Liam Neeson is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, but how do his movies rank from worst to best? From prestige dramas, to iconic appearances in franchise epics, to his late-career resurgence as an action movie headliner, Neeson has proven himself the definition of versatility.
Born in 1952 in Northern Ireland, Neeson began his career in 1976 with the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast, before transitioning to supporting roles in films throughout the 1980s. His 1993 breakout in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List kicked off a decade of success as the warm, soulful center to a whole bevy of epic dramas. He's played a Jedi master, voiced Aslan, and recently been enjoying a career third act almost entirely comprised of action thrillers, springboarded by his now-iconic turn in Taken.
There's no doubt this actor has a "particular set of skills," from the warm, steely timbre of his voice, to the gentle wisdom that makes him such an ideal onscreen mentor, to the pure physical commitment that makes him so believable in any fight scene. Here are his major films, ranked from worst to best.
Liam Neeson may be most well-known as a prestigious dramatic actor-turned-action star, but his worst film sees him voicing an evil raccoon in an uninspired animal caper about mob machinations among rodents. Sometimes it can be nice to root for non-Pixar animated offerings, but this one gives little to champion.
Neeson is hardly in this sinking ship of a movie. Perhaps his straight-faced, action movie swagger could've lent some much-needed charm to this punchline of a title, which aims for Jumanji but just winds up an unwatchable mess. Stick with the board game instead.
There's a lot to not like about this one. Whether it's overly-edited action sequences clearly covering for the aging star or the film's cruelty toward its female characters, this is an unnecessarily dark, clumsy mess of a sequel, and a far cry from the surprising fun of the original.
After the surprise hit that was its predecessor, Taken 2 sees Neeson returning as retired CIA agent Brian Mills, whose "particular set of skills" helped him rescue his daughter two years prior. Diehard fans of the franchise are sure to love this entry, but for everyone else, there's little more than an overblown rehash that would verge on goofy if it weren't for Neeson's committed performance.
In this 2008 film, Liam Neeson plays a computer executive who finds out his wife (Laura Linney) has been having an affair with a handsome Italian man (Antonio Banderas) after she goes missing on a business trip. An inspired cast led by a prestigious director (The National Theatre's Richard Eyre) can't save this under-cooked, hackneyed mystery from slipping into the realm of boredom.
Shirley Jackson's haunting source material was recently given a splendid Netflix treatment, but back in 1999 Twister director Jan de Bont used it as a jumping-off point for a visual effects showcase that squandered its scares and its stars. Neeson stars with Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but they can't compete with the overblown spectacle of this horror film, which forgets that sometimes what's scariest is the unseen.
Neeson plays a miner-turned-illegal-boxer in this self-serious, overwrought drama. He acquits himself well, particularly physically, but the film never manages to pack much of a punch.
Released in the midst of COVID, this Mark Williams actioner doesn't give much reason to leave the couch and brave a global pandemic to return to the movie theater. Neeson is solid as a bank robber attempting to return the stolen money for a light sentence, and there's fun villain turns from Jai Courtney and Anthony Ramos. However, the film's action is underwhelming and it has an extremely inflated sense of how compelling its characters are.
This unnecessary follow-up from the original Men in Black series transitioned from inspired to dull over the course of three films struggles supporting its existence. Neeson mostly is onhand as a Rip Torn replacement, but like the film's leads Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, he's completely wasted in a film that tries to copy the original's effortless charm, with weak results.
Maybe one of the most curious entries in Neeson's filmography is this dark comedy co-starring Sandra Bullock and Oliver Platt, which sees an undercover DEA agent joining therapy to cope with the stresses of his job. Unfortunately, the film's attempts at humor are largely crass, relying on fart humor and gay jokes more than what can usually be expected from a Neeson vehicle.
This twisting thriller sees Neeson as a private detective, who helps couples get divorces by photographing his wife having fake affairs with the husbands. It's a bizarre concept given a fairly rote treatment, but Neeson provides a solid anchor to the goofy genre proceedings.
In this thriller, Christina Ricci plays a young woman who awakens after a car accident to find a mysterious mortician (played by Neeson) preparing her for burial. It's a novel setup, with lots of creepy potential, but unfortunately it's not too long before it becomes an underwhelming Saw imitation, trapping two interesting actors in typical horror genre roles.
Paul Haggis, director of Crash, revisits his love of interconnected narratives with this glorified travelogue that synchronizes three tales of love, one at the beginning of a relationship, another at the middle, and the third at the end. There are some solid performances here, but the labyrinthine artifice of the enterprise winds up weighing it down and strangling the life out of it.
This overblown 2010 rehash of the groundbreaking and charming Desmond Davis and Ray Harryhausen original was Neeson's first post-Taken action film. Attempting to cash in on the public's obsession with fantasy visuals made popular by Avatar, Clash of the Titans only succeeds as a giant, lumbering mess, a 3D CGI eyesore that not even Neeson's small turn as Zeus can save.
This head-scratcher of a sequel is made perhaps mildly more watchable by the simple fact that there's more of Neeson's Zeus. His team-up with Ralph Fiennes, as Hades, is the high point of a movie mostly consisting of deep, deep lows.
Neeson's latest isn't out to redefine the Western, nor will it become a staple of the genre anytime soon. He goes full Eastwood here, wandering wide open plains with a rifle, but neither his performance nor the by-the-book direction comes close to the highs of the actor's action catalog. Western fanatics will dislike the lack of depth, and Neeson fans looking for high-octane thrills are likely to leave bored.
This clunker of a comedy at least has an inspired premise - a hotel manager attempts to fill the vacant rooms in his property by convincing the public they're haunted, soon finding his charade made true by the appearance of two actual ghosts, played by Daryl Hannah and Neeson himself. A bottom-shelf Halloween oddity, the film mainly underlines the oft-held theory that its director, Neil Jordan, never made the same film twice.
Liam Neeson stars with Meryl Streep in this story of a husband and wife dealing with the suspicion that their son was involved in the death of a local girl. As expected, the performances are first-rate, including Edward Furlong's as the son, but not even a smattering of late-game twists can help this from feeling like anything but a non-starter.
This 1983 sci-fi dud is a must for fantasy nerds, if only to revel in its kitschy, throwback charm. The plot concerns a captured princess and the warriors who band together to rescue her, and director Peter Yates seems completely undeterred borrowing from the genre's best, from Tolkien to Spielberg to, most notably, Star Wars. It may not possess much of the grandeur of any of those works, but its awfulness is at least mildly winning.
Seth McFarlane's overly-long, idiotic Western spoof makes Ted look like Citizen Kane. There are a few fun gags sprinkled throughout, as expected from the Family Guy funnyman, but most of them mistake blatant offensiveness for humor. That said, the best performance is Neeson's, smartly cast as a villainous outlaw, playing it straight amid cartoonish surroundings.
Liam Neeson plays Mark Felt, a.k.a. "Deep Throat," in this Watergate-era drama which welcomes unflattering comparisons to the timelessly iconic All the President's Men. Neeson is strong, but he can only elevate so much; essentially, this is a standard biopic that sacrifices nuance and artistry for Wikipedia-style storytelling, ticking off plot points while treating Felt like an untouchable monument in a museum rather than a flesh-and-blood character.
This Korean war film is an unending assault that couldn't be less interested in grappling with the terrors and emotions of war, instead settling for action movie histrionics and a rote Neeson performance as a gruff general who fires off tough guy speeches with machine gun rapidity. It'll surely be entertaining to some, but it never rises above the standard "big, dumb action movie" requirements.
World War II gets a lavish, costume treatment in this 1992 epic about a woman spying behind German lines attempting to find out the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin. It's not unwatchable, mostly due to its design and cinematography, but the plot machinations often verge on the ridiculous, and its screenplay is brimming with dialogue so leaden it bogs the whole film down.
The year before The A-Team, Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, and Sharlto Copley all popped in surprise hits. Cooper had Hangover, Neeson had Taken, and Copley had District 9. Therefore, it's no wonder 20th Century Fox wanted to cash in with a massive, balls-to-the-wall actioner starring all three. Alas, The A-Team is mostly a soulless cash grab, handicapped by a PG-13 rating, uninspired filmmaking, and a screenplay more focused on setting up a sequel than having any of its own fun.
Before Marriage Story and after Kramer vs. Kramer, there was this 1988 Liam Neeson and Diane Keaton-led drama about a custody battle that quickly turns ugly. There's a lot of feeling behind this film, but it's ultimately rendered as little more than a Lifetime movie featuring two bona fide stars.
The third of the Narnia films is also the worst. Neeson is commanding and regal as ever as the voice of Aslan, but Dawn Treader is ultimately bogged down by less-engrossing source material than the previous two entries. Director Michael Apted seems to know this, and so leans far too excessively on good-looking but over-blown visual effects which drown out any sense of charm the film may have achieved.
This thriller's premise promises wicked fun, telling the story of a woman, played by Julianne Moore, who suspects her husband (Liam Neeson) of cheating and hires a prostitute named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to see if he takes the bait. It's a shame, then, that director Atom Egoyan wastes that potential, and an ace cast, on a low-sizzling Fatal Attraction knockoff.
Edith Wharton's slow-burn gut-punch of a novel is given a respectable, if staid, screen treatment in this 1993 film. While the story may ultimately be more of a page-turner than an engrossing movie, the performances here are first-rate, in particular those of Neeson and Joan Allen.
Jodie Foster plays a feral mountain child taken in by a kindly doctor in this melodramatic, but slightly effective 1994 drama. Much of the proceedings come off as lame attempts at inspiration, but when the movie works it does so because of the ineffable talent of Foster's hypnotic performance, and the intense warmth Neeson brings as her guardian angel.
Gorgeous cinematography and location work livens up this fairly by-the-book revenge thriller. Liam Neeson plays a dogged Civil War veteran chasing his rival (Pierce Brosnan) across the American West to settle a score.
Many of the films comprising the third act of Neeson's career would be directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, but this Hitchcockian thriller about a man who wakes up after a four-day coma to no one remembering him was the first. It's also one of the duo's less thrilling, showing its hand with its impending twists all too early and finding hackneyed reasons to get a post-Taken Neeson into hand-to-hand combat.
Liam Neeson and Patrick Swayze play siblings in opposition about how to deal with the murder of their brother in this dumb but entertaining redneck revenge flick. Its plot and style are all over the map, but Neeson and Swayze elevate things, as does Adam Baldwin as a mustache-twirling mobster.
Cillian Murphy plays a trans person named Kitten in this coming-of-age dramedy from director Neil Jordan. It's a supporting role for Neeson, as the priest who's actually Kitten's father. Nevertheless, the film is an auteur curiosity, stylistically interesting, albeit a bit all-over-the-place, buoyed further in quality by a sensational performance from Murphy.
The final Dirty Harry film says goodbye to the iconic vigilante with a whimper instead of a bang, in this uninspired franchise-ender. Neeson plays a film director taking bets on celebrity deaths, whose "dead pool" is given a sick twist when a serial killer starts targeting those named, including Harry Callahan himself. Definitely the dullest of the franchise, it's most notable for an action sequence involving an explosive toy car and for featuring Jim Carrey's first dramatic performance.
Richard Curtis' polarizing Christmas rom-com has become a prime subject of discourse every holiday season. While it's true it's a saccharine, sugary piece of fluff overstuffed with far too many cloyingly sentimental love stories, it's impossible to deny the charm of its cast, which features Liam Neeson iconically acting opposite child actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster.
Following in the footsteps of the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ridley Scott directed this massive epic about the Crusades. It's filled with ambition and scale, and Liam Neeson rounds out a supporting cast that also features excellent turns from Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, and Edward Norton. Unfortunately, the hack-and-slash action sequences, and an uninspiring lead performance from Orlando Bloom, give the film a leaden, somewhat boring quality.
Aslan returns in this sequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as does director Andrew Adamson. This is honestly a fairly engaging family fantasy film, with genuine emotion and solid performances from its grown-up actors. While its story is not quite as strong as the source material of its predecessor, Adamson crafts an old-fashioned epic with plenty of swashbuckling and pace.
This Jame Collet-Serra collaboration sees Neeson playing a boozy, haunted hitman who attempts to atone for his past by protecting his estranged son (Joel Kinneman), who's been targeted by the mob. This stylish crime drama is the definition of dark and gritty, with Neeson bringing a mournful, personal quality to what could be a standard actioner, even if the film does ultimately get bogged down in a by-the-book climax.
Neeson's Taken persona may be all about kicking a** and taking names, but director Collet-Serra is far more interested in the warm nobility of the actor. Here, he plays an insurance salesman who accepts the challenge of uncovering a mysterious passenger's identity during his daily commute. It's pulpy, schlocky stuff, executed with style by Collet-Serra and capably performed by a cast also including Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, and Jonathan Banks.
Kathryn Bigelow once again proves her mettle as one of the best action directors working in this claustrophobic 2002 thriller about impending nuclear explosion on a Russian submarine. This is far and away a vehicle for Harrison Ford, but Neeson shines as the ship's original captain.
This 2014 Neeson vehicle is more noir than action movie, with a grim plot involving sadists torturing and killing the wives and daughters of drug dealers. Neeson plays a private eye, and his gravelly voice and steely eyes give exactly the right throwback gravitas to the proceedings.
Liam Neeson plays a deaf, mute, and homeless war veteran arrested for murder in this 1987 courtroom thriller. It's one of the actor's more soulful, haunting performances, and he's given star support by Cher and Dennis Quaid, as the respective lawyer and juror who are convinced of his innocence.
This Braveheart-esque historical epic is a sumptuous-looking swashbuckler with a lot of personality, mostly due to its stellar performances. Neeson shines as the titular character, the head of an 18th-century Scottish clan who faces down villainous swordsman Archibald Cunningham after he murders his brother and rapes his wife. His performance clashes with Tim Roth's delicious turn as Cunningham, and his chemistry with Jessica Lange gives the movie its beating heart.
Before Anne Hathaway won her Oscar for dreaming a dream or Hugh Jackman traded in his Vibranium for vibrato, Liam Neeson starred in this 1998 non-singing adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic masterwork. He rounds out a cast that includes Geoffrey Rush as the relentless Javert, Uma Thurman as the tragic Fantine, and Claire Danes as the angelic Cosette. Only slightly more than two hours, it's a solid adaptation that condenses the story considerably, yet still packs an emotional punch.
Neeson doesn't stick around long in Gangs of New York, playing "Priest" Vallon, but his early-film death sends Leonardo DiCaprio's Amsterdam on his trail of vengeance. Overall, this is lesser Scorsese, although it's worth watching for Daniel Day-Lewis' barnstorming performance as William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, and for its gorgeously detailed and painstakingly authentic costume and production design.
This under-seen and under-appreciated thriller centers on an Irish man named Joe Griffin and his brother's killer, Alistair Little. Thirty years after the murder, a live television meeting between the two men is scheduled, but Joe plans on using it to kill Alistair. James Nesbitt plays Joe, Neeson the killer, and together the two create an almost unbearable sense of tension.
Neeson leads this historical epic about IRA leader Michael Collins, who becomes a traitor to his cause when he fears defeat. Another collaboration with the chameleonic director Neil Jordan and supported by the always reliable talents of the late Alan Rickman, this engaging drama is saved at every false step by Neeson's commanding performance, which plays the tortured conflict and pursuit of honor at the heart of this character beautifully.
Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville are pitch-perfect as a couple whose unending love is put to the test when Manville's character is diagnosed with breast cancer. What could be a devastatingly sad, torturous viewing experience is peppered with an ease and humanity these performers bring to a couple, who are forced to use every tool at their disposal to get through a particularly trying time.
This coming-of-age fantasy didn't necessarily get its due upon release, but there's plenty to love in this film about a troubled boy who finds guidance and strength from an Ent-like Monster, given life by stunning animation and Liam Neeson's earthy vocal tones. J.A. Bayona directs with flair, but never loses sight of the remarkably emotional exploration of grief at the film's center, climaxing with a three-hanky weeper of a finale that's as cathartic as it is crushing.
Bill Condon writes and directs this clever and winning biopic about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, who goes against the grain to institute sexual education at Indiana University in the 1940s. Amid the frank subject matter, Condon finds a sweet center in tandem with Neeson's performance, which perfectly captures the subversive quirkiness and utter uniqueness of the film's subject.
In 2005, Aslan would've been hard-pressed to find a better voice than Liam Neeson, whose vocal performance as the messianic lion possesses all the appropriate shades of reverence and regality. The Narnia films often get lumped in with other middling post-Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings offerings, but this first entry has every right to be considered a fantasy classic, a sterling adaptation of C.S. Lewis' iconic book that mixes gorgeous design with elegant storytelling.
This 2014 collaboration with Jaume Collet-Sera saw the movie star at the peak of his action star box office draw powers, and for good reason. This gloriously fun thriller is genre filmmaking at its best, centering on Neeson as a U.S. Air Marshal whose normal flight routine is interrupted by a terroristic threat that's murdering a passenger every 20 minutes. This pulpy, "Agatha Christie on a plane" mystery confirms Neeson as one of cinema's most committed and fun-to-watch action stars, and Collet-Sera as one of its most interesting genre filmmakers.
An underrated gem from the Coen Brothers, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs stitches together six short films set in the Old West with their typical craftsmanship and a sickly dark sense of humor. Neeson stars in the film's third segment, as an opportunistic impresario whose meal ticket changes from a skilled orator with no arms or legs to a chicken. He rounds out a stellar ensemble that also includes Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, and Tom Waits.
This 1999 franchise reentry has been through the wringer and back in terms of criticism, and while it's true much of this film's plot and characterizations leave something to be desired, it's impossible to deny the sheer ambition and groundbreaking quality of George Lucas' return to the Star Wars saga. Two years before The Lord of the Rings, Lucas and company presented audiences with the type of gorgeously-designed CGI worlds and computer-animated supporting characters that would define the next 20 plus years of filmmaking. While Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is as opaque a personality as the cast surrounding him, Neeson infuses him with his signature warmth, providing an Alec Guinness-esque dignity to anchor the kick-off of this prequel trilogy.
Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, had died in a skiing accident three years prior to this film's 2012 release, which formed an unlikely but perfect vessel for the actor's grief. Marketed as a big, dumb, "Liam Neeson is hunted by wolves" thriller, The Grey offers a whole lot more, with the star's performance grounding an engaging, tense, and stirring exploration of man's will to survive against all odds.
Liam Neeson's cringey, confusing interview on the campaign trail for this film forced the studio to cancel the premiere and left a bizarre stain on this wintry thriller, and it's a shame. Cold Pursuit is one of Neeson's most enjoyable action vehicles, mixing his committed, straight-faced swagger with a darkly comedic tone that feels like Fargo by way of Quentin Tarantino. Neeson's vengeful snowplow driver is a delight, but he's matched by a pitch-perfect ensemble that includes Tom Bateman, Julia Jones, Emmy Rossum, Tom Jackson, and Laura Linney.
Before he took on Spider-Man, Evil Dead director Sam Raimi brought his horror stylings to this bizarre curiosity of a superhero film that centers on a disfigured vigilante, who uses synthetic skin to assume the identity of anyone he chooses. While Spider-Man saw a more mainstream application of Raimi's visual stylings, Darkman sees him fully embracing his "splatter meets slapstick" roots, with a goofy Liam Neeson meeting him pound for pound.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller turned a potentially cynical feature-length toy commercial into a brilliantly anarchic gem known as The Lego Movie. The voice cast is stacked, but one of the clear standouts is undoubtedly Liam Neeson, embracing both his warm humanity and cold, Taken-style hardness as Good Cop/Bad Cop.
Before John Wick and The Equalizer, Liam Neeson intoned about his "particular set of skills" over the phone and ignited a trend of aging action stars that's continued to this day. This pulp-spewing, grindhouse B-movie about sex traffickers who messed with the wrong father used Neeson's prestigious persona to give it some clout, but the actor is gloriously alive in every frame, turning in an intense, physical performance so good it's no doubt it triggered a third act to his career almost entirely centered on action films.
Christopher Nolan's genre-defining sequel quickly overshadowed this first entry in a more realistic, grounded series about the Caped Crusader, but Batman Begins is without a doubt one of the best films to center on Gotham's Dark Knight. Most of the movie's best scenes center on training sequences between Liam Neeson's Henri Ducard and Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, building slowly to a late-game twist revealing Ducard as Ra's Al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. Neeson shines as the surprise villain; with none of the comic book eccentricities of later adversaries like the Joker or Bane to lean on, he instead hones in on the truth of all the best Batman villains: that they are dark mirror images of their heroic adversary, figures similarly wronged by society who choose conflicting ways to enact justice.
Neeson plays a small but integral role as Viola Davis' deceased husband in this Michael Mann-esque crime thriller from director Steve McQueen. After their husbands die in an armed robbery attempt, a group of widows (led by Davis) enacts one last job to settle the debts left by their spouses' criminal activities. A sleek genre piece as stylish as it is entertaining, this is the type of adult drama that just doesn't seem to get made anymore. Also starring Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Erivo, Widows features a career-best performance by Elizabeth Debicki and a haunting scene-stealing supporting turn from Daniel Kaluuya.
Not enough praise is heaped on Martin Scorsese's 21st century output, which between The Irishman and this has seen him turn out some of the best films he's ever made. Silence slid under the radar a bit in 2016, which is a shame given the sheer scope, majesty, and passionate spirit of this tale of two 17th century Jesuit priests who travel to Japan to spread Christianity and find their lost mentor. Neeson's role is smaller, but pivotal, and in every moment he's onscreen one feels the complete weight of a man of faith who has undergone years and years of struggle. The role of Father Ferreira, the lost mentor, is one in desperate need of gravitas, and Neeson wears it well.
Liam Neeson's lone Oscar nomination is for this absolutely essential historical drama. One of the greatest American films of all time, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a money-obsessed German industrialist who becomes an unlikely savior of Jews during the Holocaust. Unquestionably Steven Spielberg's most personal film, shot in stark, documentary-style black-and-white and giving audiences an unflinchingly honest look at the brutality of this time in history, Schindler is filled to the brim with gripping performances, from Ralph Fiennes' SS commandant Amon Goth to Ben Kingsley's soulful turn as Itzhak Stern. However, Liam Neeson brings the whole film home in an eleventh hour scene where Schindler breaks down about the infinite further lives he could've saved. It's the finest moment in the actor's career, and one of the most quietly shattering scenes in cinema history.
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March 22, 2021 at 04:30AM
