10 Best Russell Crowe Movies, Ranked by IMDb

Russell Crowe has entertained movie audiences all over the world for over 30 years. He is one of those actors who seems able to turn their hand at anything: a leading man, a member of an ensemble, a narrator of documentaries, and even directing. In a career spanning over thirty years, Crowe has won several accolades, including an Oscar, cementing his cinematic legacy.

Equally popular with audiences and critics, he has wowed both with his performances in films like Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind. Crowe’s resumé is extensive and full of acclaimed projects, many of which have received high rankings on IMDb. The best Russel Crowe movies on IMDb are a healthy mix of comedies, blockbusters, and searing dramas, showcasing his versatility as a performer.

10 ‘The Nice Guys’ (2016)

IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

Shane Black wrote and directed the 2016 neo-noir black comedy The Nice Guys. Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling and Crowe star as a tough enforcer and a hapless PI who join forces to investigate the disappearance of a young girl in 1970s Los Angeles.

Hilarious and hectic, The Nice Guys is a modern classic that showcases Crowe and Gosling’s stellar comedic abilities. Effortlessly blending mystery, satire, and humor, The Nice Guys is the 21st century’s best noir comedy, an endlessly entertaining and instantly memorable film that deserves a lot more love. Crowe’s rare humorous performance is a large reason for the film’s success, confirming he should be doing a lot more comedy.

The Nice Guys

Release Date May 15, 2016

Director Shane Black

Cast Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matthew Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Yaya DaCosta

Rating R

Runtime 116

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9 ‘Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World’ (2003)

IMDb Score: 7.4/10

Made in 2003, Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is based on three of Patrick O’Brian’s novels and is set in the Napoleonic Wars. It recounts the start of the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and his ship’s surgeon and, when the occasion calls for it, naturalist Stephen Maturin.

Crowe plays a young commander of a British man-o’-war ordered to hunt down and destroy a French frigate, convincing audiences that he could indeed have filled the role. His tremendous performance receives considerable help from Weir’s direction and some of the best naval action sequences ever filmed, plus a great performance from Paul Bettany as Maturin. Considered by some to be among the most historically accurate movies, Master and Commander beautifully brings the early 19th century to life with epic grandiosity.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Release Date November 14, 2003

Director Peter Weir

Cast Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D’Arcy, Edward Woodall, Chris Larkin, Max Pirkis

Rating PG-13

Runtime 138 minutes

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8 ‘Les Misérables’ (2012)

IMDb Score: 7.5/10

Adapted from the celebrated eponymous musical, Les Misérables asks Crowe to not only play an early 19th-century French police inspector but to sing his way through the plot. Crowe stars as Javert, the film’s de-facto antagonist with a decades-long obsession to bring Jean Valjean to justice.

Here, Crowe is part of an ensemble cast that includes Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, and Eddie Redmayne. Jackman and Hathaway were standouts, receiving Oscar nominations for their roles, with Hathway winning Best Supporting Actress. However, Crowe’s role as the initially vindictive and ultimately tragic inspector adds significantly to the film’s emotional depth. His singing has attracted much criticism from fans and audiences, and the Oscar-winning film hasn’t aged exactly well. However, Crowe’s impressive commitment to Les Misérables cannot be denied.

Les Misérables (2012)

Release Date December 18, 2012

Director Tom Hooper

Cast Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter

Rating PG-13

Runtime 157 minutes

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7 ‘3:10 to Yuma’ (2007)

IMDb Score: 7.7/10

Considered one of the best Westerns of the last 20 years, 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma is the second film made from a 1953 Elmore Leonard short story. The first version, made 50 years before, is also considered one of the great Westerns! The film follows Ben Wade (Crowe), a captured outlaw who must be taken to prison on the 3.10 train to Yuma. The problem is getting him to the train without his gang rescuing him.

Crowe stars as a ruthless but congenial villain, while Christian Bale plays one of the posse’s deputized to escort him to his train. The pair become, if not friends, then allies of a sort, finding more in common with each other than either would like to admit. 3:10 to Yuma deftly handles thought-provoking themes of morality, loyalty, and sympathy while still delivering a thrilling Western that ranks among the genre’s best modern entries.

3:10 to Yuma

Release Date September 6, 2007

Director James Mangold

Cast Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, logan lerman, Dallas Roberts, Ben Foster, Peter Fonda

Rating R

Runtime 117

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6 ‘The Insider’ (1999)

IMDb Score: 7.8/10

Based on a magazine article about Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco company whistle-blower, 1999’s The Insider is a brilliantly-made, tension-filled drama. More importantly, it’s a vital story about how the media – when all else fails – can be an essential channel for telling the public the truth about crucial issues.

An extraordinary cast is capped with Al Pacino playing a television producer trying to film Wigand’s story, often against opposition from his own broadcaster. Crowe stuns as Wigand, delivering a tense, determined, absorbing performance that earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Crowe is The Insider’s beating heart, perfectly enhancing the film’s anxious tone with his moduled, precise performance.

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5 ‘American Gangster’ (2007)

IMDb Score: 7.8/10

Released the same year as 3.10 to Yuma, American Gangster has Crowe playing on the side of the angels in this crime drama set in Harlem. The film tells the true story of how Detective Richie Roberts (Crowe) brings down drug lord Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington, who graces his character with extraordinarily seductive charm). Roberts discovers Lucas is shipping his heroin from Thailand to the US in the coffins of dead soldiers being returned from the war in Vietnam. Roberts offers Lucas a deal: rat on the army of corrupt cops and DEA officers for a chance at a lighter sentence.

The twist at the end is that Roberts subsequently becomes a defense attorney, and Lucas is his first client, something so absurd it could only happen in real life. Directed by Ridley Scott, American Gangster is tight, thrilling, and visceral, offering a worthy showcase for the Oscar-winning duo at its center.

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4 ‘Cinderella Man’ (2005)

IMDb Score: 8.0/10

This Ron Howard film from 2005 tells the story of boxer James Braddock, who, against all odds, won the World Heavyweight Title in 1935 off fellow American Max Baer. An honorable, determined and courageous man, Braddock became a hero for all Americans struggling through the Great Depression and was nicknamed ‘The Cinderella Man’ by sports writer Damon Runyon.

Cinderella Man features a tough and physically resilient character who also possesses great moral and emotional strength that is right up Crowe’s street. Together with Howard’s directing and the appeal of a hero for the common people, Cinderella Man makes for a film that is both entertaining and fulfilling and remains one of the all-time best boxing movies.

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3 ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)

IMDb Score: 8.2/10

Although not his first American film – that was the underrated 1995 Western The Quick and the Dead – this 1997 production firmly set Crowe’s feet on the path of Hollywood stardom. Almost universally acclaimed on its release and based on the James Elroy novel of the same name, L.A. Confidential’s story about corruption and crime in post-war Hollywood can still be held up as the neo-noir crime film par excellence.

With outstanding performances from Guy Pearce, James Cromwell. and an Oscar-winning Kim Basinger, L. A. Confidential is among the best films from the 90s. Crowe is exceptional as Detective ‘Bud’ White, an honorable if excessively brutal, cop who hates men who harm women. Mysterious and stylish, L. A. Confidential is a neo-noir masterpiece and one of Crowe’s best efforts.

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2 ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (2001)

IMDb Score: 8.2/10

Some true stories can only be told properly in fiction: A Beautiful Mind, about mathematician John Nash, is just such a story. The real Nash, a genius who, with two others, won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics, was also living with schizophrenia and spent many years in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Controversially, director Ron Howard and writer Akiva Goldsman decided to represent Nash’s illness as a series of hallucinations, with mixed results.

Crowe plays Nash with great insight, sympathy, and, appropriately enough, intelligence, perfectly matched by a rivetting Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Alicia. Director Ron Howard brings the best out of Crowe, with the Australian actor delivering arguably his finest performance as Nash. A Beautiful Mind works better as a sweeping love story than a biopic about a misunderstood genius, but Crowe’s electrifying performance more than makes up for any of the film’s weak spots.

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1 ‘Gladiator’ (2000)

IMDb Score: 8.5/10

From its extraordinary opening battle to its climax in the Colosseum, Gladiator is a dark and tumultuous journey through ancient Rome. The film covers the Roman army, slavery, gladiatorial contests, the Senate and the imperial family in just over two hours, leaving the audience in no doubt they’d just seen one of the greatest historical films – and revenge stories – ever made.

Driven by Ridley Scott’s direction, the story is firmly anchored by Crowe’s Academy Award-winning performance as Maximus, a Roman general betrayed by Joaquin Phoenix’s evil Emperor Commodus, who finally gets his revenge by becoming a gladiator. Crowe’s gravity, presence, and stoicism ensure the audience understands that although Gladiator is not real history, it is, in its way, true history.

Gladiator

Release Date May 5, 2000

Director Ridley Scott

Cast Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi

Rating R

Runtime 155 minutes

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