The 15 Best Brad Pitt Movies

Some critics certainly landed some hard blows on David Fincher's stylish, darkly humorous, and brutally violent adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel, but time has been kind to the frequently misread 1999 film that examines an increasingly destructive corporate world, toxic masculinity, and the power of a Pixies needledrop. Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter co-star with Pitt's Tyler Durden, an impossibly attractive misfit, who's frequently scheming and creating fight clubs to help socially lost boys feel. Critics were either along for the counterculture ride, big-time performances, and dazzling filmmaking ascendency of David Fincher, or rolled their eyes at the bleak and often cynical sentiments. 

"Keeps filmgoers wondering what will happen next even as they are repulsed by what's happening in front of them." —Ann Hornaday, Baltimore Sun

As Brad Pitt's career was on the rise, he was frequently compared to Robert Redford, with their similar blond, blue eyed-handsomeness. It made sense that Redford (in director mode) would eventually enlist Pitt to star in one of his films. It finally happened in the early '90s with Redford's adaptation of Norman Maclean's memoir, where Pitt and Craig Sheffer star as brothers rebelling against their strict minister father played by Tom Skerritt. Critics frequently singled out the beautiful Montana visuals and impressive performances, but many were bored by the slow-paced drama that spends perhaps too much time with the characters fly fishing. 

"Whatever the movie's failings, it had enough poignancy and beauty to make me want to find out what was missing." —Julie Salamon, Wall Street Journal

Cinephiles have long vaunted the merits of this lengthy western. Pitt stars as the titular Jesse James and is paired with Casey Affleck as the cowardly Robert Ford in co-writer/director Andrew Dominik's painterly 1970's-esque Western about James' attempts to stay relevant and Ford's attempts to undermine him. At 160 minutes (almost short by today's standards), the moody western won over many critics with its lush visuals by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, but detractors complained that the film was just plain boring. Producer and star Pitt's championing of up-and-comer filmmakers is evidenced here with the hiring of Dominik, whose Chopper was a critical sensation seven years earlier. 

"In a case where the most dangerous are kept dangerously close, here we have a rarity: a suspenseful, yet dramatic Western." —Matthew Sorrento, Film Threat

Alejandro González Iñárritu's road to Oscar gold was paved with many acclaimed films like Amores perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, and Kōji Yakusho. The latter film, a non-linear international drama taking place in Morocco, Mexico, Japan, and the United States, involves a rifle that acts as a catalyst which somehow unites characters all around the world. Critics were themselves united in praising the kinetic filmmaking and emotionally charged performances. They were less in agreement about how Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga's cliched global melodrama felt like a bunch of scenes in a shuffled playlist.

"I hate to criticize anybody for artistic ambition, but the problem with Babel isn't that it's a bad movie. It's a good movie, or, more accurately, it's several pieces of good movie, chopped up in service of a pretentious, portentous and slightly silly artistic vision." —Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

One of the biggest movie stars, Brad Pitt finally teamed with one of the biggest directors, Quentin Tarantino in the fantastical World War II ensemble European adventure, Inglourious Basterds. Pitt played Tennessee-born Aldo Raine, the leader of the Jewish-American, Nazi-hunting titular "basterds" who aim to take down the Third Reich. Pitt swings for the fences with an accent you'll either love or hate. With Tarantino films and critics, it's often also either love or hate, and this time was no different. Most of the praise went to Christoph Waltz as diabolical SS officer Colonel Hans Landa, a performance that won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. A more restrained, award-winning performance from the Pitt/Tarantino collaboration was forthcoming. 

"Tarantino's radical rewriting of the war's ending is audacious and perversely enthralling. But if Inglourious Basterds were about something more than the cinematic thrill of watching Nazis suffer, it could have been a revelation." —Dana Stevens, Slate

Brad Pitt and director David Fincher would again collaborate after Se7en (shockingly, not on this list) and Fight Club on a less violent and more romantic story of a man who is born as an octogenarian and ages backwards. This adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story was heralded for its ornate production and special effects wizardry that helped make Pitt's Button both older and younger. But Button spanned nearly three hours, and many critics, even those that enjoyed the movie, complained that it felt like it took years just to finish the film. Others also complained that outside of the reverse aging, Benjamin Button as a character was just dull. 

"A gravely beautiful drama about the mysteries of aging and death." —J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

One of Brad Pitt's secret weapons is shining bright within an ensemble. This is exemplified in Ocean's Eleven, the first of Steven Soderbergh's trilogy of crime capers that ushered in a new, 21st century Rat Pack with co-stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, and so many more. Pitt stars as Rusty Ryan, a ravenous, sharp-dressed hotelier and con man who helps plan the Vegas heists in the original film. The film was generally well-received, even though some critics accused the typically more independent-minded Soderbergh of slumming it with such a fun and frothy film.

"Serious pianists sometimes pound out a little honky-tonk, just for fun. That's like what Steven Soderbergh is doing in Ocean's Eleven." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Back in 1995, major studios still released projects like time-traveling feature homages to French short films (specifically, Chris Marker's 1962 La Jetée)—specifically, like Terry Gilliam's chaotic 12 Monkeys. Bruce Willis stars as a man sent from the future to prevent a virus from killing billions (remake when?). The future man is sent to an insane asylum, which is where he meets Brad Pitt's Jeffrey Goines, a fellow inmate who might have a connection to the deadly virus. Pitt's go-for-broke portrayal of the mentally unstable cipher in the complex narrative won him a Golden Globe for Supporting Actor and his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, though he lost to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects. 

"Mystifying, intriguing, even infuriating, it shows what happens when an unconventional talent meets straightforward material." —Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Ad Astra? More like Sad DADstra! Pitt plays Roy McBride, an astronaut who embarks on an intergalactic journey to locate the source of a mysterious power surge that's impacting Earth. His mission sends him to a part of space where his dad went missing nearly 30 years prior. James Gray co-wrote and directed the rare science-fiction film that isn't just space battles (don't worry, there's plenty of action here, including an unsettlingly gory sequence), but also a nuanced drama. Pitt's emotional performance was also widely praised, as was Gray's filmmaking, which balanced the grandness of space with the complex feelings of the characters. 

"Existential but also intimate, Ad Astra is a stunning, sensitive exploration of the space left by an absent parent — and the infinite void of actual space." —John Nugent, Empire

Filmmaker Adam McKay's pivot from broad comedy to docu-comedy begins here with the story of private investors exploiting the global collapse of the economy for their gain. Based on Michael Lewis' (see Moneyball) non-fiction book,The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, the ensemble film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Pitt; the latter plays a retired former trader who helps and then schools a couple of younger investors on the damage trading can do to the American population. The film was widely acclaimed, but Pitt's smaller role, in which he delivers what one assumes is McKay's thesis statement about greed and its concomitant destructiveness, was almost forgotten in a sea of speaking roles.

"The Big Short means to infuriate its audience, but it's smart enough to know that such an approach doesn't preclude a film from being darkly, cathartically funny as well." —Tim Grierson, Screen Daily

Ten years after Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on another revisionist period piece, this time tackling late-'60s Los Angeles. PItt plays Cliff Booth, a stunt double/assistant/driver for TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), as both performers struggle with the rapidly changing entertainment industry. The combination of two of Hollywood's biggest actors and a pre-Barbie Margot Robbie (playing a version of actress Sharon Tate) with one of its biggest directors was widely acclaimed and is still frequently meme'd; hopefully you're leaning forward and pointing at the screen. Pitt would finally win a long overdue Oscar for Supporting Actor for his rugged, vulnerable, and humorous performance. 

"It's an elegy for a certain age of American pop-culture that may really be about the writer-director grappling with his own inevitable obsolescence." —A.A. Dowd, The A.V. Club

Pitt's long and varied career has seen him cross paths with so many talented directors, but none were quite like '70s auteur Terrence Malick. The director of 1970s classics Badlands and Days of Heaven returned to Hollywood after a long absence with The Thin Red Line and eventually worked towards the bold cinematic vision that is The Tree of Life. Even though Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain are featured, the real star was the visceral filmmaking featuring the truly jaw-dropping cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki, which spans the trials and tribulations of modern life to Earth's creation. Most critics and cinephiles were moved by the poetic examination of existence itself, but some weren't along for the voyage.

"The movie plays out as a series of memories, so exact and evocative that watching it becomes an immersive experience." —Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

This 2011 drama is adapted from Michael Lewis' (see The BIg Short) non-fiction book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's radical early-2000s use of data and analytics when drafting players for his team when money wasn't an option. Pitt stars as Beane with Jonah Hill, who plays a fictionalized version of Paul DePodesta, who put together a unique team by unusual means. Directed by artistic-minded New Yorker Bennett Miller (after Steven Soderbergh dropped out before shooting) and written by Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin, the film and Pitt's driven and passionate performance were a home run according to most critics. He would receive two Oscar nominations, one for acting and one as a producer. 

"Starring Brad Pitt in top movie star form, it's a film that's impressive and surprising." —Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Brad Pitt's first time working with director Ridley Scott was as handsome drifter J.D., who struts his way into Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise's (Susan Sarandon) lives while they're on the run. After J.D. hitches a ride with the titular leads and shows Thelma a good time, he complicates their journey even further. The film was a critical sensation, winning awards for Callie Khouri's screenplay, and it kicked off long-overdue conversations about female rights and empowerment. Pitt's much-talked-about charismatic supporting performance put him on the map and sent him on a path to superstardom.

"Sarandon and Davis find in Callie Khouri's script the materials for two plausible, convincing, lovable characters. And as actors they work together like a high-wire team, walking across even the most hazardous scenes without putting a foot wrong." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

12 Years a Slave, the adaptation of Solomon Northup's biography Twelve Years a Slave by writer John Ridley and director Steve McQueen, was released to universal acclaim in 2013. The film about a free black man (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in pre-Civil War America, who is abducted and sold into slavery, is a savage and uncompromising look at our inhumane past. Brad Pitt, who co-produced the film, has a small role as Samuel Bass, a Canadian laborer and rare voice of reason who speaks up for what's right and attempts to help Solomon reclaim his freedom. The film won multiple awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for John Ridley, and Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong'o at the Academy Awards. 

"A document that is raw, eloquent, horrifying and essential." —Richard Corliss, Time