12 Best Seth Rogen Movies & TV Shows, Ranked

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Seth Rogen has come a long way from his start in critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged shows like "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared," as well as his blink-and-you'll-miss-it film debut in the 2001 cult hit "Donnie Darko." It certainly helped that those two shows were produced by Judd Apatow, who went on to make some of the best comedies of the 2000s and brought Rogen along for the ride. 

Not that Rogen wouldn't have made it just fine on his own, but his knack for surrounding himself with strong collaborators in Apatow and Evan Goldberg only strengthened his acting output while helping him branch out into writing, directing, and producing. For someone who sometimes gets unfairly dismissed as a stoner comedy guy, Rogen has amassed an incredibly strong filmography of movies and TV shows, with most of his best work being the projects he was also heavily involved in the creation of. 

That said, some of his best acting performances have come when he was just an actor and nothing else, including a few that even garnered Oscar buzz. So impressive is Rogen's body of acting work that we had to make some pretty tough cuts for this list and leave off a few beloved films, simply because there were just too many good ones to include them all.

In summer 2020, stock market Redditor and YouTuber Keith Gill decided to do a little experiment with the failing GameStop stock. What followed was Gill and his followers discovering just how arbitrary and easily manipulable stock values really are — as well as exposing the ways that the wealthy use that manipulation to make themselves richer and essentially set stock prices and values to whatever they want them to be. The 2023 movie "Dumb Money" is a fictionalized retelling of those events, with Paul Dano playing Gill.

Among the other real people named as characters in the movie is businessman Gabe Plotkin, who wound up losing hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the GameStop stock shenanigans. Plotkin is played by Seth Rogen and positioned as a villain in the film, which isn't typically Rogen's wheelhouse. But he does great as the ever-nervous Plotkin. And though "Dumb Money" was a box office bomb, it later blew up on Netflix, finding the audience it deserved and letting more people see one of Rogen's most unfairly overlooked performances. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Pete Davidson

Director: Craig Gillespie

Rating: R

Runtime: 104 minutes

Where to watch: Disney+

A lot happened in the making of "Steve Jobs," with the troubled production going through multiple directors and lead actors before finally landing on Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender, respectively. Further complicating things were the two other Steve Jobs films that were released two years prior — the more serious-minded "Jobs" and the satirical "iSteve." In the end, 2015's "Steve Jobs" was unanimously hailed as the best of the movies about the Apple co-founder, thanks in no small part to Seth Rogen's Oscar-worthy performance as Jobs' frenemy Steve Wozniak. 

Though Rogen had been in more serious-leaning movies before, he still tends to be one of the funnier characters even in primarily dramatic films. That is not the case with "Steve Jobs." Rogen isn't there so that Wozniak can deliver a scene's punchline or otherwise bring levity. In fact, some of his later showdowns with Fassbender's Jobs are quite intense, with Rogen more than holding his own against Fassbender's considerable talent. With the exception of "The Fabelmans," this is certainly Rogen's best and most committed performance of any character that he didn't help to create or write. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet

Director: Danny Boyle

Rating: R

Runtime: 122 minutes

Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

An online company called OnBuy claimed to do a study which concluded that 2007's "Superbad" is the funniest movie ever, according to science. Before you even hear the details of the so-called study, how it was conducted, or what kind of company OnBuy is, you probably still read that first sentence and went, "Yeah, I can buy that." There is hardly a single wasted moment in "Superbad," and you'd be hard-pressed to find any stretch of the movie longer than two or three minutes that doesn't contain a laugh-out-loud moment — and those are probably the stretches that were unfunny on purpose.

Seth Rogen wrote "Superbad" with childhood pal Evan Goldberg back when the pair were still teenagers. They culled some of their own misadventures as troublemaker Canadian youths, and combined them with a bit of wish fulfillment and whatever else they thought would be funny. Jonah Hill is clearly the stand-in for a young Rogen, as he embarks on a raunchy quest for debauchery in the final stretch of his high school years with his best friend (Michael Cera). Rogen does appear in the film, as good-natured cop Officer Michaels, but it's a small role, which is why "Superbad" appears so much lower on this list of Rogen's acting output than it otherwise deserves. 

Cast: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Seth Rogen

Director: Greg Mottola

Rating: R

Runtime: 113 minutes

Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

"Kung Fu Panda" is not only one of the best DreamWorks Animation movies, it's one of the finest animated movies of the last 20 years, period. Like the cream of its genre, it doesn't talk down to kids and trusts them to enjoy what is actually a very old-fashioned martial arts epic — albeit one with talking animals. Also like the greatest animated films, it appeals almost equally to grown-ups as well. And one of the things only adults notice in "Kung Fu Panda" are all the huge stars that voice characters in the movie.

Kids know Jack Black and David Cross, but how many youngsters in 2008 were aware of Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, Angelina Jolie, or Lucy Liu? And they certainly shouldn't have recognized the voice of Seth Rogen, as he had just come off a string of extremely R-rated comedies. He plays Master Mantis in a performance that is refreshingly dry and subdued — a far cry from other voice roles like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "Monsters Vs. Aliens," in which he was seemingly cast just to deliver his loud, lovable doofus persona. There isn't a bad "Kung Fu Panda" movie in the bunch, but the first one is certainly the best showcase for Rogen's character. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman

Directors: John Stevenson, Mark Osborne

Rating: PG

Runtime: 92 minutes

Where to watch:  Prime Video, Apple TV

It's easy to assume in retrospect that 2005's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was destined to be a box office smash. In fact, Seth Rogen didn't expect it to hit with the mainstream, figuring it was yet another of his and Judd Apatow's projects that would be adored by a small group of fans but go largely ignored by everyone else. That obviously didn't end up being the case, and the film's huge success made household names out of both star Rogen and writer-director Apatow.

While Rogen's Cal is definitely a standout in every scene he's in, and the film is a great early showcase for how effortlessly Rogen slips into a comedic ensemble, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is primarily a Steve Carell showcase from start to finish. He's absolutely perfect as Andy, who seemed happy to live a contented life lacking in physical intimacy until his co-workers find out he's never had sex. Cal, David (Paul Rudd), and Jay (Romany Malco) then make it their mission to get Andy laid, at which point the sweet single mother Trish (Catherine Keener) unfortunately becomes the focus of their scheme. 

Cast: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Catherine Keener

Director: Judd Apatow

Rating: R

Runtime: 116 minutes 

Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV

Though Judd Apatow's "Funny People" was meant to be sort of the filmmaker's first crack at a more serious movie, it was still pretty heavily stuffed with laughs. After all, it was about comedians, one of whom was played by Seth Rogen. So Rogen had to wait a couple of more years, until "50/50," to star in his first dramedy that went pretty heavy on the drama. In fact, the 2011 film — based on the true story of the movie's writer, Will Reiser — involved him playing the friend of a man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who finds out that he has cancer and, as the title suggests, has a 50/50 shot at surviving.

It was the first time Rogen was in a movie that had a big presence during award season and even got Oscar buzz. Of course, that should have happened earlier, but most major award ceremonies don't take comedies seriously. While Rogen was definitely the "funny friend" in "50/50," he still turned on the dramatic acting chops when he needed to and proved incredibly adept at doing so. It was clear to anyone watching "50/50" that he was one of those comedic actors who could successfully transition to drama if he wanted to. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anna Kendrick

Director: Jonathan Levine

Rating: R

Runtime: 100 minutes

Where to watch: Peacock

Once Seth Rogen got going on his movie career, he mostly left television behind, save for popping up in small cameos here and there. Minor recurring roles in "The League" and "Arrested Development" marked his only significant small-screen roles until he appeared in Hulu's 2020 sci-fi series "Future Man," which he also executive produced. But once he hooked up with Apple TV+, Rogen found TV shows really worth sinking his teeth into.

The first of his Apple TV+ shows was "Platonic," which debuted in 2023. Rogen co-stars with the criminally underrated — particularly for her comedic chops — Rose Byrne as a pair of old friends who reconnect after having previously drifted apart. With any other show that had that premise, you'd assume that Will (Rogen) and Sylvia (Byrne) would get together in the end. But the genius of "Platonic" is that it doesn't take that obvious route. Instead, the show just follows the hilarious misadventures of two friends who simply stay friends. 

As co-creator Francesca Delbanco told TV Insider, "I love 'will they/won't they' kind of shows and movies. It's one of my favorite genres. But it's just not what we're doing on this one." And "Platonic" is all the better for it. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Luke Macfarlane

Creators: Francesa Delbanco, Nicholas Stoller

Years aired: 2023-2025

Number of episodes: 20

Where to watch: Apple TV

Those who knew and worked with eccentric, mysterious actor-filmmaker Tommy Wiseau swear that he was trying to make a serious romantic drama with 2003's "The Room." But when Wiseau saw how people were reacting to it — by laughing at it — he claimed he meant it to be a black comedy all along. If the former is true, Wiseau still deserves credit for just embracing the movie's fate as a bizarre, so-bad-its-good masterpiece and riding it all the way to the movie's shockingly large financial return of about $30 million and counting.

It's the kind of story that deserves a making-of documentary. But since we were unfortunately robbed of that — as there wasn't a crew around to chronicle the making of "The Room" — we have to settle for a fictionalized account that's based on a book written by one of the movie's stars. The result is 2017's "The Disaster Artist," directed by and starring James Franco as Wiseau, with his brother Dave playing the aforementioned actor-turned-author, Greg Sestero. Seth Rogen plays Sandy Schklair, who was credited as the script supervisor but would later claim — and "The Disaster Artist" backs this up — that he was the movie's second director as well. 

It's a brilliantly polished film that tells the story of a splendidly chaotic movie, and the best film that Rogen and James Franco ever made together. It's also their penultimate collaboration: Rogen only made one more movie with Franco before the two became estranged over the misconduct allegations that came out against in Franco in 2018.  

Cast: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Dave Franco, Ari Graynor

Director: James Franco

Rating: R

Runtime: 103 minutes

Where to watch: Cinemax (via Prime Video)

With "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," Judd Apatow had the benefit of seemingly coming out of nowhere for a mainstream audience that was mostly unfamiliar with him. But he no longer had the luxury of being an underdog with 2007's "Knocked Up," which for the first time in his career came with actual expectations and something to prove. And — to go for the easy pun about a movie in which a woman gets pregnant and eventually has a baby — Apatow delivered.

Of course, Apatow doesn't get all the credit for how big of a critical and commercial success "Knocked Up" was. He realized, before anyone else did, that Seth Rogen had the goods to be the male lead of a romantic comedy. Rogen's performance as Ben, who is sort of stumbling his way through a man-child type of existence until he's forced to grow up after his one-night stand with a woman named Allison (Katherine Heigl) results in her getting pregnant, doesn't get the acknowledgment it deserves for the ways it demonstrated Rogen's range. But this isn't a one-man show, and Heigl deserves her fair share of the credit for making "Knocked Up" such a hilarious — and surprisingly heartfelt — modern rom-com classic.

Cast: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd

Director: Judd Apatow

Rating: R

Runtime: 129 minutes

Where to watch: Netflix

The second Apple TV+ project that Seth Rogen made after "Platonic" is not only the better show, but one of the best things he's ever done, period — not just as an actor, but also as writer, director, and producer. "The Studio" is simultaneously a devoted love letter to and biting condemnation of Hollywood, though it definitely leans much more towards the latter. The long and impressive list of cameos dominated the initial trailers and publicity for the 2025 show, but it's really all about the core cast of Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders, Kathryn Hahn, and Bryan Cranston.

Rogen plays a man who finds himself in charge of a movie studio that has long since passed its glory days and is intent on turning things around. In his review of "The Studio" for NPR, Eric Deggans put it very well when he wrote that it "feels like the culmination of everything Rogen has endured in a career ranging from writing for The Simpsons to co-directing a movie that sparked threats of war from the North Korean government." 

Rogen has been around Hollywood for a long time now, has worked on incredibly successful projects and some major failures, and has landed on every point of the spectrum of critical and public opinion. So he's perhaps more suited than almost any working actor at the moment to know how to lead a show like this and do it with such authenticity. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz

Creators: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, Frida Perez

Year aired: 2025

Number of episodes: 10

Where to watch: Apple TV

You know you're doing something right when you go from making movies like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" to starring in a Steven Spielberg film — and not only that, but playing a meaty and complex role that isn't at all the comic relief. That's what happened when Seth Rogen was cast in Spielberg's loosely autobiographical 2022 film "The Fabelmans" as Bennie, playing a version of Bernie Adler, who really did have an affair with Spielberg's mother and subsequently became his stepfather — and the person most supportive of Spielberg's filmmaking dreams — until Adler's death in 1995. 

It was definitely a special role to entrust Rogen with, and he knocked it out of the park. It's hard to picture him playing paternal roles like this despite the fact that he's old enough to do so, but "The Fabelmans" proved that the actor can definitely transition into the "dad phase" of his acting career now if he chooses to. He probably won't, at least not for a while, but he's already shown a remarkable talent for it. 

Cast: Gabriel LaBelle, Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano

Director: Steven Spielberg

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 151 minutes

Where to watch: Amazon, Apple TV

While the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" brand has seen multiple successful refreshes of its television presence, none of the IP's many films have managed to recapture the magic of the first one, released way back in 1990. But people were certainly excited by the visual style of 2023's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," and the fact that it was being co-written by — as the trailers proclaimed him — "eternal teenager Seth Rogen." Even after being burned time and time again by mediocre to awful "TMNT" films, skepticism still ran high.

The result was not only the best-reviewed "TMNT" movie in history, but remarkably, the best-reviewed of Rogen's career in general. As co-writer, Rogen clearly came at this as a "TMNT" superfan, albeit one who also understood how to modernize the property just enough to make it appeal to new fans while also not alienating the OGs. As an actor, Rogen helped himself to the role of longtime fan favorite villain Bebop, whom Rogen embodies so perfectly that it'll be hard to ever accept the character with anyone else's voice ever again. 

Cast: Seth Rogen, Ayo Edebiri, Micah Abbey, Brady Noon

Director: Jeff Rowe

Rating: PG

Runtime: 99 minutes

Where to watch: Netflix, Paramount+