In a career spanning several decades, George Clooney has appeared in plenty of massive blockbusters, but he also has some underrated gems. Clooney’s most popular movies include the Ocean ‘s trilogy, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Gravity and many more. His good looks and charisma have made him a bankable leading man in a variety of genres, but not all his movies get the love they deserve.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt are set to team up once more for Apple TV’s new action-comedy Wolfs, in which they play two combative fixers forced to work together. While Wolfs is already generating plenty of excitement, some of Clooney’s movies have managed to fly under the radar in his career. Looking back at Clooney’s career, there are plenty of underrated comedies, sci-fi movies and actioners which deserve a second chance.
10 Solaris (2002)
Kelvin
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Director Steven Soderbergh Release Date November 27, 2002 Cast George Clooney , Natascha McElhone , Viola Davis , Jeremy Davies , Ulrich Tukur , John Cho
Solaris is the second big-screen adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s seminal sci-fi novel, after Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 version. Director Steven Soderbergh wanted to produce a more faithful adaptation, rather than trying to match Tarkovsky’s idiosyncratic approach. Solaris was a box office bomb, proving to be slow-paced and cerebral for general audiences, but its vision is admirable.
Solaris
was a box office bomb, proving to be slow-paced and cerebral for general audiences, but its vision is admirable.
Solaris doesn’t fit the mold of most big-budget sci-fi movies, since it has no action sequences. The space station and the alien planet are often being used as devices to enhance the personal tragedy of the story, and they fall away into being background details. What Solaris does have is a sense of thoughtful grandeur. It doesn’t use its outer-space imagery for cheap thrills. Every decision Soderbergh makes reflects Kelvin’s troubled state of mind.
9 Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Mr. Fox
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Director Wes Anderson Release Date November 13, 2009 Cast George Clooney , Meryl Streep , Jason Schwartzman , Bill Murray , Willem Dafoe , Owen Wilson
Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of Wes Anderson’s best movies, but it marks the only time that the director has worked with George Clooney. Based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox follows a fox trying to settle down and raise a family, despite the fact that he can’t resist the excitement of his past as a chicken thief. Anderson’s script takes liberties with Dahl’s book, spinning a simplistic fable into a heist thriller and a moving family drama.
Clooney plays the titular fox, and his deep voice is perfect for capturing the tired, mature side to the character.
Clooney plays the titular fox, and his deep voice is perfect for capturing the tired, mature side to the character. Still, he retains an element of impish optimism that’s hard to resist. Fantastic Mr. Fox was Wes Anderson’s first stop-motion animated movie, and the medium gave him full license to tailor every detail to his liking. The result is a richly inventive take on a popular story with artistic flourishes and wry sight gags in every corner of the frame.
8 Burn After Reading (2008)
Harry Pfarrer
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Director Ethan Coen , Joel Coen Release Date September 5, 2008 Cast George Clooney , Frances McDormand , Brad Pitt , John Malkovich , Tilda Swinton , Richard Jenkins
Burn After Reading deserves more love as an underrated Coen brothers movie. It hasn’t achieved the same level of popularity as some of their biggest hits, including George Clooney’s O Brother, Where Art Thou, but it’s a wonderfully complicated comedy with some great performances. Clooney plays a womanizer whose paranoid tendencies get the best of him in a strange game of espionage without any real spies.
Burn After Reading
gives Clooney one of his best comedic roles, and he rises to the occasion.
Burn After Reading gives Clooney one of his best comedic roles, and he rises to the occasion. His scenes with Frances McDormand are a joy to watch, but he is at his best when his character is left alone with his own paranoid delusions. Clooney knows how to say a lot with a raised eyebrow or a silence that lingers for a second too long, and the audience can see his frantic thought process playing out in real time.
7 Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Miles Massey
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Director Joel Coen , Ethan Coen Release Date September 2, 2003 Cast George Clooney , Catherine Zeta-Jones , Geoffrey Rush , Cedric the Entertainer , Edward Herrmann , Paul Adelstein
Intolerable Cruelty sticks out as an oddity among the Coen brothers filmography, since it plays out as a more mainstream romcom than the duo would usually create. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a highly sought-after divorce lawyer who has a reputation for protecting the assets of his clients even when facing a mountain of evidence. Catherine Zeta-Jones stars opposite him as a woman with a history of marrying for money.
Clooney and Zeta-Jones share an intoxicating dynamic in
Intolerable Cruelty
.
Clooney and Zeta-Jones share an intoxicating dynamic in Intolerable Cruelty. Although the movie mostly sees marriage through the lens of its financial and legal implications, the chemistry between the two leads is a reminder of what love and romance should be about. This highlights the absurd bureaucracy with which modern society treats marriage, which is a joke that runs throughout Intolerable Cruelty.
6 The Monuments Men (2014)
Lieutenant Frank Stokes
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Director George Clooney Release Date February 7, 2014 Cast George Clooney , Matt Damon , Bill Murray , Cate Blanchett , Bob Balaban , John Goodman
During the Second World War, German forces looted countless artworks as they sought to expand their empire. The Monuments Men tells the incredible true story of a group of American soldiers who were tasked with recovering the missing art in Europe. George Clooney stars as the group’s leader, and he is supported by an impressive cast including Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman.
The Monuments Men
has plenty of funny moments, but it also raises some interesting debates about the role of art and culture within society.
The Monuments Men has plenty of funny moments, as any movie with so many comedic talents is bound to have, but it also raises some interesting debates about the role of art and culture within society. While millions were fighting on the front lines, some people saw the Monuments Men as a uniquely frivolous organization, concerned with preserving paintings rather than human life. The Monuments Men shows the importance of art and cultural heritage, underlining the way that war can crush the most joyous parts of the human spirit.
5 Out Of Sight (1998)
Jack Foley
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Director Steven Soderbergh Release Date June 26, 1998 Cast George Clooney , Jim Robinson , Mike Malone , Donna Frenzel , Manny Suárez , Dennis Farina
Three years before his first appearance in the Ocean’s franchise, George Clooney starred in another heist movie by Steven Soderbergh. Clooney plays a career bank robber who starts a flirtatious back-and-forth with the U.S. Marshal tasked with bringing him to justice. He and Jennifer Lopez share a fiery repartee, with Clooney the more playful and laid-back of the two.
He and Jennifer Lopez share a fiery repartee, with Clooney the more playful and laid-back of the two.
Out of Sight has a more farcical tone than Ocean’s Eleven, but the two movies share a lot of similarities. Jack Foley and Danny Ocean are both charismatic criminals who the audience can’t help but root for. Still, Out of Sight is sexier and more dangerous. It’s a must-watch for fans of the Ocean’s trilogy, but it’s a great crime comedy on its own merits, and it marked a turning point in Clooney’s career.
4 The American (2010)
Jack/ Edward
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Director Anton Corbijn Release Date September 1, 2010 Cast George Clooney , Violante Placido
George Clooney gets to try his hand at being an action star in The American, although the movie isn’t as fast-paced and thrilling as fans of the espionage genre have come to expect. The American is more John le Carré than Ian Fleming, and more interested in tension than action. The script drags out the long periods of waiting, although it does occasionally give way to frantic bursts of violence.
The American
treats its audience to some stunning Italian locations, but its approach to the espionage genre is otherwise much less glamorous.
The American treats its audience to some stunning Italian locations, but its approach to the espionage genre is otherwise much less glamorous. The protagonist, who changes his name to blend in, is a man doing his job, and Clooney gives an astutely subdued performance. He is still interesting to watch, but he dials back his charm. The American shows a slightly different side to his acting skills.
3 Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Baird Whitlock
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Director Ethan Coen , Joel Coen Release Date February 5, 2016 Cast Josh Brolin , Channing Tatum , Tilda Swinton , George Clooney , Scarlett Johansson , Frances McDormand , Jonah Hill , Ralph Fiennes
George Clooney leads a brilliant ensemble cast in Hail, Caesar, a Coen brothers comedy set in the glory days of Old Hollywood. Josh Brolin plays a studio fixer who is charged with keeping a long list of pampered stars out of trouble and out of the tabloids. Clooney plays one of the many actors giving him grief, along with Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson and many more.
George Clooney leads a brilliant ensemble cast in
Hail, Caesar,
a Coen brothers comedy set in the glory days of Old Hollywood.
Hail, Caesar has a fairly loose structure. The main story concerns Clooney’s character being kidnapped by a group of Communist Hollywood writers who try to convince him of their ideology. This plot is juxtaposed by more whimsical vignettes of the hectic studio. These scenes play out like comedy sketches, with Alden Ehrenreich standing out as a gruff Western actor who finds himself struggling to keep up when he’s cast in a P. G. Wodehouse-style comedy-of-manners.
2 The Midnight Sky (2020)
Augustine Lofthouse
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Director George Clooney Release Date December 23, 2020 Cast Sophie Rundle , Kyle Chandler , George Clooney , Demián Bichir , Miriam Shor , Felicity Jones , Ethan Peck , David Oyelowo
The Midnight Sky is a post-apocalyptic disaster movie directed by and starring George Clooney. He plays a scientist who has dedicated his life to finding habitable moons and exoplanets, until a mysterious crisis on Earth decimates the human population. He makes it his mission to contact a spacecraft on its way back home so that he can warn the astronauts not to return to Earth.
T he Midnight Sky
has an intriguing sci-fi story to back up the visual splendor.
The Midnight Sky is a slow-paced drama, drawing visual parallels between the vast emptiness of space and the bleak landscape of the Arctic Circle. Clooney’s direction throws up plenty of awe-inspiring images, but The Midnight Sky also has an intriguing sci-fi story to back up the visual splendor. The big twist may resolve some of the emotional drama, but it leaves several enticing mysteries unsolved.
1 Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)
Jim Byrd
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Director George Clooney Release Date December 31, 2002 Cast Sam Rockwell , Drew Barrymore , George Clooney , Julia Roberts , Rutger Hauer
George Clooney’s directing career started off strong with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which tells the story of Chuck Barris, as he sees it. Barris was a game show host and TV producer in the 1960s and 1970s who invented The Gong Show and The Dating Game. He claimed in his autobiography that he was also an assassin for the CIA who used his job in TV as cover.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
doesn’t debate the veracity of Barris’ autobiography. It simply treats it as a great story.
Barris’ claims have been denied by the CIA, and most people see it as little more than an entertaining fantasy from a man who spent his life in show business. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind doesn’t debate the veracity of Barris’ autobiography. It simply treats it as a great story, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Sam Rockwell delivers a charming performance as Barris, while Clooney plays his suave CIA handler.