One of the most popular movie stars working in Hollywood, Ryan Reynolds movies contain some of the best box-office and streaming successes of the past decade. Reynolds' status as a superstar has been hard-fought since he began working in the 1990s. His eventual success is a testament to the fact that no matter how big someone seems to get "overnight," it's likely it took years to reach that peak. After an early career in television — including a leading role on the amusingly titled Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place -
Reynolds made his breakout debut in the 2002 National Lampoon movie Van Wilder, putting him on the map as a disarmingly handsome star with impeccable comedic timing. Ryan Reynolds' movies tend to vary, and the actor has an impressive catalog. Much of his career saw Reynolds genre-hopping from rom-coms to action flicks to more serious drama (sometimes within the same movie). While he was always pegged as an untapped talent even in the biggest of flops, it was 2016's Deadpool that arguably cemented his status — but Wade Wilson is far from the only Ryan Reynolds role.
42 R.I.P.D. (2013)
- Streaming on Netflix & Peacock+
The actor spent many years trying to get a comic book role done right, and one of these Ryan Reynolds movies was with the supernatural comic book series R.I.P.D. The movie followed a Boston police detective killed during a drug bust who ended up a ghost enlisted to the R.I.P.D., a police agency from the afterlife that hunted down creatures threatening the real world. Reynolds teamed with Jeff Bridges, a former Wild West lawman, and they set out to save the world. The movie ended up as a box office bomb, making only $78.3 million on a budget of almost $154 million. Add in its 12% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it ended up as one of Reynolds's biggest flops.
41 Self/Less (2015)
- Streaming on Hulu
After making the brilliant sci-fi films The Cell and The Fall, Tarsem Singh directed Ryan Reynolds in the mind-twisting Self/Less. Sadly, as brilliant as the previous two movies were, this specific movie took the interesting premise and ended up veering off into a disappointing direction. Ben Kingsley plays a billionaire industrialist who contracts cancer and undergoes a procedure to transfer his consciousness to a healthy body (Reynolds). The intriguing setup quickly turns into a mostly generic action movie. The film barely made back its budget and had rotten scores from critics and the audience both on Rotten Tomatoes, despite its premise.
40 Fireflies in the Garden (2008)
- Rent Now On Apple TV & Prime Video
In this Ryan Reynolds movie, the actor plays a novelist who, while visiting his Midwestern family, learns that his mother (Julia Roberts) has ed away, teeing up a grief drama of the dysfunctional family sort. The movie itself had a stacked cast outside of Reynolds, with Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, and Carrie-Anne Moss all appearing in the movie. Fireflies in the Garden uses a lot of flashbacks, as the melodrama tells the story of the three generations of the family and the fact that none of them had ever really gotten to know each other. The movie was a bomb, making only $3.5 million at the box office, with an $8 million budget.
39 The Amityville Horror (2005)
- Streaming on Showtime
One of the more disappointing Ryan Reynolds movies was the remake of the iconic 1979 horror movie, The Amityville Horror. It's the expected collection of jump scares and things that go bump in the night, except this time augmented with early-aughts CGI and a disparaging lack of subtlety. The true story that inspired The Amityville Horror remains haunting, and Reynolds cuts a nice leading man figure, but he's mostly the standard horror movie lead, moving from one predictable scare to the next. To its credit, the movie was a financial success, making $109 million on an $18.5 million budget.
38 The Change-Up (2011)
- Streaming on Prime Video
In one of the more broadly comedic Ryan Reynolds movies, Jason Bateman and Reynolds take part in this male version of Freaky Friday. Bateman plays a lawyer and family man while Reynolds a slacker, and much of the movie's fun comes from seeing the actors switch roles and play against type. Alas, there's little else remotely inspired in The Change-Up — when a movie's wittiest parts are its most scatological, there's not much to champion. With a lackluster box office and poor reviews, the movie couldn't survive despite the lead actors' charisma.
37 Green Lantern (2011)
- Streaming on HBO Max
One of the most unfortunate Ryan Reynolds movies in the superhero genre is Green Lantern. Director Martin Campbell seems entirely at a loss here, with the tone all over the place and Reynolds bouncing from snarky to noble. The action sequences drenched in CGI and a green color palette never looked right, and the hero's spandex jumpsuit became a meme. What is most telling was that Green Lantern was supposed to be the start of the DCU, but after the movie failed with critics and the audiences at the box office, Warner Bros. hit the brakes and instead ignored it and re-started with Man of Steel.
36 X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- Streaming on Starz
Hugh Jackman brought superhero movies roaring back to life with the original X-Men, but X-Men Origins: Wolverine was one of the low points for Fox's X-Men franchise. This was supposed to be the start of a new series of solo movies based on mutants, but the failure of this one at the box office and with critics ended that quickly. Ryan Reynolds was one of the most disappointing parts. When he was Wade Wilson, he was highly entertaining in the movie. However, when it came time to turn him into Deadpool, the movie sewed his mouth shut and gave him weird powers, and comic book fans rebelled.
35 The Captive (2014)
- Streaming on HBO Max
Atom Egoyan's films have long received mixed reviews for their fragmented and opaque but beautifully filmed and atmospheric qualities. The Ryan Reynolds movie The Captive, a murky tale of a convoluted search for a missing girl, is no different. While it excels whenever it's more focused on mood and on Reynolds' surprisingly serious performance, the aesthetic is too often used to try and disguise an overstuffed, pulpy plot that's just not very engaging. While this was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, it remains one of the mostly forgotten Ryan Reynolds movies.
34 Criminal (2016)
- Streaming on Roku & Pluto TV
In the timeline of Ryan Reynolds movies, Criminal debuted right on the heels of his Deadpool success, and on Gal Gadot's thunderous turn in Wonder Woman, and saw them share a movie years before Netflix's Red Notice. Alas, Reynolds cameos just a few times, and Gadot is unfortunately saddled with the role of the damsel in distress in the story. They are ed by some heavy hitters in Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, and Tommy Lee Jones. Kevin Costner is a serial killer who has the memories of a dead CIA operative implanted in him to attempt to stop a terrorist. Bad reviews and lackluster box office killed its chances for success.
33 Chaos Theory (2008)
- Rent Now On Apple TV & Prime Video
Chaos Theory is a dramatic comedy where Reynolds plays an efficiency expert named Frank who lives his life on a carefully manicured schedule. However, when his wife (Emily Mortimer) mistakenly changes the time on the clock to 10 minutes late, he misses everything and his life starts to fall apart. Reynolds steals scenes as the man who lived a structured life, only to realize he has been living a lie. There is a lot packed into this movie, and it never seemed to hit right, with critics blasting the script. This was one of the Ryan Reynolds movies the studio only gave a limited release before dumping it on home video.
