rest of the movie can't live up to the quality of Oceans Eleven.

Less than a decade after making one of the great Westerns, Brad Pitt and Andrew Dominik reunite for another tale of American crime. In this gritty, textured neo-noir, they bring us the story of Jackie, a mobster who goes from place to place doing other people's dirty work. There's more to the character than just savagery, thanks to Pitt's ability to convey reams of dialogue in a single glance and Dominik's ability to convey reams of texture in a single frame. 

Imagine the pressure of being a decade into your acting career and getting cast opposite your hero, Robert Redford. There's much to love about watching the sensei teach the pupil, both in the acting and in the story, which sees a CIA agent mentor the youngster who will take his place. 

And the Oscar for Most Fly Fishing in a movie goes to... Brad Pitt! Never has there been so much fishing in a movie, let alone in a period drama about the Great Depression. The movie sees Pitt and his brother try to fish their way out of hard times and come together over Trout. Action-packed? No. Moving? You betcha. 

Meet Joe Black is so bad it's good, which goes double for the actor's performance. The movie makes less sense than a child's scribbles, with so many bonkers moments that you can't help but start cracking up. Pitt dies in a car accident and then shows up at Anthony Hopkin's doorstep, tells him to guide his ghost across Earth and then proceeds to do just that. It's one of those movies that needs to be seen with friends, beers and a glass of humor. 

Happy Feet Two has more pedigree than most Best Picture winners. It's got George Miller directing, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Robin Williams starring and the folks at Warner Bros. animating. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a fun adventure. 

How great was the final installment in the Oceans franchise? So great that fans have been clamoring for a new one since it came out. It's not good enough to have a cash grab like Oceans 8. We want the boys back together for one last heist, even if it means clearing the safe at Warner Bros. to do it. 

It's one of the safest bets in movie history. Throw together a bunch of stars, put them in a heist flick, and get Steven Soderbergh to direct. What more do you want from a summer blockbuster? 

How can a movie this good barely even crack the top 20? Well, no extra points are given to Oscar Bait, which this movie wears the same way Pitt wears a space suit all the time. Plus, when you have been in this many great movies, you're bound to have some outside the top 20. James Gray's journey to space is a solemn, laconic odyssey that puts as much effort into emotions as it does emissions. We're not knocking it; we're just saying there are better options out there.

Pitt fares much better in this war movie than he did in War Machine, mostly thanks to the direction of David Ayer. The battlefield is rotted with corpses, mud, blood and guts. It's the perfect setting for Pitt to show off his gruff, clenched-jaw machismo and his soft, open-hearted maturity. 

Sorry, we just had to include it. This is by far the funniest cameo of his career, in which the star plays a superhero called The Vanisher who is invisible until he is zapped, and we see Pitt's face for a second before he vanishes for good. 

This is nowhere near Pitt's best performance--he looks constipated half the time--but it's one of his better films, thanks to a killer performance from Cruise and a story with actual bite. Cruise and Pitt play vampires who spend their days in a Gothic castle, eating, partying and looking off into the distance.

You're probably surprised how low this is on our list. For the most part, this is considered one of Pitt's best films, a masterclass in visual showmanship and visceral allegory. But it's also a mess. There's way too much that doesn't work in Terrence Malick's vision, starting with how he compares Pitt's suburban family to the entire universe. 

A movie about a bunch of dudes talking baseball doesn't necessarily sound like a sure thing. It certainly doesn't sound like it would have any home run performances. But this sports flick is actually a blast, with one of the best performances of Pitt's career. He gets to play cool, nuanced, stoic, and reserved. All the things that make a great movie star. 

From stealing bases to stealing the show, Pitt runs away with this action flick by Tony Scott. True Romance has a lot going for it, from Tarantino's writing to Hans Zimmer's score. But Pitt's stoner achieved iconic status in just three minutes of screen time.

All Pitt had to do to get nominated for an Oscar finally was to go insane, drool into the camera and act like a deranged monkey. That's just a bit of why mental patient Jeffery is easily Pitt's most ambitious, far-out character to date. To call his performance "crazy" is akin to calling Terry Gilliam's science-fiction classic "tame." This is truly bonkers stuff. 

Pitt's perfection of confidence comes in handy for criminal Jesse James, and the moments of violence where that's on display would have been enough to put this high on our list. But it's the moments of regret that catapult Jesse to one of Pitt's best characters. He whimpers like a wounded dog after punching a child, a wave of regret splashing over his crystal eyes. Within seconds, though, he's back to the stone-cold criminal who killed over 17 people robbing trains in Missouri. 

Pitt turned up to the set of Adam McKay's satire about the bubble implosion over 20 pounds heavier, with a wig that made him look 20 years older. Everyone who shows up in this movie is giving it their all, from Christian Bale to Steve Carrell to Margot Robbie. This is a comedy firing on all cylinders, and it's hard to think of a biopic with more style and humor than this one.

Not many actors would agree to be digitally altered into a shriveling old man, but Pitt isn't your average actor. He's fine with sacrificing his good looks for a good story, in which his character ages in reverse from old man to young boy. It's not the easiest thing to pull off, but director David Fincher brings just the right amount of pathos to the proceedings that even when the movie sags, there's always a spark of life to it.

Pitt probably wouldn't be your first guess to play a minor role in a film no one saw, especially when he was the biggest movie star on earth. But he does some of his best work in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's globe-spanning opus. Featuring interconnected storylines, Pitt goes to Morroco with his wife to mourn the loss of their child, which has deeply strained their marriage. Their experience speaks volumes to the ways we experience loss, time, suffering and vulnerability, as well as rebirth. 

After winning numerous Golden Globes and critic group awards, the Academy finally came to its senses and gave Pitt his first Oscar for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As an aging stuntman in Los Angeles, he spends most of his time driving around, hanging with friends and talking with hippies. It's the kind of performance that actors like Robert Redford and Warren Beaty used to give, but even they couldn't bring this level of nuance and coolness to the role. 

One of Hollywood's great breakthroughs is Pitt in Thelma and Louise. He's the nomad our heroines meet on their cross-country road trip, and it only takes five seconds to realize this guy will be a star. Ripped, tan, and charismatic, he runs away with the movie before even saying a word.

This was an era when Pitt was throwing more punches than Mike Tyson. Between Snatch and Fight Club, the turn of the century was a gritty time for Pitt. The actor was out for blood in Guy Ritchie's heist film, which is one of the most electric, highly- stylized entries in the genre. 

Sometimes historical revisionism can go really wrong, but sometimes it can go really right. In the hands of Quentin Tarantino, history is a ball of putty that can be changed at will. It's nice to see Aldo Rain scalping Nazis even though he never was in Germany, to see Christoph Waltz play a Nazi who never existed, and to see a rag-tag group of soldiers take down Hitler long before he shot himself at home. At the ten-minute mark, you leave all your skepticism behind and go along with this rip-roaring, revisionist masterpiece. 

The complete opposite of Inglorious Bastėrds. 12 Years a Slave is a true-to-life drama about our country's most grueling era. Steve Mcqueen doesn't sugarcoat slavery but rather treats it the same way a former addict treats their past: with regret, sobriety and an unflinching eye. Pitt plays the white savior in this story, the only blemish on an otherwise perfect affair. 

And so begins one of the most fruitful actor-director partnerships in movie history. In the first of his many collaborations with David Fincher, Pitt is given the almost impossible task of going head-to-head with Kevin Spacey, who isn't afraid to use heads to his advantage. But smartly, he holds his own by using silence and small gestures to win battles. The best thing about this mystery is Pitt's solemn performance. 

What's the first rule of Fight Club? Don't talk about fight club. And the second? Make sure it tops every list of Brad Pitt movies known to man. Since this is the best movie of his career and his best performance to date, it's hard to think of another title topping our list. He gives Fincher's movie a physicality no one else could, as well as a grace, maturity and sympathy you don't often see in Fight Club memes. He says more with his eyes or hands than most actors do in a 20-page monologue. He's at the top of his game, both inside and outside of the ring.