Best and worst Al Pacino movies

Silver Screen Collection // Getty Images Al Pacino has been lighting up the big screen since the late 1960s, gaining a devoted fan base with his good looks, great acting, and rough-and-tumble charm. His film debut was a small role as a character named Tony in the 1969 drama “Me, Natalie” starring Patty Duke. However, his big break would come when he was cast in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 gangster flick “The Godfather” three years later–a role that made him an instant legend. In that film, the Italian-American actor played the iconic lead character Michael Corleone–a part he beat out Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, and Warren Beatty to get. The following year he played the title character in the Oscar-nominated drama “Serpico” and together these two films cemented his public perception as a leading man. For the next few decades, he played mostly cops and gangsters in crime thrillers. Though he indeed starred in a few comedies and romantic dramas (“Frankie and Johnny” and “Scent of a Woman” being two of the most famous), most of his quieter, less dramatic roles came later in life. His early days were filled with shootouts, car chases, and lots of Italian-American swagger. Today, Pacino has more than 50 film credits to his name, as well as a handful of appearances on TV, stage, and in documentaries. He’s received numerous accolades for his work, many of which came early in his career. His first Oscar nomination, for example, was for the first “Godfather” film–though Pacino famously refused to attend the ceremony that year due to his placement in the Supporting Actor category for a lead role. Nonetheless, his first Oscar nod kicked off a four-year streak where he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe every year between 1973 and 1976. In total, Pacino has been nominated for nine Oscars (winning one) and 19 Golden Globes (winning four). He also has a Grammy nomination, two Tony wins, and two Primetime Emmy wins. Not all of his films have been Oscar winners–Pacino has also received attention from the Razzie Awards for his work in critically panned movies. To honor the prolific actor, Stacker put together a list of every Al Pacino movie ever made, ranked from worst to best, according to IMDb user ratings as of November 2022. This list only includes feature-length Pacino films, and ties were broken by the number of IMDb votes. Keep reading to see where your favorite Pacino movie ranks. You may also like: 100 best Western films of all time #53. Gigli (2003) Revolution Studios – Director: Martin Brest – IMDb user rating: 2.6 – Metascore: 18 – Runtime: 121 minutes Martin Brest’s “Gigli” is widely considered a terrible movie that’s frequently the butt of jokes–and unfortunately, Pacino’s performance wasn’t enough to save it. The film won seven Razzies (out of nine nominations) including Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Actress for stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, and Worst Director. Even Pacino himself couldn’t escape Razzie ridicule, receiving a nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. The film only brought in $7.2 million of its $75.6 million budget, and film critic Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called it “the most thoroughly joyless and inept film of the year, and one of the worst of the decade.” #52. Jack and Jill (2011) Millennium Films – Director: Jon Avnet – IMDb user rating: 5.9 – Metascore: 17 – Runtime: 108 minutes Directed by Jon Avnet, this crime thriller stars Pacino in the lead role as Dr. Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist who becomes the target of a killer after testifying at a high-profile trial. The threat comes in the form of a phone call that warns him he only has 88 minutes to live. Like “Gigli,” the film was poorly received with a 5% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and two Razzie award nominations–including one for Pacino in Worst Actor. #41. Righteous Kill (2008) Miramax – Director: James Foley – IMDb user rating: 6.1 – Metascore: data not available – Runtime: 85 minutes Another film set in Philadelphia, this time during the Great Depression, this 1995 drama tells the story of a boy trying to scrape together 25 cents (“two bits”) to go to the grand opening of a new movie theater. Al Pacino plays the boy’s grandpa who recruits him to deliver a message to a woman he wronged years ago–something he wants to do before he dies. #39. Author! Author! (1982) Universal Pictures – Director: D.J. Caruso – IMDb user rating: 6.2 – Metascore: 50 – Runtime: 122 minutes Although it falls toward the middle of this list, this film mainly received negative reviews when it came out in 2005. It’s about an injured college football star who finds himself under the wing of a fast-talking sports consultant and former gambling addict, played by Pacino. With a 22% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie did not break even with its modest $35 million budget. #35. Dick Tracy (1990) Touchstone Pictures – Director: Warren Beatty – IMDb user rating: 6.2 – Metascore: 68 – Runtime: 105 minutes Based on the titular comic strip character and written by the screenwriting team behind “Top Gun,” “Dick Tracy” is a detective film starring Warren Beatty (who also directed the film), Al Pacino, and Madonna with actors like Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, and Kathy Bates in supporting roles. The plot isn’t groundbreaking as it’s just a traditional detective vs. gangster story, but the film’s luminous and colorful aesthetic in conjunction with quirky characters like Pacino’s mob-boss Big Boy makes it a clear standout. #34. Salomé (2013) Stonelock Pictures – Director: Al Pacino – IMDb user rating: 6.3 – Metascore: data not available – Runtime: 81 minutes This 2013 film starring Jessica Chastain is a companion piece to an earlier experimental film titled “Wilde Salomé,” which explored an Oscar Wilde play about a Biblical character who performs a dance in exchange for John the Baptist’s head. Pacino wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, which is edited from footage of the first one (which he also wrote, directed, and starred in). You may also like: 100 best American movies of all time #33. Stand Up Guys (2012) Touchstone Pictures – Director: Roger Donaldson – IMDb user rating: 6.6 – Metascore: 56 – Runtime: 115 minutes Although this high-intensity 2003 thriller received mixed reviews–with a 43% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes–it nevertheless grossed $101 million worldwide. The film follows the story of a young computer geek who gets recruited by the CIA to help find a mole. Pacino plays the senior CIA recruiter who takes an interest in the young trainee, played by Colin Farrell. You may also like: Mistakes from the 50 best movies of all time #28. The Pirates of Somalia (2017) Paramount Pictures – Director: Garry Marshall – IMDb user rating: 6.7 – Metascore: 66 – Runtime: 118 minutes One of Pacino’s more famous movies, “Frankie and Johnny” is a romantic comedy that tells the story of an ex-con who gets out of prison and tries to start a romance with an emotionally reserved waitress. The film marked an on-screen reunion for Pacino and co-star Michelle Pfeiffer, who also played love interests in 1983’s “Scarface.” #26. Sea of Love (1989) Warner Bros – Director: Oliver Stone – IMDb user rating: 6.9 – Metascore: 52 – Runtime: 162 minutes Directed by Oliver Stone, 1999’s “Any Given Sunday” is a sports drama about the trials and tribulations of a professional football team in a league that resembles the NFL. The film, in which Pacino plays head coach Tony D’Amato, is partly based on the biography of real-life NFL player Pat Toomay. Roger Ebert said that the “psychology of the veteran coach” was well-captured in the script and that Pacino has some “nice heart-to-hearts” with the other characters. #24. Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) Warner Bros – Director: Steven Soderbergh – IMDb user rating: 6.9 – Metascore: 62 – Runtime: 122 minutes In “Ocean’s Thirteen,” the third installment of the heist trilogy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Pacino stars as Willy Bank, a greedy casino boss who becomes one of the criminal ensemble’s targets. Although the film received fairly good overall ratings, Pacino’s character was criticized as not being very well fleshed out. “Pacino is stuck with a wafer-thin role that denies us his usual fire,” one critic wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. You may also like: Can you guess which iconic movie these scenes are from? #23. The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Gadd Productions Corp – Director: Jerry Schatzberg – IMDb user rating: 7.0 – Metascore: 74 – Runtime: 110 minutes This 1971 drama is about a pair of heroin junkies in New York who fall in love while hanging around Sherman Square, a place that was referred to as “Needle Park” at the time. Pacino plays the main character who gets his love interest (played by Kitty Winn) hooked on heroin. It was fairly well-received at the time and still maintains an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. #22. Danny Collins (2015) Movision – Director: Michael Radford – IMDb user rating: 7.0 – Metascore: 63 – Runtime: 131 minutes This film was the first English-language adaptation not made for television of the famous and often controversial Shakespeare play. Pacino plays the lead role of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who must convert to Christianity at the end of the plot–a storyline that has long prompted debate over whether it’s antisemitic. The film’s overall reception was mostly positive, but the response to its handling of the controversial elements was mixed, with some critics saying it sugarcoated the antisemitism inherent in the script. #20. Chinese Coffee (2000) Sony Pictures Entertainment – Director: Quentin Tarantino – IMDb user rating: 7.6 – Metascore: 83 – Runtime: 161 minutes Quentin Tarantino’s celebrity-infused historical epic serves as a fix-it flick of the real-life Manson Family murder of actress Sharon Tate in 1969, as in his version, the Manson Family is swiftly defeated by protagonists Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) instead. Dalton is a washed-up actor whose agent, Marvin Schwarz, is pushing him to consider a film career in Italy starring in spaghetti Westerns instead–and that agent is played by none other than Al Pacino. While Schwarz’s screen time is a small portion of the nearly three-hour film, Pacino and DiCaprio’s on-screen chemistry makes those scenes unforgettable. You may also like: 15 controversial Oscar wins–and how they’ve aged #13. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) Mandalay Entertainment – Director: Mike Newell – IMDb user rating: 7.7 – Metascore: 76 – Runtime: 127 minutes “Donnie Brasco” tells a fictionalized version of the experience of Joseph D. Pistone, an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated New York’s Bonanno crime family in the1970s under the alias Donnie Brasco. Pacino stars as Lefty, a real-life Cosa Nostra mobster who befriended and mentored the agent, played by Johnny Depp. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Pacino’s performance was praised. #10. The Insider (1999) Touchstone Pictures – Director: Michael Mann – IMDb user rating: 7.8 – Metascore: 84 – Runtime: 157 minutes “The Insider,” which tells the fictionalized story of a real-life whistleblower in the tobacco industry, was a rare example of a film that did poorly in terms of commercial success yet received exceptional reviews across the board. Although it flopped at the box office, only earning $60.3 million of its $90 million budget, it received seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Pacino plays Lowell Bergman, the real-life journalist at the center of the story. #9. The Irishman (2019) Fábrica de Cine – Director: Martin Scorsese – IMDb user rating: 7.8 – Metascore: 94 – Runtime: 209 minutes Based on the book “I Heard You Paint Houses” by investigative writer Charles Brandt, “The Irishman” is a three-and-a-half-hour long retelling of the relationship between truck driver Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and notorious mob boss/union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Patrick Phillips of Looper calls Pacino’s performance “grandstanding work” and considers it one of the film’s strongest features, which is saying something when almost every aspect is critically acclaimed. In an interesting twist, De Niro, Pacino, and Joe Pesci were all subjected to impressive CGI de-aging for the film’s duration. You may also like: 50 best movies about the Vietnam War #8. Carlito’s Way (1993) Universal Pictures – Director: Brian De Palma – IMDb user rating: 7.9 – Metascore: 65 – Runtime: 144 minutes Directed by Brian De Palma–the same director who made “Scarface” with Pacino 10 years earlier–“Carlito’s Way” is a crime drama about a convict who tries to go straight after getting out of prison but gets roped back into his old ways. The overall reception of the movie was fairly mixed, as some reviewers felt that it too closely resembled “Scarface,” while others criticized Pacino’s accent in the film. #7. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Warner Bros. – Director: Sidney Lumet – IMDb user rating: 8.0 – Metascore: 86 – Runtime: 125 minutes “Dog Day Afternoon” is a 1975 crime drama based in part on a Life magazine story about a Brooklyn bank robbery. One of the more famous projects of his career, Pacino plays one of the main robbers, Sonny Wortzik, a character believed to be based on real-life criminal John Wojtowicz. The hugely popular film was nominated for seven Golden Globes and six Oscars, winning the latter for Best Original Screenplay. #6. Scent of a Woman (1992)