Film Junk Poll: What is the Best Brad Pitt Movie?

Posted by on November 28th, 2012   Filed under: Polls

It’s been a pretty quiet year for Brad Pitt, especially when compared to 2011, but with the release of Killing Them Softly coming this weekend, his year-long drought is finally about to end. I thought I’d take this opportunity to spark some discussion about the man’s filmography and the wide variety of performances he has given throughout his career. Needless to say, it was difficult to come up with just ten choices and I fully expect plenty of bellyaching in the comments over omissions. The hardest decision will be whether or not to go with a film where he stole the show or one where he worked with a great ensemble cast. What do you think is the best Brad Pitt movie? Cast your vote in this week’s poll and then sound off in the comments below.

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  • Eric C.

    Although Fight Club is my favorite movie of those listed, his performance in 12 Monkeys is what truly endeared me to Pitt’s range as an actor and ability to fit the role given him so well. It was then re-affirmed with Snatch, Seven, Fight Club, and Inglorious Basterds. So…12 Monkeys gets my vote.

  • Ovenball

    Damn. Tough poll.

  • Kai

    Se7en

  • Colin

    What’s in the booooooooooooox?!

    Oh, a vote for Fight Club.

  • Colin

    His ability to always be eating in Ocean’s 11 is solid gold, though.

  • bard

    Probably the easiest poll you have ever posted.

    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

    I don’t know how ANYONE who has seen this movie could choose anything else. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a perfect movie, and I really hope the guys watch it again since Dominik directed Killing Them Softly.

  • Tony

    I am surpised no one mentioned Kalifornia…

    Hell of a good movie…

  • La Menthe

    This is almost impossible. Pitt is such a great actor, with so many great films (many of them among my all-time favorites). He is young and short-tempered in the dark detective thriller Se7en; fanatically hyperactive and mentally ill in the mystery sci-fi 12 Monkeys; confident and reckless as Tyler Durden in the coming of age drama Fight Club; an amusing Irish Gypsy boxer in the hilarious gangster comedy Snatch; devil-may-care and food-eating (later, in the third film, heavy-drinking) as Rusty in the highly entertaining and awesome Ocean’s films; the caring and emotionally ruined husband in the drama Babel; the calm and exhausted outlaw in the depressing and visually gorgeous western The Assassination of Jesse James; the immature personal trainer and wannabe-spy Chad in the spy satire Burn After Reading; the sentimental Benjamin who lives his life backwards in the romantic masterpiece The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; and the comic book type lieutenant Aldo Raine in Tarantino’s amazing WW2 spaghetti western Inglorious Basterds.

    His best performance? Babel and TAOJJ.

    His best film? That’s a tough one. I finally ended up with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Inglourious Basterds and Snatch following closely behind.

  • Kasper

    Pitt has the most impressive career of any major Hollywood actor I can think of, both past and present. It’s incredible he hasn’t received some sort of backlash.

  • http://www.coolmovieguy.com Damien Valley

    I haven’t seen all of them but from the ones I have seen I’d say Fight Club.

    Brad Pitt really is one of those actors who can do almost nothing wrong. I hate to gush all over him but if anyone in Hollywood deserves it it’s him.

    I can’t wait to see Killing Me Softly this weekend.

  • La Menthe

    Which brings me to another question: Where the hell is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button!? I know you can have only 10 films in a poll, but surely Benjamin Button is much, much better than Burn After Reading – not to mention The River Run Through It.

  • kyri

    Ironically Sean gave it a 4/4 and Burn after reading a 2.5 :D

    You just can’t win with these polls Sean, maybe you should stop doing them.. :)

    (I Kid)

  • bard

    I’m so sick of Fight Club being rated so highly.

  • Beerdude

    Thelma & Louise!

    Im a little confused by these polls. Is it the performance I like the most or the movie? I guess the first.

  • mrhorse

    it’s fight club, obviously

    @13 what is up with your hate why the hate why so much hate

  • mrhorse

    @7. oh man i knew i’ve missed something! thank you

    i concur. & the lady with the bob hair, she was great ..there’s a pilot with her as protagonist – alas, the series was’t to be.

  • devolutionary

    What! No Cool World? haha just kidding. As far as performance, I too would have to go with Assassination of Jesse James but it’s not my favourite Brad Pitt movie.

  • bard

    mrhorse, the movie is just okay. I’d say a 3 out of 4. The movie is just simply overrated. It was a product of it’s time and it doesn’t hold up. The ideas of the film are pretty juvenile and I think it’s main fanbase are probably 18-25 year old boys. I’m a 26 year-old guy and I “outgrew” it a few years back.

    I have no problem with people liking it or anything, there is just no way that it’s perfect or even near the top half of Pitt’s better movies.

  • La Menthe

    I agree with @13. It’s not a hate, and he is right. Fight Club is a good film, but people are making it to be a much better film than it is (I too thought it was a masterpiece like everyone else when I was 15, but that time has past). Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Se7en, all by Fincher, are better than Fight Club.

  • La Menthe

    @12 Thx for stating that fact. Now you just made me even more pissed off of Sean.

  • http://lior20.wordpress.com/ Lior

    Well, actors polls are almost always impossible, aren’t they?

    Just a shout out to Interview with The Vampire, a magnificent, layered, performance by Pitt. One of the best portrayals of a vampire on screen, and the movie that made me first take note of him as a serious actor.

  • Kasper

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is decent at best. Starts poorly and ends poorly. Only the middle with young-Pitt is interesting – to me anyway.

  • http://www.granateseed.com/futilepodcast Ian

    BP essentially plays one type of character, and he does it best in “Fight Club.”

  • La Menthe

    @22

    I guess I’ll have to defend this film now =P

    Being that I seldom am impressed by romantic films (the other two that I enjoy more than TCCOBB is Amelie and Punch-Drunk Love), I was shocked how Fincher swept me off the floor with this film and made me cry like a baby the three times I watched it in the theater (and this is a film I definitely suggest you to see on the big screen). Even if you leave the film bitter, you cannot deny your love for the technical aspects of the film. The make-up is top-notch, and the age progression of the actors is done incredibly well. The costume design is also fantastic. The film had the best aesthetics in a movie in years, a wonderful atmosphere and a great interaction between several good actors (mainly between Blanchett and Pitt). The scenography is marvelous (Blanchett’s sexy dance for Pitt in a park in Manhattan, Pitt’s interactions with Tilda Swinton in Murmansk, or Blanchetts short moment with a Russian gentleman out in the beautiful city during the winter, are just a few examples of this), and the cinematography and lightning is absolutely perfect. The soundtrack, composed by none other than Alexander Desplat, captures the poetic atmosphere of the film and the romanticism of the different time-periods amazingly.

    Forget all those dull life-wisdoms and just enjoy the film for what is: a visual masterwork of a romantic epic about two characters from the 1920′s up until today, and the passionate journey they go through. Its depiction of life, love and the things we love in a extremely graceful, not to mention simple, manner. It’s not trying to feed you with intricate themes, but just a beautiful portrayal of our finer moments in life, and how we only think about them when life comes to an end.

  • La Menthe

    A weird fact: usually friends of mine that are more into art-films, and have a general distaste for Hollywood films, and their clichés and banalities (especially the sentimentalities in romantic films), are ironically into this film. The average Hollywood audience, however, doesn’t like it so much.

  • mrhorse

    Posted by bard on November 29th, 2012 >
    It was a product of it’s time and it doesn’t hold up. The ideas of the film are pretty juvenile and I think it’s main fanbase are probably 18-25 year old boys. I’m a 26 year-old guy and I “outgrew” it a few years back.

    no, no and no.
    yuh, you outgrew a movie about a girl, that you’ve watched when you were ..what, 14-16.

    Posted by bard on November 29th, 2012 >
    [..]or even near the top half of Pitt’s better movies.

    ..this is a tip off.

    Posted by La Menthe on November 29th, 2012 >
    Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Se7en, all by Fincher, are better than Fight Club

    no, not even seven. you know why? because consumerism is a better theme than a christian killer. because the story was more interesting, the dialogue was better, the scenes were better, the acting was better, ..everything was better in fight club. that’s enough of me saying stuff, responding to you affirming the contrary. i hope you’ll watch it again just to prove me wrong :)

    @23 that’s pretty much it. although i would say that he surprised me in moneyball – excellent acting there

  • Alex

    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

  • Steve

    Tree of Life is not his coolest performance, but it is his best. He’s come to actually have great range in my opinion, and with each film I like him more and more. Just give him a strong script and he always delivers.

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