The 25 Best Samuel L. Jackson Performances, Ranked

Samuel L. Jackson is practically peerless and one of our most prolific living actors. He's brought his signature brand of charisma to films spanning a number of genres. While he may have peaked somewhat later in his life, Jackson has remained a reliable screen presence for the last 30-plus years. He's a master of every aspect of a given actor's toolkit — he can be fierce, steely, comforting, conflicted, intimidating, righteous, and more. His cinematic presence is indelible, and some of his most beloved roles almost outshine the man himself. He is one of the most quotable and recognizable actors alive, and has worked with some of the best filmmakers to have ever walked this earth (he also happens to be one of the highest-grossing actors of all time). Though it wasn't broadcast, Jackson was finally recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures with an honorary award in 2021.

Jackson's filmography is a doozy. To try and summarize it succinctly would be a fool's errand, but here are 25 of his finest turns, ranked from least (amazing) to greatest.

One of Samuel L. Jackson's few out-and-out farces, "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1" is a laugh-a-minute riot along the lines of the "Naked Gun" series or National Lampoon's other genre spoofs like "Hot Shots." This type of lunacy can be an acquired taste (Roger Ebert deemed it pointless, calling it "quotation, not satire"). He's referring, of course, to the "Lethal Weapon" buddy cop franchise, itself already self-aware with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Jackson co-stars with Emilio Estevez as a pair of Los Angeles detectives investigating a conspiracy around a recipe that converts cookies into cocaine. Sight gags, celebrity cameos, and pop culture references are densely packed into the comedy's speedy 83-minute runtime. It's all incredibly silly — but that's exactly the point. Jackson plays it straight, which makes all of the flick's ridiculousness even funnier. Keep an eye out for appearances from the likes of William Shatner, Jon Lovitz, Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, Charlie Sheen, Bruce Willis, and more.

A controversial offering from Paramount's short-lived "indie" imprint Paramount Vantage, "Black Snake Moan" stars Samuel L. Jackson as retired blues guitarist Lazarus Redd and Christina Ricci as Rae Doole, an ailing and debauched young woman living in the deep South. Craig Brewer's follow up to the acclaimed "Hustle & Flow" collides Jackson and Ricci's characters due to tragic circumstances. Redd chooses to try and rid Doole of her compulsions by chaining her to a rusty radiator. What unfolds is somewhat queasy, as Ricci spends most of the film's runtime unclothed or scantily-clad, and Redd's underlying compassion is partly puritanism and condescension. In the end, they both find redemption and solace.

The sexual politics of the movie are complicated, to say the least (and the film's promotional efforts did it no favor in making it appear any less unseemly), but its worth checking out if only for the remarkable work done by Jackson and Ricci, who shoulder most of the film's runtime more than capably.

"The Caveman's Valentine" heralds the second partnership between Samuel L. Jackson and director Kasi Lemmons, after "Eve's Bayou." Jackson stars as Romulus "Rom" Ledbetter, a homeless paranoid schizophrenic and former musical prodigy living inside of a cave who rants on sidewalks during the daytime. Lemmons' directorial decisions in depicting Rom's mental illness are both haunting and humane, and Jackson delivers some strong work as the unlikely protagonist of this underrated murder mystery. As in the novel by George Dawes Green (who also wrote the screenplay), Rom happens upon the frozen corpse of a gay vagrant in a tree in the park where he lives. As Rom pursues the truth about the young man's death, he finds himself drawn into a twilight world of extreme wealth and depravity.

The narrative allows for explorations on artistry, inspiration, class disparity, and stigmatism around mental illness. In his Master Class, Jackson elaborated on the film and his understanding of Rom. "He can't handle [his] success ... and the reason that he comes up with is a made-up guy who lives in this tower in New York that shoots rays into his head to the point that he can't touch a piano because it's painful ... you are a source of shame for people who pass by you every day and don't do anything to help you, whether they admit it or not."

This list would be risible without an acknowledgement of Samuel L. Jackson's contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho Nick Fury. For the purposes of this list, we've selected one of the franchises' high points, 2012's "The Avengers" (not for nothing, it's also one of the few MCU pictures that gives him a decent chunk of screen time). Jackson opens the film in an exposition-dense and somewhat underwhelming action sequence, but he shines in his moments aboard the helicarrier as he manipulates the rag tag group of heroes into abating their bickering and unite as a team.

Jackson's Fury has appeared in varying capacities in eleven Marvel Studios films to date, and while he's great in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Captain Marvel," "The Avengers" remains that magic moment where Kevin Feige and the brain trust at Marvel crystalized their blockbuster formula. For those who may be unaware, Jackson taking the role was practically predestined. In the 2002 Marvel comic "The Ultimates" from writer Mark Millar (who also created "Kingsman") and artist Bryan Hitch, Fury was reimagined in the spitting image of Jackson. Rather than take legal action for using his likeness, Jackson was flattered and more than game to step into the character's leather duster and eyepatch for the game-changing post-credits scene of "Iron Man."

Stephen is right up there with Samuel L. Jackson's most terrifying and despicable characters. The house slave is fiercely loyal to Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, also eschewing any semblance of empathy or dignity) to the point of being a race traitor. As Jackson is wont to do, in "Django Unchained" he undergoes a dramatic physical transformation, glowering under old age prosthetics and a white wig.

Unsurprisingly, "Django Unchained" was the subject of much discussion upon its release, with some criticizing the Stephen character for exploiting the "Uncle Tom" stereotype. Jackson's frequent collaborator Spike Lee minced no words in expressing his distaste for the film, writing in a now-deleted tweet, "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them." However you feel about the film's messy politics and downright reckless treatment of its subject matter, one thing you cannot deny is that Jackson is a frightening presence that stays with you long after the lights come up.

Samuel L. Jackson leads this grunge-era satire from Reginald Hudlin ("House Party," "Boomerang") which boasts an absolutely bonkers supporting cast (Jeff Golblum, Damon Wayans, Jamie Foxx, Jon Lovitz, John Rhys-Davies, Cheech Marin, and others). In one of his hammier performances (but not quite "The Spirit"-levels of ridiculousness), Jackson plays the scheming boxing promoter Reverend Fred Sultan. In describing the Reverend's distinctive look for "The Great White Hype," Jackson told The AV Club, "The director wanted me to look like Don King, and everybody knew who Don King was. But I didn't want to be Don King. I wanted the man to be Rev. Fred Sultan, so I decided to make him look like Julius Caesar. So I had a white, silvery Julius Caesar haircut underneath the turbans and all that."

The laughs in "The Great White Hype" come as fast and hard as the boxers' jabs, and the film's commentary on race, celebrity, and greed in late 20th-century America is as potent as smelling salts. Hudlin spares no punches (pun intended) and ridicules each and every character. The result is hugely entertaining and depressingly relevant to this day despite its abject '90s-ness.

Though Samuel L. Jackson only plays a supporting role in this 1991 drama, he leaves a lasting impression as "Gator," the crack-addicted brother of Wesley Snipes' Flipper. He steals the scene in every moment he appears in Lee's incendiary exploration of interracial relationships.

His twitchy, profound performance was a deeply personal one for the actor. As recounted to Esquire Magazine, Jackson was "two weeks out of rehab. I'd been smoking cocaine for a year and a half, two years, and I understood the nature of the disease. I had done the research. So when I started talking to Spike about it, I said, 'You don't see him high that much. You always see him when he needs something. He's on a mission to get some s**t. That's what I wanna do.' And that was my breakthrough. That got me into Hollywood. It was the perfect marriage of experience and opportunity." For his incredible work, the prestigious Cannes Film Festival revived their Best Supporting Actor award to commend Jackson for his performance.

An impassioned film from Spike Lee's latest wave of socio politically-conscious films, "Chi-Raq" tackles the issue of gang violence in Chicago's south side, dubbing it "a reality TV urban murder show" (via Complex). In an inspired decision, Lee's angle on the hot button subject takes the form of a modern update on the ancient Greek play "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes. In both the play and film, the women of the city (or city-state) take a vow of celibacy to punish the violent men in their society in hopes of bringing an end to warfare.

Samuel L. Jackson serves as a narrator/emcee of sorts for the broad musical comedy, monologuing in a kind of half-rhyme. Tonally, the movie's closest point of comparison might be Baz Luhrmann's 1996 interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet," but "Chi-Raq" is distinctly Lee's joint through and through. No one does social commentary quite like Lee, and "Chi-Raq" is no exception. It's also notable as one of only two collaborations between Jackson and Lee since 1991's "Jungle Fever," as the latter had a falling out with the actor over the use of racial epithets in his films with Quentin Tarantino.

Though he primarily only features in this international coproduction's framing device, Samuel L. Jackson nevertheless makes a strong impression in "The Red Violin." This sumptuous indie is a centuries-spanning anthology chronicling the titular instrument as it passes from hand to hand in the lives of its diverse cast of characters. The origin of the violin is shown in 17th century Cremona, Italy. When a gifted luthier arrives home to find his wife dead and child stillborn, he lacquers a new violin in her blood. The film's second flashback features another tragedy, this time taking place in a Viennese orphanage in the late 18th century. A young Jason Flemyng (fresh off of "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels") stars in the movie's third episode, a doomed romance set against the backdrop of 19th century English nobility. The next chapter in the violin's life takes the audience to Maoist China, before finally circling back to Jackson's auction appraiser in modern day Montreal, where he learns of the instrument's sordid history.

"The Red Violin" is a sterling example of Jackson's ability to excel in everything from mega-budget blockbusters to arthouse fare and everything in between, and an indelible tribute to the transformative power of music.

By 1993, Samuel L. Jackson had already appeared in a handful of mainstream blockbusters ("Goodfellas" and "Patriot Games," for example), but he really popped off in Steven Spielberg's game-changing crowd-pleaser "Jurassic Park." As the harried InGen chief engineer John "Ray" Arnold, Jackson chain smokes and sweats his way through the film's second and third acts. Jackson serves as an audience surrogate — smart enough to know something terrible is imminent but resigned to go along for the ride regardless, while David Koepp's screenplay provides him with some of the film's best lines.

It's a shame that Hurricane Iniki prevented Jackson from being able to complete filming on his death scene, as his absence is definitely felt when he essentially walks offscreen. Descriptions of his demise in Michael Crichton's novel, however, are available. One wishes audiences could have heard Jackson's spin on Arnold's parting kiss-off to the velociraptor that's pursuing him: "Too bad, buddy."

In retrospect, M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" was ahead of its time — a masterclass commentary on comic book superheroism. The somber, grounded film presaged the deconstructions and realistic tones that would become de rigueur after the comic book blockbuster boom. Bruce Willis stars as David Dunn, a stadium security officer with a crumbling marriage. After he's the inexplicable sole survivor of the Eastrail 177 train crash, Dunne is sought out by Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Price, a comic book obsessive afflicted with Type I Osteogenesis Imperfecta. Price's extremely brittle bones are the opposite of Dunne's seeming invulnerability. He believes they are a fated dyad of sorts, two sides of the same cosmic coin.

Jackson's chemistry with Willis is as strong as ever in "Unbreakable" (less so in the long-promised follow-up "Glass"). Like many Jackson characters, Price has a penchant for purple and dressing stylishly. In a panel at New York Comic-Con celebrating the film's tenth anniversary, Shyamalan revealed that he and Jackson took inspiration for Price's unique haircut from the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass (via CBR). If you've somehow never had "Unbreakable" spoiled for you, suffice to say that Price's fragility belies a terrible secret.

The jerry curl. The handlebar mustache. Bellowing one minute, staid, determined, and quiet the next. Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winnfield embodies all of "Pulp Fiction's" quirks and contradictions. In what is likely his most iconic role, Jackson is perfectly cast as Quentin Tarantino's hitman-turned-philosopher. It would be an understatement to say that Jackson crushes every scene he's in, and Tarantino wisely gives him a series of brilliant monologues (incidentally, the bible verse Jules quotes in the beginning is completely fictional). In Jackson, Tarantino found the ideal vessel for his trademark foul-mouthed verbosity.

"Pulp Fiction" opens and closes with Jules — he is the heart of the film and the wellspring of its skewed morality. The movie also wisely gives Jackson ample room for comedy in its third chapter. Who amongst us hasn't found themselves quoting, "Goddamn, Jimmy! This is some serious gourmet s**t!" or, "I'm a mushroom cloud laying motherf***er, motherf***er!" The role of Jules would cast a long shadow over Jackson's career, with many of his subsequent roles banking on a similar attitude and bearing (no complaints here).