Pierce Brosnan, as with nearly every other actor who has been the character, is most well-known for his long-standing role as James Bond. He played the character during an awkward period that balanced some great action flicks with some of the worst James Bond moments of all time.
However, he has still had a long and successful career outside of the world of secret agents. Brosnan has taken on a variety of roles in film that give him his due credit as a talented actor. We’ve used his IMDb score averages to compare his five best and five worst roles ever.
WORST: I.T. (5.4)
Not It as in Stephen King’s It, but I.T. as in I.T. Confused? To make things even worse, this Brosnan starring thriller came out just a year before the Stephen King horror remake. It had a limited release which made very little money and garnered a poor critical response, even if Brosnan’s Mike Regan lived in a very cool smart house that we wish was real.
BEST: The Ghost Writer (7.2)
Anything directed by Roman Polanski feels pretty controversial to be involved in after the fact considering this director is hiding in after being found guilty of rape in the United States, but The Ghost Writer was well-received by critics, nonetheless.
Brosnan stars in the political thriller alongside the likes of Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall, and it ended up winning a fair few awards thanks to its excellent critical response.
WORST: Salvation Boulevard (5.3)
Taking influence from just about every genre you can think of, Salvation Boulevard kicks off with Brosnan’s character (an evangelical Pastor called Dan) accidentally shooting Ed Harris’ Dr. Paul Blaylock in the head and having to make it look like a suicide. Despite quite a large budget, the film had a very small release and a poor critical response.
BEST: GoldenEye (7.2)
The fact that GoldenEye is the only James Bond film in a list of the best and worst films that star a man most well-known for quite literally being James Bond is a clear demonstration of just how average Brosnan’s version of 007 was.
His best outing is his first, and it doubles as the first to come up with an entirely new storyline not based on any of Ian Fleming’s novels. Considering this was originally supposed to be another Timothy Dalton film, you’d expect poor reviews, but it ended up becoming unexpectedly well-loved.
WORST: I Don’t Know How She Does It (4.9)
Following his stint as Bond, you might not expect Pierce Brosnan to move towards a career full of strange comedy films, but here we are. He plays Jack Abelhammer as part of an ensemble cast that includes Kelsey Grammer and Sarah Jessica Parker. Its box office response wasn’t terrible, but Parker’s performance did earn a Razzie Award nomination.
BEST: The Son (7.5)
Between 2017-2019, Pierce Brosnan returned to the small screen to star in The Son, based on Phillip Meyer’s 2013 novel. The show, a western drama set over one hundred years in the past, follows a cattle baron named Eli McCullough as begins to involve himself in the oil industry.
Reviews for the show were mixed on the whole, but many of them lauded it as having a grand narrative ed by an excellent performance from Brosnan.
WORST: Urge (4.5)
In 2016, Brosnan took on the mysterious role as The Man in Urge, a thriller directed by Aaron Kaufman. It has an interesting premise with a lot of potential, as a nightclub owner gives a group of friends a new drug. However, it didn’t live up to its own potential, with terrible characters and uninteresting dialogue.
BEST: Oceans (7.8)
Thanks to his suave, recognizable voice, Pierce Brosnan has been able to combine his acting career with one of narration. One of his best roles according to IMDb is his narration of the 2009 documentary, Oceans.
It follows the marine life of each ocean on Earth, looking at the way human activity has impacted the environment.
WORST: Entangled (4.0)
Just a couple of years before he’d land the role of James Bond, Brosnan took on one of the lead roles in Entangled. He plays Garavan in a thriller that looks at what its own tag line describes as the ‘fine line between ion and obsession’. It failed to turn this into anything exciting, and received poor reviews.
BEST: The Simpsons (8.7)
So many actors have had a role in The Simpsons in some form or another that it typically doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to include them in lists of this type. However, Pierce Brosnan has such a great and important role in ‘Treehouse Of Horror XII’ that it has topped his list. He plays the Ultra House 300, a murderous, conscious house who is just as capable of falling in the love with Marge as he is killing her.
