Matthew McConaugheyâs 10 best movies ranked
With Matthew McConaughey shooting his new movie “The Rivals of Amziah King” in Alabama, let’s reflect on an amazing career now spanning more than 30 years.
The Oscar-winning actor born in Texas has range — from hangout classics to romantic comedies, sci-fi masterpieces to cult horror hits. And we all witnessed the legendary McConaissance that propelled him into permanent A-list stardom and an Academy Award.
You could say we feel pretty alright, alright, alright about the man’s filmography, so we’re sharing our 10 favorites. (Note: We’re sticking to movies. Otherwise, we’d definitely include his spacey turn on HBO’s “True Detective.”)
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10) The Beach Bum (2019)
If anything captured the essence of McConaughey, Harmony Korine’s loopy road picture did. He plays (or kind of is) Moondog, a stoner poet who lives by his own rules in and around the Florida Keys as he tries to finish his new novel and fight for the respect of his daughter. Korine’s follow-up to “Spring Breakers” sees McConaughey at the crest of the famed McConaissance, the actor’s rebirth as one of Hollywood’s great leading men, put to the test in what feels like one of his most personal and totally spaced-out performances.
9) The Newton Boys (1998)
“Dazed and Confused” director Richard Linklater’s underrated Western gave McConaughey an early-career vehicle that tapped into his big screen charisma as Willis Newton, leader of the titular celebrity bank-robbers in 1920s Texas. A somewhat slight choice for a list of his best work, but a breezy hang with likable crooks on the lam.
8) U-571 (2000)
An established movie star for half of a decade, McConaughey looked to find his niche with courtroom dramas, prestige period pieces and romantic comedies, but standing out among his early genre work was this lesser-known submarine film from “Breakdown” director Jonathan Mostow. As Lt. Andrew Tyler, he leads a team of American submariners to board a World War II German submarine and capture her Enigma cipher machine. Quentin Tarantino would call this a “man on a mission movie,” and we’d call it one of the best of the genre.
7) The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
As drug-addled L.F. Rothschild stockbroker Mark Hanna, McConaughey memorably shows young Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort the Wall Street ropes shortly before Black Monday. While not quite the peak of his legendary run in the 2010s, certainly the peak of his acting powers, stealing every millisecond of screen-time he had even opposite an A-list talent like DiCaprio. His improvised “money chant” is played in some sports stadiums across the world, so he did something right.
6) Frailty (2001)
After beginning his career with a bonkers turn in a “Texas Chainsaw” sequel, McConaughey made a near instant classic in the horror genre in the late great Bill Paxton’s unsettling directorial debut. He stars as one of two brothers whose father believes he has been commanded by God to kill demons disguised as people. As an adult, McConaughey recounts the chilling details of his childhood to an FBI agent (Powers Boothe), leading to twists and turns you will not expect. An eerie, unexpected turn from the budding movie star.
5) Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
The apex of McConaissance Mountain saw the actor score his first Oscar nomination and win for playing Ron Woodroof, a rodeo rider and hustler who works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is diagnosed with the disease. Mixing desperation with humor, McConaughey is equal parts unhinged and charming, especially opposite co-stars Jennifer Garner and fellow Oscar-winner Jared Leto.
4) Magic Mike (2012)
McConaughey oozes capitalist sleaze as Dallas, the owner of the Xquisite Strip Club in Tampa, in Steven Soderbergh’s recession-era odyssey starring Channing Tatum as a dancer just trying to make a buck. Dallas has a vision, ultimately to move his entertainment enterprise to Miami, but it does not always align with Mike whom he sees as a competitor standing in his way. Oft-mocked as a silly stripper movie, Soderbergh’s thoughtful examination on men chasing the American Dream has more depth than you’d think, thanks in large part to McConaughey’s menacing turn.
3) A Time to Kill (1996)
A star was born when McConaughey took on the role of John Grisham protagonist Jake Brigance, the fearless Mississippi lawyer tasked with defending a Black man (Samuel L. Jackson) accused of murdering two white men who raped his young daughter, inciting violent retribution and revenge from the Ku Klux Klan. Now widely dismissed as a “white savior” movie, Joel Schumacher’s thrilling adaptation of Grisham’s bestseller deserves more credit as a Hollywood meditation on racial disparities in the Deep South, especially during scenes between McConaughey and Jackson navigating optics and privilege.
2) Dazed and Confused (1993)
Our introduction to the Texas-born actor came in Richard Linklater’s Austin-set coming-of-age comedy about high school and junior high students on their last day of school in May 1976. As the highly problematic David Wooderson, a man in his 20s partying with minors, McConaughey seemingly transformed into an aimless adult content with spending the rest of his life drinking beer and chasing women, but as the actor adopted the character’s catchphrase (”Alright, alright, alright”), we saw just how much of himself McConaughey injected into the glossy-eyed Wooderson.
1) Interstellar (2014)
Christopher Nolan’s, well, stellar space adventure finds McConaughey as farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper tasked to pilot a spacecraft to find a new planet for humans when Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future. A sprawling odyssey using every inch of the big screen canvas, Nolan’s epic gives McConaughey the ultimate hero’s journey and movie star moment as an astronaut with everything on the line — stopping our extinction and coming home to his daughter. Magnified by Hans Zimmer’s all-timer original score and Hoyte van Hoytema’s breathtaking cinematography, Nolan’s grand vision of Coop’s flight across multiple galaxies couldn’t have been realized by anyone better than the guy who played Wooderson.
Honorable mention: Lone Star (1996), Amistad (1997), Contact (1997), EDtv (1999), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), We are Marshall (2006), Tropic Thunder (2008), The Lincoln Lawyer (2010), Bernie (2011), Mud (2012), The Gentlemen (2019).
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