Ben Foster 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 Ben Foster-whose latest project "Motor City" releases in theaters on Thursday. 

Ben Foster's Filmography Ranked:

20.The Finest Hours (D)

19.The Contractor (D)

18.King Ivory (C-)

17.Big Trouble (C)

16.Phone Booth (C)

15.Leave No Trace (C)

14.X-Men: The Last Stand (B-)

13.Sharp Corner (B-)

12.30 Days of Night (B)

11.Christy (B)

10.The Punisher (B)

9.Hostage (B)

8.Contraband (B)

7.The Mechanic (B)

6.Hostiles (B)

5.Lone Survivor (B)

4.Hustle (B)

3.Alpha Dog (B+)

2.3:10 to Yuma (B+)

1.Hell or High Water (B+)

Top Dog: Hell or High Water (2016)

Prior to Yellowstone becoming a phenomenon that completely transformed his career, Taylor Sheridan was a struggling journeyman television actor (he was best known for his role as Deputy David Hale on the first 21 episodes of Sons of Anarchy) who had hit a home run with his screenwriting debut Sicario. His writing stock continued to skyrocket with his terrific second screenplay Hell or High Water. Like Sicario, Sheridan lets his vivid characters and the tense direction from a veteran filmmaker in David Mackenize lead the charge on what is at its heart a very simple story about two brothers (Chris Pine, Foster) being pursued by some wily Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham) as they commit a string of small scale bank robberies (i.e. only taking the cash that's in the drawers in the front of the bank) in rural towns with the intention of paying off of the reverse mortgage on their family ranch. Sheridan is just starting to dip his toes back into the waters of cinema after exclusively focusing on his television empire since the release of his second feature directorial effort Those Who Wish Me Dead in May 2021-penning the script for the upcoming Brandon Sklenar-led action thriller F.A.S.T that's currently slated for release in April 2027. Fingers crossed that he can somehow return to the excellent form he showed here.  

Bottom Feeder: The Finest Hours (2016)

Somebody's father or grandfather was definitely floored by the sentimental, old school survival drama schtick of The Finest Hours. I, on the other hand, considered bashing my head off the floor to wake myself up after sitting through this remarkably dry, corny soap opera dressed up as a dramatic retelling of the daring rescue of a Coast Guard vessel off the coast of Cape Cod in February 1952. As much as I can't stand The Finest Hour, I do get kind of bummed out whenever I remember that this marked the last time that Disney ever put out a piece of boomer cry porn like this in theaters. 

Most Underrated: Alpha Dog (2007)

Nick Cassavetes following up The Notebook with such an alternately scuzzy and tragic crime drama is the kind of hard pivot that I can't help but respect. While I can't discard there's a nostalgia element at play here as I saw it when I was 15, I can confidently declare that Alpha Dog features a number of excellent performances (Foster, Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, the late great Anton Yelchin) and handles its several huge tonal shifts pretty well. 

Most Overrated: Leave No Trace (2018)

Fun fact: Leave No Trace has the highest number of reviews (248) of any film that boasts a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If I were a professional critic, I'd have ruined its perfect score. There's nothing egregiously wrong with Debra Granik's understated family drama about a teenage girl (Thomasin McKenzie) who lives in the woods outside of Portland, Oregon with her veteran father (Foster) whose battling severe PTSD, I just found it to be a pretty meandering movie with emotional beats that didn't really land.