Cate Blanchett Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Cate Blanchett-whose latest project "Black Bag" releases in theaters tomorrow. 

Cate Blanchett's Filmography Ranked:

24.Borderlands (D+)

23.Nightmare Alley (C-)

22.Carol (C-)

21.The Aviator (C-)

20.The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (C)

19,The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (C)

18.The Monuments Men (C)

17.Hanna (C)

16.Bandits (C+)

15.Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (C+)

14.Robin Hood (B-)

13.The House with a Clock in Its Walls (B-)

12.The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (B-)

11.TAR (B-)

10.Where'd You Go, Bernadette (B-)

9.Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (B)  

8.Ocean's 8 (B)

7.The Gift (B)

6.Don't Look Up (B+)

5.Notes on a Scandal (B+)

4.The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (B+)

3.The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (B+)

2.Blue Jasmine (A)

1.Thor: Ragnarok (A)

Top Dog: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

While the sour reception towards Love and Thunder has dampened the enthusiasm towards this one on the whole, I still believe it's one of the clear best films in the MCU. Reinventing Thor as this aloof goofball who's completely unfit to lead his people on Asgaard reinvigorated a character that had become kind of stale after 2 not-so-great solo adventures, Taika Waititi's irreverent humor was the perfect fit for the vibrant, eccentric comedy this becomes once the action shifts to the garbage planet of Sakaar, and Blanchett's expertly deployed scenery chewing makes Hala a top-tier superhero movie villain.         

Bottom Feeder: Borderlands (2024)

Just when you start to think that Hollywood has started to figure out how to adapt video games into movies, something heinous like Borderlands comes around and reminds you that these projects can still go very wrong when they're made by the wrong people. This long-gestating film that was extensively re-shot in early 2023 by Deadpool director Tim Miller after completing principal photography in June 2021 with Eli Roth at the helm desperately wants this notoriously sophomoric, freewheeling IP to turn into Guardians of the Galaxy 2.0. The problem with this desire to ape James Gunn's highly successful franchise is that Borderlands doesn't have any laughs or heart, the cast has zero chemistry whatsoever and the jarring usage of cheap green screen clashes with the strong production design that faithfully recreates locations from the game. The good news for upcoming video game movies such as Watch Dogs, Return to Silent Hill, and next month's A Minecraft Movie and Until Dawn is that Borderlands has set a high suckage bar with its abundant ineptitude that will be difficult for any of them to clear.           

Most Underrated: The Gift (2000)

Strong performances and reliably stylish direction from Sam Raimi elevate this supernatural thriller about a widowed clairvoyant (Blanchett) tasked with solving the murder of a local woman (Katie Holmes) from relatively generic procedural to a compelling mystery with several moments of real emotional impact.  

Most Overrated: Nightmare Alley (2021)

Delivering a remake of the 1947 noir classic Nightmare Alley was a decades-spanning passion project for Guillermo del Toro that finally came to pass after The Shape of Water won a zillion Oscars in 2017. Shockingly, the film never even comes close to being the labor of love you'd expect from an enthusiastic, gifted craftsman like del Toro. Watching a noir-particularly one that takes place in the sleazy world of the traveling circus in 1939 America-that boasts a flat narrative and packs very little in the way of seductive or entrancing atmosphere just feels wrong and there's no amount of handsomely designed sets or striking gothic cinematography from the great Dan Lausten that can fix this massive miscalculation.