These are the best Will Ferrell movies, according to science.
Written by Doug Norrie
What is Will Ferrell’s best movie? It feels like Will Ferrell has been around forever, and in many ways, it seems like he’s been playing the same character since he hit the scene in the early 2000s. That’s fine with me because I could watch this person read the phone book and laugh.
Fans spend a lot of time debating which Will Ferrell movie is the best, but we came up with a definitive ranking using statistics. In order to enter this list, the Will Ferrell movie had to finish more than 50% in critical agreement, Ferrell had to have something similar or close to the role played in the film, and we do not include any voice work.
We did the math, and these are the best Will Ferrell movies.
1. The Elf | 2003
Will Ferrell’s most reviewed and perhaps the most popular movie in the world. The Elf it has become an important holiday season for my family and many others. The story of Buddy, an abandoned “elf” who makes a missing object in New York have hilarious consequences. Elf is a consistently good movie, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and a heartwarming story.
In fact, it’s weird that I’m even this “low” on the Tomatometer and without spouting cliches about lumps of coal in the bad stock of reviewers (I did anyway). Those who give it the thumbs down are simply wrong.
2. Some Boys | 2010
Some Boys opens with a happy flourish, casting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel Jackson as do-give-af@#$ cops who take down bad guys, unleash brutality and make girls fall for them. their deaths almost before the opening credits are finished.
In steps Ferrell as a bean-counting, law-abiding cop alongside his hot partner in Mark Wahlberg. Some Boys it has a lot of one-liners, an amazing dynamic between the two leads, Michael Keaton TLC references, and a lot of laughs. It could easily have been a stupid mess, but they pulled it off. I will never tire of the running gag movie featuring Eva Mendes as Will Ferrell’s wife.
3. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues | 2013
A rare sequel that surpasses its predecessor in the eyes of critics, Anchorman 2 get the gang together to spin again in the wonderful world of “stories”. This Will Ferrell sequel didn’t stray too far from the path that worked the first time and, this time, I suspect the critics knew what they were getting into early on.
The team is as funny as ever, the humor is still on top and the 24 hour news world has never been full of slack.
4. Everything Must Go | 2010
I think that on a technical level, Everything Must Go it’s a comedy, but it’s really a story about loss and redemption. Ferrell, from a character standpoint, doesn’t stray too far from what he’s done in the past but this one has enough sour to go with the sweet.
He plays a struggling salesman, who gets drunk after his wife leaves him and throws everything on the front lawn. What follows is that Ferrell is living somewhere between the things he once loved, drinking to the point of oblivion and becoming friends with the boy next door who is more than his own. It’s a touching story and one of Will Ferrell’s best performances in a movie.
5. Stranger than Fiction | 2006
Marketed as a comedy, this Will Ferrell movie is actually a fun story about a guy who lives the life of the character the author wrote the story about, except they both live in the same reality. Get it? It plays smoothly enough on screen, but doing this kind of convoluted and overlapping story without going into too much space-time stuff was almost an accomplishment in itself.
As a lovable loser, Ferrell is very much in his own story as he “wanders” through a world that plays out on paper in front of someone else. See what I mean? It’s confusing.
6. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby | 2006
Did this Will Ferrell movie do more for auto racing than anything in the actual history of the sport, or set NASCAR back a decade? It’s hard to say.
Ferrell and running mate John C. Reilly lay it all bare with a romp that goes off the rails just as much as it packs a laugh. In many ways, this reveals the almost delusional nature of Ferrell’s work. It’s full of shameless ads, borderline offensive descriptions of racecars, stuntmen, and stupid jokes. It’s still working. The scene where Ricky Bobby says kindness is almost worth the price of admission itself.
7. Blades of Glory | 2007
You’ll notice that Will Ferrell films like to take conceptsthis time, sports, and made films about the subculture. Heck, we won’t even get there Semi-Pro (22%), but these types of films are the hallmark of Ferrell’s career.
In Blades of Gloryputs on skates and plays Chazz Michael Michaels, who wishes to return to figure skating after a lifetime ban. So he meets Jon Heder, who just started Napoleon Dynamiteand they put on a skating show very much in line with what two guys like these would do on the ice.
8. The campaign | 2012
Ferrell has plenty of political satire under his beltafter playing a version of George W. Bush in the 2000s and beyond Saturday Night Live and in his one-man play, Welcome, America. As far as funny presidential runs go, it might be the most remarkable.
Here, he and Zach Galifianakis play rivals, and Ferrell actually does that “W” impersonation under a different name as a US Congressman. In an ever-increasing series of campaigns, the two faced off in another mockery of Ferrell, this time in the election process and the core political system.
If Will Ferrell’s films feel so close to home in the way they portray these institutions, it’s because he has a knack for poking fun at the elite. The campaign may be the best example of that strategy.
9. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy | 2004
In Anchorman, Will Ferrell takes us through his emotional journey through this cult and box office favorite about the halcyon days of San Diego’s nightly news. When all is said and done, Ron Burgundy may go down as Ferrell’s most memorable character, which is really saying a lot considering the list above.
He gives a wonderful performance as the womanizing, mahogany-loving, jazz-playing leader of the nightly news crew. The Anchorman you go so, so, so far over the top (Brick killed the boy!) that you almost lose sense of reality. In a good way.
10. Step Brothers | 2008
Ferrell and John C. Reilly have collaborated on three movies that have been widely released, but it feels like more. Maybe that’s because whenever they do, it’s such a tour-de-force of abject silliness that it seems like we’ve watched a thousand hours of it.
Here, they are as “close” as ever as middle-aged boys who eventually become brothers. While they inhabit the bodies of fully grown adults, they are just as oblivious children as you would expect them to be.
Does Ferrell Speak Respectfully
I didn’t add these three Will Ferrell movies to the main list because technically he didn’t have a starring role in any of them, but he certainly steals every scene in all three. Whether it’s Frank the Tank playing, Mugatu planning to rule the fashion world, or Chazz Reinhold yelling at his mom to cook him meatloaf, Ferrell seems to come out as a star in all three.
old school
Zoolander
Wedding Crashers
Source link
