(Photo by Rim/courtesy Everett Collection)

Chow Yun-fat Movies Ranked

We’re ranking the films of Chow Yun-Fat! Let’s start with his Certified Fresh films, including Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and John Woo’s The Killer. Those are followed up with more Fresh Hong Kong action epics like Hard-Boiled, City on Fire, and Full Contact. Yun-fat broke into Hollywood shortly afterwards with late-’90s crime films like The Replacement Killers and The Corruptor, the unfortunate Dragonball: Evolution, and culminating in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. —Alex Vo

#1

The Killer (1989)
95%

#1

Critics Consensus: The Killer is another hard-boiled action flick from John Woo featuring eye-popping balletic violence and philosophical underpinnings.

Synopsis: Mob assassin Jeffrey (Chow Yun-Fat) is no ordinary hired gun; the best in his business, he views his chosen profession [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Danny Lee , Sally Yeh , Kenneth Tsang

Directed By: John Woo

#2

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
98%

#2

Critics Consensus: The movie that catapulted Ang Lee into the ranks of upper echelon Hollywood filmmakers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon features a deft mix of amazing martial arts battles, beautiful scenery, and tasteful drama.

Synopsis: In 19th century Qing Dynasty China, a warrior (Chow Yun-Fat) gives his sword, Green Destiny, to his lover (Michelle Yeoh) [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Michelle Yeoh , Zhang Ziyi , Chang Chen

Directed By: Ang Lee

#3

Hard-Boiled (1992)
92%

#3

Critics Consensus: Boasting impactful action as well as surprising emotional resonance, Hard Boiled is a powerful thriller that hits hard in more ways than one.

Synopsis: A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Bowie Lam , Philip Chan , Tony Leung Chiu Wai

Directed By: John Woo

#4

City on Fire (1987)
85%

#4

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: An undercover cop (Chow Yun-Fat) infiltrates a gang of jewel thieves, but things go terribly wrong during a heist. [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Danny Lee , Yueh Sun , Carrie Ng

Directed By: Ringo Lam

#5

Full Contact (1992)
89%

#5

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat), who works as a nightclub bouncer in Bangkok, saves his friend Sam (Wong Chow-Sang) from a beating [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Simon Yam , Bonnie Fu , Wong Chow-Sang

Directed By: Ringo Lam

#6

Office (2015)
88%

#6

Critics Consensus: With few narrative missteps, Office delivers a soft critique of capitalism elegantly wrapped in a one-of-a-kind, three-dimensional musical.

Synopsis: Following the Lehman Brothers collapse, Miss Chang prepares to list her billion-dollar company on the stock exchange. Before the shares [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Sylvia Chang , Eason Chan , Wei Tang

Directed By: Johnnie To

#7

Let the Bullets Fly (2010)
75%

#7

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: A hoodlum (Chow Yun-Fat) feels threatened by his town's new governor (Wen Jiang), who is really a bandit in disguise. [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Wen Jiang , You Ge , Carina Lau

Directed By: Wen Jiang

#8

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)
65%

#8

Critics Consensus: Melodrama, swordplay, and CG armies -- fans of martial arts epic will get what they bargain for, though the baroque art direction can be both mesmerizing and exhaustively excessive.

Synopsis: In 928 A.D. a power struggle emerges in the palace of China's emperor (Chow Yun-Fat). A cruel man, he is [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Gong Li , Jay Chou , Ye Liu

Directed By: Yimou Zhang

#9

Once a Thief (1991)
60%

#9

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Three art thieves (Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, Cherie Chung) try to re-steal a painting after their crime boss double-crosses them. [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Leslie Cheung , Cherie Chung , Kong Chu

Directed By: John Woo

#10

Anna and the King (1999)
52%

#10

Critics Consensus: Beautiful cinematography can't prevent Anna and the King from being boring and overly lengthy.

Synopsis: Anna (Jodie Foster) has been employed to educate the king's (Chow Yun-Fat) 58 children. She knows very little of King [More]

Starring: Jodie Foster , Chow Yun-Fat , Bai Ling , Tom Felton

Directed By: Andy Tennant

#11

The Corruptor (1999)
48%

#11

Critics Consensus: This uninspiring cop thriller doesn't measure up to Chow Yun-Fat's Hong Kong work.

Synopsis: Martial arts expert Detective Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) teams up with his colleague Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg) to keep several [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Mark Wahlberg , Ric Young , Jon Kit Lee

Directed By: James Foley

#12

Confucius (2010)
45%

#12

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: The life story of the Chinese philosopher. [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Xun Zhou , Yi Lu , Jianbin Chen

Directed By: Mei Hu

#13

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
43%

#13

Critics Consensus: POTC: AWE provides the thrilling action scenes, but mixes in too many characters with too many incomprehensible plot threads.

Synopsis: Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) join forces with Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to free Jack Sparrow [More]

Starring: Johnny Depp , Orlando Bloom , Keira Knightley , Geoffrey Rush

Directed By: Gore Verbinski

#14

The Replacement Killers (1998)
37%

#14

Critics Consensus: Chow Yun-fat makes his dubious English-language debut in The Replacement Killers, a stylish but muddled knockoff of the Hong Kong shoot-em-ups that earned the star his international renown.

Synopsis: Hired assassin John Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) is asked by Chinatown crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang) to murder the young [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Mira Sorvino , Michael Rooker , Jürgen Prochnow

Directed By: Antoine Fuqua

#15

The Children of Huang Shi (2008)
30%

#15

Critics Consensus: This beautifully photographed but dramatically flat war drama recounts an important chapter in history with little cinematic freshness.

Synopsis: In 1930s China, British journalist George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an American nurse named Lee (Radha Mitchell) and a Chinese [More]

Starring: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers , Radha Mitchell , Chow Yun-Fat , Michelle Yeoh

Directed By: Roger Spottiswoode

#16

Bulletproof Monk (2003)
23%

#16

Critics Consensus: Venerable action star Chow Yun-Fat is the only saving grace in this silly action flick that more often than not resembles a commercial in style.

Synopsis: For 60 years, a mysterious monk with no name (Chow Yun-Fat) has zigzagged the globe to protect an ancient scroll [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Seann William Scott , Jaime King , Karel Roden

Directed By: Paul Hunter

#17

From Vegas to Macau III (2016)
20%

#17

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Ken's daughter and his protege Vincent are getting married, and the enormous wedding is being held at a resort in [More]

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat , Andy Lau , Shawn Yu Man-Lok , Psy

Directed By: Jing Wong , Andrew Lau Wai-Keung

#18

Dragonball: Evolution (2009)
14%

#18

Critics Consensus: Executed with little panache or invention, Dragonball Evolution lacks the magic that made the books upon which it was based a cult sensation.

Synopsis: On his 18th birthday, Goku (Justin Chatwin) receives a mystical Dragonball as a gift from his grandfather. There are only [More]

Starring: Justin Chatwin , Chow Yun-Fat , Emmy Rossum , Jamie Chung

Directed By: James Wong

#19

Shanghai (2010)
4%

#19

Critics Consensus: Shanghai is crippled by a weak story and fatally undermined by clunky direction, making for a period political drama that lacks all of its key components.

Synopsis: In the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, an American intelligence official investigates a friend's death in 1941 China. [More]

Starring: John Cusack , Gong Li , Chow Yun-Fat , David Morse

Directed By: Mikael Håfström