The 16 Best Will Smith Movies Ranked

Will Smith has long been one of the most successful, popular stars in Hollywood, voted as its most bankable in 2009 by Forbes.com. He started as a rapper, winning four Grammys and getting nominated for another four from the 1980s through the 1990s. He then transitioned to acting, starting with everyone's favorite 1990s sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," before going on to movies. He's since been nominated for two Oscars and five Golden Globe awards. His charm, magnetic personality, and versatility as an action star, comedic actor, and dramatic performer have allowed him to carry a wide variety of films. 

Of course, just because a movie is popular doesn't make it a critical success. While Smith has gotten plenty of accolades, not all of his projects are highly ranked on Metacritic.com, a review aggregator site that averages together critics' reactions into a single score from 0 to 100. Indeed, a number of them have been ranked in the 20s and 30s on that site. That said, Smith's sheer charisma has always had the ability to raise the level of the material given to him. Let's take a look at Will Smith's 16 best-reviewed films on Metacritic, starting from lowest to highest.

"Men in Black II" hit screens in 2002, five years after the original. It wasn't quite as good as the first installment, with Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer (via Metacritic) describing it as "a stylish package with not much inside." The film scored an average of 49 at Metascore.com. 

Smith returned as the smooth-talking Agent J, who was having trouble with a series of new partners after Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K retired at the end of the first film. When J brings him out of retirement in order to help him investigate an alien murder, their chemistry remains intact, even as the overly convoluted plot dominates the film and distracts from Smith and Jones' relationship. Rosario Dawson was fun as a waitress named Laura who turned out to be much more than she seemed. Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Knoxville chewed the scenery to pieces as the alien villains. 

Despite its flaws, the movie was a success, making over $400,000 worldwide. Still, it wasn't the cultural phenomenon the first one proved to be. This isn't surprising for an action movie sequel, since these movies usually tread the same ground as the original, and that was certainly true here. Still, Smith's charm was just as potent in his role as he was in the first film.

2015's "Concussion" was a dramatic role for Will Smith. He portrayed Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who established a link between chronic traumatic encephalopathy and former football players. The National Football League shunned him and pressured him to leave his home in Pittsburgh, but he was ultimately vindicated. Smith reported that he felt "conflicted" at first in taking this role, as he loved football and his son Trey played it. He shadowed Dr. Omalu and watched him perform brain autopsies to fully understand the role. 

"Concussion" got middling reviews, with a score of 55 on Metacritic.com. Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic wrote, "Smith's performance, in which he resists the urge to go over the top, and the subject matter make 'Concussion' an interesting movie, but not the urgent one it could have been." Steve Persall of The Tampa Tribune said, "As usual, Smith makes a compelling hero to follow, modestly righteous, prone to those frustrated outbursts making for good awards show clips." He wasn't wrong about that, as Smith earned a Golden Globe nomination for this role.

2012's "Men in Black III" was Will Smith's first movie in four years, as he returned to his most dependable blockbuster series. The third time wasn't the charm, however. Production was difficult, and the movie failed to make back its $250 million budget from its domestic haul, though it did make over $620 million worldwide. Perhaps reacting to the tepid reviews for "Men in Black II," Smith reportedly was exacting on set and involved in rewrites, delaying the process for a movie that didn't have a completed script when it started filming. The film's elaborate story involved Smith's Agent J going back in time to work with a younger version of Agent K (uncannily played by Josh Brolin) and required a whole stable of writers to have it make sense and keep it funny. 

Although this effort didn't pay off commercially, the critical results were much better: It received an aggregate score of 58 on Metacritic.com. The Globe And Mail's Rick Groen said that "Delight, a modest yet palpable measure of the stuff, is restored." Vulture's David Edelstein noted, "The finished product is in a different league than the whompingly terrible 'Men in Black II' — it hits its marks. But it's not inventive enough to overcome the overarching inertia, the palpable absence of passion." This isn't surprising for a third entry in a series with a fairly thin premise, especially one that depended so much on the charisma and chemistry of its stars, but it's clear that Smith did his best to make it hum.

Will Smith's first big hit was 1995's "Bad Boys," a buddy cop movie with Martin Lawrence. With a modest budget of $19 million, Sony banked on the young star of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" as an action hero, and they were right. It made over $140 million worldwide. It seems impossible to imagine now, but the film was originally meant to star Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey. 

Co-star Martin Lawrence was cast first, and he chose Smith to be his co-star five minutes into a dinner they spent together. He told EW, "It was one of the best decisions I ever made." Though the "Bad Boys" movies were formulaic and poorly reviewed, there was no denying the crazy chemistry between Smith and Lawrence as squabbling partners.

Twenty-five years later, 2020's "Bad Boys for Life" was released to mostly positive reviews, yielding a 59 on Metacritic.com. Released in January, it was one of the last big hits before the global pandemic shut down movie theaters, and it earned over $400 million worldwide. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "It's a bumpy ride for sure, but Smith and Lawrence haven't lost their irresistible mojo and 'Bad Boys for Life' plays like a blast of retro '90s action. It's like they never left." Smith himself told Variety, "Of all the movies I've done, when people walk up to you on the street and say, 'Hey man, when are you gonna do another one?' It's 'Bad Boys.'" 

While "Bad Boys" made Will Smith a star, his role as part of an ensemble cast in the mega-hit "Independence Day" blasted him into the stratosphere. Starring as a charismatic, cocky young Air Force pilot named Steven Hiller, he stole every scene he was in, especially the famous "Welcome to Earth" sequence where he punched out an alien. "Independence Day" made over $800 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. 

This was very much a popcorn movie and didn't have pretensions to be much else, but it's where Smith cemented his cool but charming persona. He didn't seem to take himself too seriously while he was out there beating up aliens. Considering that the studio had to be talked into hiring an actor best known for his lightweight television sitcom and rap career, his overnight success was astounding. 

It earned an aggregate score of 59 on Metacritic. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum said, "It's the first futuristic disaster movie that's as cute as a button." Janet Maslin of The New York Times said it was hard to resist Smith "because the Captain, like Indiana Jones, is so unflappably tough." The mix of humor, action, and surprises was perfectly suited to Smith's skills as an actor.

In 2007's "I Am Legend," Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a scientist determined to find the cure for a plague that has wiped out most of humanity and turned the rest into bloodthirsty vampire creatures called Darkseekers. It was based on the classic science-fiction novel by Richard Matheson, although the version released in theaters deviated significantly from the original story. In the theatrical version, Neville sacrificed himself to save the cure and the two immune humans who joined him. In the alternative version on DVD, Neville realized that the Darkseeker leader was looking for his lover, making a butterfly shape with his hands referring to her butterfly tattoo. To his horror, he realized that he was a monster to them, after killing and experimenting on so many of them for years in his attempt to craft a cure. 

Both endings were decidedly downbeat and unusual for a blockbuster action film. In addition, Smith had the challenge of being either by himself or just with a dog throughout much of the movie. The movie was still a success, bringing in over $585 million worldwide. The Village Voice's Scott Foundas said, "In what has been a pretty remarkable career up to now, it's this performance that fully affirms Smith as one of the great leading men of his generation." Comparing Smith to Tom Hanks in "Cast Away," Reelviews' James Berardinelli noted, "Will Smith pulls off this half-insane role perfectly."

After establishing himself as a box-office star, Smith upped his game with 1998's "Enemy of the State," a conspiracy/surveillance thriller that paired with screen titans Gene Hackman and Jon Voight. Smith expressed a lot of enthusiasm about co-starring with Hackman, telling The Morning Call, "It's exhilarating to sit across the table from Gene Hackman and know he's not going to miss a line. He's not going to stumble. Everything that comes out of his mouth is dead on the bull's-eye. You sit there wondering, 'How close can I come to that?'"

The film followed Smith's character, a lawyer named Robert Dean, as he got involved in a cover-up of a murder by a rogue faction of the government dedicated to expanding surveillance (in some ways, the film was rather prescient). Hackman played an ex-operative who assisted him in striking back against the conspirators, who were led by Jon Voight's character.

"Enemy of the State" was a hit, making over $250 million worldwide. It earned a decent 67 on Metacritic.com's review aggregator. "Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott have wisely set their course by Will Smith, who is sensational in a dramatic role that leans on him to carry a movie without the help of aliens or Big Willie-style jokes for every occasion," noted Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. Most of the critics noted that the plot was absurd, but it didn't matter because of Smith's wit and chemistry with Hackman.

The highest-ranked Will Smith film on Metacritic.com is one of his earliest, 1993's "Six Degrees of Separation." Based on the play by John Guare, it cast Smith against type as a smooth, erudite hustler who finagled his way into the lives of wealthy New Yorkers by claiming to be Sidney Poitier's son. Known at that time as the star of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," portraying a bisexual con man was a big leap for Smith. He was so intent on doing a good job with the role that he claimed he used the method acting technique: He not only inhabited that character all the time, he also fell in love with co-star Stockard Channing, since his character was in love with hers. He said that he "got a taste early of the dangers of going too far for a character." (Though his method acting didn't extend as far as kissing a male co-star, as one scene required). 

The film received an average score of 72 from Metacritic.com. The Seattle Times' Misha Berson wrote: "A resonant moral conundrum tripling as a wry social satire and an armchair mystery, 'Six Degrees of Separation' has been transferred to the screen with intelligence and panache, if some initial disorientation in the jumpy opening sequences." Smith took a chance and it paid off, as other directors in Hollywood paid attention to his work ethic and attention to detail.