Want to know the best Will Smith movies? How about the worst Will Smith movies? Curious about Will Smith’s box office grosses or which Will Smith movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Will Smith movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.
Will Smith (1968-) is an Oscar-winning American actor, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. This page will look at his awesome movie career which has had box office success and critical acclaim. Smith has 14 $100 million dollars when looking at adjusted box office grosses. He has received two Oscar® nominations and 2 Golden Globe® nominations for his movie roles. In April 2007, Newsweek called him “the most powerful actor in Hollywood. His IMDb page shows over 90 acting credits since 1986. This page will rank Will Smith movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows and cameos were not included in the rankings.
Will Smith Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
Will Smith Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Will Smith movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Will Smith movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Will Smith movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort Will Smith movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Will Smith movie received.
- Sort Will Smith movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Check out Will Smith’s career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Steve’s Will Smith You Tube Video
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
For comments….all you need is a name and a comment….please ignore the rest.
Added Steve’s Will Smith You Tube Video To This Page. My thoughts found on his channel.
Mr. Smith Comes To Top Top Charts (a James Stewart reference in case you did not know). I have seen 26 of the 28 movies listed. Only missing #11 Aladdin (which I will see soon) and #8 Six Degrees of Seperation (seen part of it). Favorites would include #2 Indepence Day and #1 Men In Black….both are aging ok. #4 Enemy of the State….always thought the character Hackman was playing was like an older character of the one he played in The Conversation. I like number 3 I Am Legend…but the ending is disappointing. Some of the movies at the bottom of the rankings are truly horrible or so disappointing, looking at….Men In Black 2, Winter’s Tale and Wild Wild West. Good video. Voted up and shared
Hi Bruce, I have Aladdin preordered from Amazon, it looks like colorful fun but Robin Williams was so good as the voice of the genie in the original, I’m curious to see how Will Smith plays him.
I was going to wait until Smith’s new film comes out before doing a video on him but wanted to include him in this wave of videos so I’ve added in a poster for Gemini Man at the very end of the video.
Thanks again for the vote, share and comment, much appreciated.
Will Smith is part of that stable of black male movie superstars [others being the likes of Morgan Freeman, Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington] who have entertained us in the modern era of the cinema following the breaking of the mould by Poitier back in the 1950s and 1960s. Unfortunately they have found no counterparts of equivalent status on a consistent basis among African American actresses.
However the modern era has produced a dearth of female superstars of any description who could be said to be of the ilk of Crawford, Davis, Bergman, Liz Taylor and Monroe etc from the classic era of the cinema. This is borne out in Bruce’s recent book which includes just one modern actress among its perceived 50 greatest stars of ALL TIME [both genders]: Meryl Streep. Furthermore only 5 of today’s actresses are among the 25 women who [on page 16 of the book] are given even an honourable mention outside that top 50 Greatest-Cate Blanchett, Diane Keaton, Julia Roberts, Maggie Smith and Sandra Bullock.
Unfortunately Will Smith is not among the Top 50 in WH’s book nor does Smith get an honourable mention. However Bruce ranks him a fine No 21 in his 25 greatest male screen Legends in the period 1950-2010 and I agree with that assessment [“Big deal!” WH will probably scathingly think after my friendly joust with him over Pesci’s status.]
Moreover Bruce’s stats table on this page are very kind to Will. 16 of his movies crossed the Cogerson magical barrier for individual movies with an adjusted domestic gross of $100 million or more; and Will’s top 20 global hits have a worldwide adjusted gross of around $13 billion, a staggering average of approx $650 per movie – in fact the highest average that I have seen so far in my own calculations of the worldwide figures provided on Bruce’s pages.
IMDB credits Will with 64 acting awards and 130 noms; and if figures quoted by Celebrity Net Worth are accurate it’s possible that Will is the wealthiest African American thespian in history. Consider the current net worth of the following 5 highly successful black male movie stars according to Celeb NW:
Will Smith/$350 million
Morgan Freeman/$250 million- hurray!
Denzel Washington/$220 million-Yes!
Eddie Murphy/$160 million
Sidney Poitier/$25 million
Wesley Snipes/$10 million
African American female entertainers who have been in films but who are more associated with pop music are for example (1) On her recent death Whitney Houston [of Costner’s The Bodyguard] apparently had a DEFECIT net worth of $20 million. (2) Oscar nominee Diana Ross [of the Supremes pop group and the 1972 movie Lady Sings the Blues fame] has a reported net worth of $250 million.
You didn’t have nearly as many films to choose from as you usually do so in your video you have made an excellent [97.5% rated] job with what you did have to work with. These are my personal pick of the POSTERS 1/2nd for After Earth 2/Winter’s Tale 3/Men in Black 2 4/Where the Day Takes Us 5/two for Suicide Squad 6/Focus 7/Bright 8/Hancock 8/Ali 9/Pursuit of Happyness 10/Six Degrees of Separation 11/1st for I Robot 12/set for Men in Black Three 13/Enemy of the State 14/I am Legend [a remake of Chuck’s Omega Man of course] 15/set for Independence Day 16/Set for Men in Black [One] 17/Aladdin When I was about 9 years of age, had never been to the cinema, knew nothing about any of the movie stars and saw Alan Ladd’s name on a local poster or marquee I thought that his movies had something to do with the character Aladdin!
My pick of the STILLS: 1/After Earth 2/Wild Wild West 3/Seven Pounds 4/Men in Black 2 5/Suicide Squad 6/Shark’s Tale 7/Bad Boys 2 8/Focus 9/Hitch 10/Hancock 11/Ali 12/Will with Gene Hackman 13/I am Legend 14/ Independence Day 15/Men in Black [One].
You and WH agree on just 3 of Will’s Top 6 best reviewed [lowest tally I’ve seen for some time between you two]. I was a bit surprised by the gap for the blockbuster Independence Day – your No 2 and his relatively low No 11. [Are his sources patriotic Americans or 5th Columnists!?
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info, stats, trivia and comparison, it is appreciated. Glad you liked the posters and stills.
Whoa looking at your stats Will Smith has done very well for himself. For a while back in the 2000s he was the top box office draw in Hollywood, but it never lasts.
Looking at Bruce’s chart – recent films like Focus, Concussion and Collateral Beauty were not the successes he was used to, but comic book movie Suicide Squad and Disney’s live action remake of Aladdin were megahits and gave him something to smile about.
Smith recently went on twitter celebrating his first billion dollar hit with Aladdin. But if you adjust the grosses for Independence Day and Men in Black, as Bruce has done above, he was already in the billion dollar movie club.
There are no 10 or 9 scorers in Smith’s filmography from my sources. Seven movies scored 8 out of 10 –
Men in Black
Men in Black III
Enemy of the State
Independence Day
I Robot
Six Degrees of Separation
The Pursuit of Happyness
Men in Black tops all the charts including Bruce’s critics and UMR charts. His sources did not like Independence Day, luckily mine did.
Smith on turning down The Matrix – “You know, The Matrix is a difficult concept to pitch. In the pitch, I just didn’t see it. I watched Keanu’s performance – and very rarely do I say this – but I would have messed it up. I would have absolutely messed up The Matrix. At that point I wasn’t smart enough as an actor to let the movie be. Whereas Keanu Reeves was smart enough to just let it be. Let the movie and the director tell the story, and don’t try and perform every moment.”
On Ali’s intense physical training: “I’m human viagra. I’m Willagra. I’m a sex machine now. I’m raring to go every second of the day. My wife’s loving it.”
HI STEVE: Thanks for the thoughtful feedback complete with explanations and quotes. I especially lied the Ali/Willagra one!
As I’ve mentioned before when money’s spent it’s gone and when a business tycoon makes say $100 million today he/she doesn’t think about, or care, that its equivalent 20 years from now might be $500 million. What excites him/her is what he/she has in the bank balance RIGHT NOW.
Accordingly to a certain extent inflation adjustments are just notional: (1) if the money is spent quickly it has no future value for its original earner (2) if on the other hand a tycoon kept for 20 years and didn’t spend the $100 million without getting any interest on it he/she at the end of that period would still have just 100 and not 500 million.
Men in Black’s actual worldwide gross earnings in 1997 were $590 million; Independent Day’s the previous year were $820 million; and Aladdin’s this year are $1.04 billion. Hence as far as Will is concerned he got into the actual “$1billion club” with Aladdin. He’s a new member!
Inflation adjustments are very important to movie buff’s like me and to movie statistical historians because they enable us to make comparisons between the popularity of films and stars with each other over different timespans. However I don’t know whether Variety today adjusts for inflation but it was explained during the 1970s that Variety didn’t then adjust for inflation because Variety catered to a large extent for the movie financial community and the producers/financial backers were interested in only actual earnings. Variety also published just rentals and not full grosses back when I used to subscribe to it because the makers and backers of films only got the rentals and the remainder of the grosses were kept by the cinemas.
Certainly if I were Will I’d have broken out the champagne when I am Legend completed its run in 2007, earning an actual worldwide gross of some $585 million, because it was the first of his movies to exceed an actual HALF a billion. I’d love to be a member of even the actual “half billion club -wouldn’t you?
“Dad I’m going down to the prestigious club that has just made me a member.” [Then turning back to his father before leaving the apartment] “So if anyone is looking for me the rest of the evening I’ll be at my club. Heavens-I’ve been waiting all my life to be able to say that!” Frasier TV sitcom aired 21 March 1995
Hey Steve…Aladdin was a hit for sure….but almost half as many people saw it (when looking at ticket sells) in comparison to Independence Day. ID will probably end up being his biggest hit in his career…..not thinking anything bigger is coming…especially with Aladdin being so far behind. Good stuff.
Hey Bob….thanks for the thoughts on Mr. Smith. I can see Smith working his way into the Top 50….but he needs to have a very good next decade. I think his upcoming Gemini Man will have a lot to do with his future movies. Gemini Man would have been a huge hit back in his prime. Aladdin and Suicide Squad made a ton of money, but were not loved by many…and pretty much was either a supporting or ensemble role. Gemini Man is all Will Smith (heck it is two Will Smiths)….and will show how powerful is box office clout is now. Good stats. Good thoughts. Good stuff.
HI BRUCE
A good, thoughtful feedback – many thanks.
As possibly the richest black movie star ever, with a reported $350 million private stash, any success Will has from now on will be icing on the cake for him.
Hey Bob…I agree.
The DC people need to be thanking Will Smith. Without his star power Suicide Squad would have been a disaster. The reviews are horrible. Regular movie goers are not too impressed with the movie. Yet Smith is bringing butts to the seats.
Hey Arch….I am sure Will Smith fans helped out Suicide Squad this weekend. I think his international fans will really help out this movie…thanks for the comment and the visit.
1 Will hasn’t had a biggie since MOB 3 in 2012 and his last two movies in particular had dismal grosses domestically with his most recent flopping everywhere. I did though enjoy Focus.
2 Also his average overall grosses of 173 is massive. One of the biggest in your charts?
BOB
Hey Bob….his drop off might explain some of the lack of views…..I still find it strange how quiet this one has been. Maybe The Suicide Squad will generate some good will for him and for this page…lol.
His average is awesome….using a minimum of 20 movies….he is 4th….behind Harrison Ford, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews and then Smith…Suicide Squad might make that average go up even more. We will know the answer to that question this time next month.
Hey, Bruce.
Saw that this page was updated.
I also saw the reference to how few views this page gets and you are right about that.
When does Will’s next film come out?
Hey Flora…thanks for helping out little Will….he ended up with 24 views yesterday…..which at least got him to triple digits here at UMR.com. It is amazing which pages picked up or dropped off after the moves….this one for sure is one of the ones that dropped…and dropped badly.
Suicide Squad will be here in less than a month….it is a superhero movie so it should do well.