Patricia Clarkson Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Patricia Clarkson-whose latest project "She Said" is now playing in theaters.

Patricia Clarkson's Filmography Ranked:

20.The East (D)

19.One Day (D)

18.Miracle (C-)

17.Good Night, and Good Luck (C)

16.Maze Runner: The Death Cure (C+)

15.Jumanji (C+)

14.Welcome to Collinwood (B-)

13.Friends with Benefits (B-)

12.She Said (B-)

11.Far from Heaven (B-)

10.Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (B)

9.Whatever Works (B)

8.Vicky Christina Barcelona (B)

7.The Maze Runner (B)

6.Lars and the Real Girl (B+)

5.Easy A (B+)

4.The Station Agent (B+)

3.Shutter Island (A-)

2.The Untouchables (A-)

1.The Green Mile (A)

Top Dog: The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile serves as sort of a playbook on how to do melodrama correctly.  While many of the film's plot beats are drenched in over-the-top sentimentality, the performances (namely from Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan and David Morse) and earnest writing/direction from Frank Darabont have enough sincerity behind them to make this a beautiful, bittersweet story about the power of human connection and how it's capable of breaking down barriers between people that believe they have nothing in common.

Bottom Feeder: The East (2013)

Meeting at the lovely intersection of obnoxious, boring and condescending, The East is a really atrocious political thriller that is never as smart or interesting as it thinks it is.  

Most Underrated: Lars and the Real Girl (2008)

This delightful little gem from the early portion of Craig Gillespie's (I, Tonya, Cruella) filmography is an absurdly strong early showcase of Ryan Gosling's acting gifts. He takes a character in Lars that could've easily just been a lonely, socially awkward weirdo stereotype and turns him into this honest man with a huge heart that has just been misunderstood for his whole life, which gives the movie the soul it needed to pull off its sweet delivery of a nutty premise (Lars overcomes his social anxiety issues by purchasing a sex doll online and treats it like a real life human woman that he's in a relationship with) that had massive potential to be very juvenile. 

Most Overrated: Miracle (2004)

I don't know if this was just my suburban public school district, but Miracle couldn't be avoided when I was in middle school. On the last day of school before a week-long vacation in both 7th and 8th grade, the teachers decided to treat us students to a showing of Miracle. Full disclosure: I didn't like the movie when my parents took me to see it in theaters the year before it became a staple on the TV cart circuit and these subsequent showings only further solidified my negative feelings towards Miracle. Outside of a hilariously over-the-top performance from Kurt Russell as head coach Herb Brooks, Miracle is a really innocuous, bland dramatization of the 1980 United States Men's Hockey Team unlikely run to Olympic Gold that is well below the quality of Disney's other inspirational sports drams from this era (Glory Road, Invincible, The Rookie).