(Photo by Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection)
All Gerard Butler Movies Ranked by Tomatometer
We’re ranking Gerard Butler movies by Tomatometer! We start with his Certified Fresh, including the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, the sentimental tearjerker Dear Frankie, and 2020’s Greenland. That sci-fi family thriller was his first Certified Fresh non-animated movie since Frankie 16 years earlier, and that led the way to 2021’s equally praised Copshop. Of course, much of Butler’s bread and butter are movies that don’t necessarily hit with critics but have built an enduring, action-focused audience over his career, including 2006’s 300, Rocknrolla, the Fallen series, Law Abiding Citizen, and now Plane. —Alex Vo
#1
Adjusted Score: 107538%
Critics Consensus: Boasting dazzling animation, a script with surprising dramatic depth, and thrilling 3-D sequences, How to Train Your Dragon soars.
Synopsis: Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is a Norse teenager from the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life....
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#2
Adjusted Score: 100541%
Critics Consensus: Exciting, emotionally resonant, and beautifully animated, How to Train Your Dragon 2 builds on its predecessor's successes just the way a sequel should.
Synopsis: Five years have passed since Hiccup and Toothless united the dragons and Vikings of Berk. Now, they spend their time...
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#3
Adjusted Score: 97874%
Critics Consensus: Visceral and visually striking, Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus proves Shakespeare can still be both electrifying and relevant in a modern context.
Synopsis: Caius Martius, aka Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes), is an arrogant and fearsome general who has built a career on protecting Rome...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 94918%
Critics Consensus: Thanks to some top notch acting, the chemistry between its stars, and a witty, thoughtful script, Mrs. Brown delivers a nuanced and entertaining, if not entirely factual, account of a seldom explored historical relationship.
Synopsis: After the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) withdraws from public life, so the court...
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#5
Adjusted Score: 104110%
Critics Consensus: The rare trilogy capper that really works, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World brings its saga to a visually dazzling and emotionally affecting conclusion.
Synopsis: When the sudden appearance of a female Light Fury coincides with the darkest threat their village has ever faced, Hiccup...
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#6
Adjusted Score: 86976%
Critics Consensus: It doesn't add many new ingredients to the genre, but action fans in the mood for an old-school thriller will be happy to buy what Copshop is selling.
Synopsis: On the run from a lethal assassin, a wily con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small-town...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 85195%
Critics Consensus: Dear Frankie is a small, good-hearted film with fine performances.
Synopsis: Frankie (Jack McElhone) does not know his father because his mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), ran away from the abusive lout...
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#8
Adjusted Score: 86831%
Critics Consensus: Beware, comets of Greenland: Gerard Butler is here to protect Earth -- and show audiences an improbably entertaining time.
Synopsis: John Garrity, his estranged wife and their young son embark on a perilous journey to find sanctuary as a planet-killing...
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#9
Adjusted Score: 86285%
Critics Consensus: Suspenseful atmosphere, an evocative setting, and a strong cast keep audiences invested throughout The Vanishing's patient approach to unraveling its mystery.
Synopsis: Three lighthouse keepers arrive on an isolated island off the Scottish coast and find an object that becomes the catalyst...
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#10
Adjusted Score: 86836%
Critics Consensus: Plane charts a standard action-adventure course with its cruising altitude just a few miles above Direct-to-Video -- but with Gerard Butler in the cockpit, thriller enthusiasts will still find this a fun flight.
Synopsis: In the white-knuckle action movie PLANE, pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) saves his passengers from a lightning strike by making...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 70755%
Critics Consensus: A simple-minded but visually exciting experience, full of blood, violence, and ready-made movie quotes.
Synopsis: In 480 B.C. a state of war exists between Persia, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and Greece. At the...
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#12
Adjusted Score: 65610%
Critics Consensus: Mixed reviews for Guy Ritchie's return to his London-based cockney wideboy gangster movie roots, but most agree, it's a step in the right direction following two major turkeys.
Synopsis: Old-school mobster Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) rules London's underworld with an iron fist and a score of well-greased palms. As...
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#13
Adjusted Score: 54466%
Critics Consensus: This adaptation of The Cherry Orchard is too tedious to hold interest.
Synopsis: Set in Russia at the turn of the century, "The Cherry Orchard" chronicles a noblewoman's return to her family estate...
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#14
Adjusted Score: 56734%
Critics Consensus: Despite good intentions, Nim's Island flounders under an implausible storyline, simplistic stock characters, and distracting product placement.
Synopsis: Life is an adventure for a courageous youngster named Nim (Abigail Breslin), who lives on an exotic island with her...
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#15
Adjusted Score: 59076%
Critics Consensus: It's far from original, but Olympus Has Fallen benefits from Antoine Fuqua's tense direction and a strong performance from Gerard Butler -- which might just be enough for action junkies.
Synopsis: The unthinkable happens when heavily armed and highly trained terrorists launch a bold daytime attack on the White House. The...
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#16
Adjusted Score: 51873%
Critics Consensus: Though it presents the war in shockingly gritty, realistic terms, Harrison's Flowers uses such scenes as background for a trite love story.
Synopsis: Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn) is missing on assignment and presumed dead in a far-off country. Refusing to...
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#17
Adjusted Score: 50498%
Critics Consensus: Despite the impressive Icelandic scenery, Beowulf And Grendel fails to find its footing in the transition from epic tale to the big screen.
Synopsis: A Danish king (Stellan Skarsgard) recruits a foreign warrior (Gerard Butler) to battle the vengeful son (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) of...
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#18
Adjusted Score: 47672%
Critics Consensus: Reign of Fire gains some altitude with its pyrotechnic action and a smolderingly campy Matthew McConaughey, but the feature's wings are clipped by a derivative script and visual effects that fizzle out.
Synopsis: In present-day London, 12-year-old Quinn watches as his mother wakes an enormous fire-breathing beast from its centuries-long slumber. Twenty years...
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#19
Adjusted Score: 47967%
Critics Consensus: Den of Thieves pays energetic homage to classic heist thrillers of the past; unfortunately, it never comes close to living up to its obvious inspirations.
Synopsis: Nick O'Brien is the hard-drinking leader of the Regulators, an elite unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Ray...
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#20
Adjusted Score: 47555%
Critics Consensus: Cut from the same rough cloth as its predecessors, Angel Has Fallen rounds out a mostly forgettable action trilogy in fittingly mediocre fashion.
Synopsis: Authorities take Secret Service agent Mike Banning into custody for the failed assassination attempt of U.S. President Allan Trumbull. After...
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#21
Adjusted Score: 43854%
Critics Consensus: Much like the submarine in its story, Hunter Killer cruises the murky action depths, following a perfunctory course into territory that's been charted many times before.
Synopsis: American submarine Capt. Joe Glass is on the hunt for a U.S. sub in distress in the Arctic Ocean. He...
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#22
Adjusted Score: 38327%
Critics Consensus: The music of the night has hit something of a sour note: Critics are calling the screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular musical histrionic, boring, and lacking in both romance and danger. Still, some have praised the film for its sheer spectacle.
Synopsis: From his hideout beneath a 19th century Paris opera house, the brooding Phantom (Gerard Butler) schemes to get closer to...
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#23
Adjusted Score: 36210%
Critics Consensus: It's sweet, gentle, and affably modest, but Chasing Mavericks is ultimately pulled under by an unconvincing script and a puzzling lack of energy.
Synopsis: When 15-year-old surfing phenomenon Jay Moriarty (Jonny Weston) discovers that the mythic Mavericks surf break, one of the biggest waves...
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#24
Adjusted Score: 31618%
Critics Consensus: With all of the hyperkinetic action and none of the flair of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's earlier work, Gamer has little replay value.
Synopsis: Each week Kable (Gerard Butler), a death-row inmate, battles his fellow prisoners in a violent online game called "Slayers," his...
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#25
Adjusted Score: 33066%
Critics Consensus: There's a complex man at the center of Machine Gun Preacher but the movie is too shapeless and emotionally vacant to bring his story to life.
Synopsis: Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a former biker, decides to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil...
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#26
Adjusted Score: 37050%
Critics Consensus: London Has Fallen traps a talented cast -- and all who dare to see it -- in a mid-1990s basic-cable nightmare of a film loaded with xenophobia and threadbare action-thriller clichés.
Synopsis: After the death of the British prime minister, the world's most powerful leaders gather in London to pay their respects....
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#27
Adjusted Score: 32148%
Critics Consensus: Unnecessarily violent and unflinchingly absurd, Law Abiding Citizen is plagued by subpar acting and a story that defies reason.
Synopsis: Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is an honorable family man, until the day his wife and daughter are murdered in a...
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#28
Adjusted Score: 26457%
Critics Consensus: An enthusiastic but ultimately uninspired soccer film.
Synopsis: The U.S. soccer team (Gerard Butler, Wes Bentley, Jay Rodan) are heavy underdogs as they prepare to play the British...
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#29
Adjusted Score: 28635%
Critics Consensus: Hilary Swank is miscast as the romantic lead in this clichéd film about loss and love.
Synopsis: When Gerry (Gerard Butler), the husband of Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank), dies from an illness, she loses the love of...
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#30
Adjusted Score: 29898%
Critics Consensus: Though the sequel is an improvement over the first movie, it's still lacking in thrills.
Synopsis: Fearless explorer Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) tries to locate Pandora's box before criminals Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) and Chen Lo...
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#31
Adjusted Score: 22665%
Critics Consensus: Lacking impressive visuals, well-written characters, or involving drama, Geostorm aims for epic disaster-movie spectacle but ends up simply being a disaster of a movie.
Synopsis: After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world's leaders came together to create an intricate network...
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#32
Adjusted Score: 19107%
Critics Consensus: This retelling trys to offer a different spin on the origin of Dracula. Unfortunately, there's nothing here audiences haven't seen before.
Synopsis: Long ago, Abraham Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer) imprisoned the infamous Count Dracula (Gerard Butler) within a vault inside Carfax Abbey....
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#33
Adjusted Score: 7041%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Fifty years ago, Sir Richard Turkel (Christopher Lee) met disaster while exploring the supposedly cursed tomb of the ancient Egyptian...
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#34
Adjusted Score: 16275%
Critics Consensus: A Family Man has some worthy ideas, but they're bungled in a middle-of-the-road melodrama populated by thinly sketched -- and occasionally downright unlikeable -- characters.
Synopsis: Dane Jensen is a hard-driven headhunter who works at a cutthroat firm. When his boss pits him against the equally...
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#35
Adjusted Score: 22948%
Critics Consensus: Look on Gods of Egypt, ye filmgoers, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of this colossal wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away. (Apologies to Shelley.)
Synopsis: The survival of mankind hangs in the balance when Set (Gerard Butler), the merciless god of darkness, usurps Egypt's throne...
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#36
Adjusted Score: 20678%
Critics Consensus: Despite the best efforts of Butler and Heigl, The Ugly Truth suffers from a weak script that relies on romantic comedy formula, with little charm or comedic payoff.
Synopsis: Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a lovelorn TV producer who, despite a long and arduous search for the perfect mate,...
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#37
Adjusted Score: 17864%
Critics Consensus: Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston remain as attractive as ever, but The Bounty Hunter's formula script doesn't know what to do with them -- or the audience's attention.
Synopsis: Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler), a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter, thinks he's seeing an upswing in fortune when he gets a call...
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#38
Adjusted Score: 17553%
Critics Consensus: This incoherently plotted addition to the time-travel genre looks and sounds cheesy.
Synopsis: While working at the site of an archaeological dig, Professor Johnston (Billy Connolly) stumbles into a wormhole and plunges back...
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#39
Adjusted Score: 11197%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After Will Spann's wife suddenly vanishes at a gas station, his desperate search to find her leads him down a...
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#40
Adjusted Score: 8723%
Critics Consensus: Witless, unfocused, and arguably misogynistic, Playing for Keeps is a dispiriting, lowest-common-denominator Hollywood rom-com.
Synopsis: Long past his soccer-playing heyday, George Dryer (Gerard Butler) is struggling financially and failing in his attempt to reconcile with...
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#41
Adjusted Score: 8409%
Critics Consensus: A star-studded turkey, Movie 43 is loaded with gleefully offensive and often scatological gags, but it's largely bereft of laughs.
Synopsis: Twelve directors, including Peter Farrelly, Griffin Dunne and Brett Ratner, contributed to this collection of outrageous spoofs and stories. A...
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