Chris Hemsworth movies have taken the Melbourne-born actor from an Australian soap opera to the centre of the biggest franchise in film, and 2026 has kept him busy. The heist thriller Crime 101 opened in February, and Avengers: Doomsday, his next outing as Thor, arrives on December 18.
His essential films are not all superhero movies. The best of them put his size and charm to work in unexpected ways: a reckless racing driver, a cult leader in a crumbling hotel, a desert warlord who rides a chariot pulled by motorcycles. Strong performance comes first, the film around it second.
Chris Hemsworth Movies Ranked: Year, Role and Director
| # | Movie | Year | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thor: Ragnarok | 2017 | Thor | Taika Waititi |
| 2 | Rush | 2013 | James Hunt | Ron Howard |
| 3 | Avengers: Infinity War | 2018 | Thor | Anthony and Joe Russo |
| 4 | Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga | 2024 | Dementus | George Miller |
| 5 | Avengers: Endgame | 2019 | Thor | Anthony and Joe Russo |
| 6 | Extraction | 2020 | Tyler Rake | Sam Hargrave |
| 7 | Bad Times at the El Royale | 2018 | Billy Lee | Drew Goddard |
| 8 | Crime 101 | 2026 | Mike Davis | Bart Layton |
| 9 | The Cabin in the Woods | 2012 | Curt Vaughan | Drew Goddard |
| 10 | 12 Strong | 2018 | Captain Mitch Nelson | Nicolai Fuglsig |
The 10 Best Chris Hemsworth Movies, Counted Down
10. 12 Strong (2018)
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig | Role: Captain Mitch Nelson | Co-stars: Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Navid Negahban
Based on Doug Stanton’s book Horse Soldiers, the film follows a US Army Special Forces team sent into Afghanistan immediately after the September 11 attacks, where they fight on horseback alongside the Northern Alliance. Hemsworth plays the team’s untested captain, Mitch Nelson, with Michael Shannon and Michael Peña among his men.
It is a straightforward war film, and critics found it conventional, but Hemsworth’s performance as a leader who has never been in combat holds it together. Navid Negahban’s Northern Alliance general gives him a strong partner, and the cavalry charges are unlike anything else in modern war movies.
9. The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Director: Drew Goddard | Role: Curt Vaughan | Co-stars: Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford
Five college friends head to a remote cabin for the weekend, and technicians in an underground facility start manipulating every horror cliche that follows. Drew Goddard made his directing debut from a script he wrote with Joss Whedon, and Hemsworth plays Curt, the jock of the group.
The film was shot in 2009 but did not reach US cinemas until April 2012, by which time Hemsworth was already Thor. Seen now, it is a smart, very funny dismantling of the genre, and a chance to watch a future star play a horror archetype that knows more than it lets on.
8. Crime 101 (2026)
Director: Bart Layton | Role: Mike Davis | Co-stars: Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan
Bart Layton adapted Don Winslow’s 2020 novella about a disciplined Los Angeles jewel thief who plans every job to avoid violence and escapes along U.S. Route 101. Mark Ruffalo plays the detective who is sure one man is behind the robberies, Halle Berry an insurance broker drawn into the next job, and Barry Keoghan a volatile rival.
Hemsworth, who also produced, plays Mike as lonely and controlled, a man whose rules are starting to fail him. The film opened in the United States on February 13, 2026, to positive reviews, and his reunion with Ruffalo, his Hulk from the Avengers films, gives the cat-and-mouse story real warmth.
7. Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Director: Drew Goddard | Role: Billy Lee | Co-stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm
Drew Goddard’s neo-noir gathers strangers at a fading hotel that sits on the California and Nevada border one night in the late 1960s: a priest (Jeff Bridges), a singer (Cynthia Erivo), a salesman (Jon Hamm) and a hippie (Dakota Johnson), each hiding something. Hemsworth’s Billy Lee, the leader of a cult, arrives late and changes everything.
Billy Lee is magnetic and menacing, and Hemsworth plays him with an unbuttoned shirt and a frightening calm. It was the clearest sign that he could use his star charisma as a weapon, years before Furiosa, and it rewards anyone who sticks with the film’s slow opening.
6. Extraction (2020)
Director: Sam Hargrave | Role: Tyler Rake | Co-stars: Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, David Harbour | Written by Joe Russo
Tyler Rake, an Australian mercenary with nothing left to lose, is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of an Indian drug lord in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and is double-crossed almost immediately. Joe Russo adapted the graphic novel Ciudad, and Sam Hargrave directed, with Rudhraksh Jaiswal as the boy and Randeep Hooda as the bodyguard sent to stop them.
The action is brutal and built around long, unbroken takes that follow Rake through the streets. Netflix released the film in April 2020, and it became the most-watched original film in the service’s history at the time, with more than 99 million viewers in its first four weeks. A sequel followed in 2023.
5. Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo | Role: Thor | Co-stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson
The direct sequel to Infinity War follows the surviving Avengers as they try to undo Thanos’s snap. Thor kills Thanos early in the film, but it changes nothing, and when the story picks up five years later he is overweight and despondent, hiding from the world in the Asgardian refugee settlement in Norway.
Hemsworth plays Thor’s depression for laughs and for real at once, and a quiet scene in which his mother, Frigga, talks to him during a trip back to 2013 is one of the most affecting moments in the series. By the end he hands the crown to Valkyrie and leaves with the Guardians, a fitting close to his original arc.
4. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Director: George Miller | Role: Dementus | Co-stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Alyla Browne, Tom Burke
George Miller’s prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road follows Furiosa (Alyla Browne as a girl, Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) across more than a decade, from the day she is kidnapped from her home by the forces of the warlord Dementus. Hemsworth plays Dementus, a biker chieftain with a showman’s patter and a taste for spectacle.
It is the boldest choice of his career and arguably his best villain. Dementus is funny, vain and pathetic, and then suddenly monstrous, and Hemsworth commits to all of it. The film premiered at Cannes in May 2024, and its second half belongs to him as much as to Taylor-Joy.
3. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo | Role: Thor | Co-stars: Robert Downey Jr., Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt
Thanos (Josh Brolin) sets out to collect all six Infinity Stones and wipe out half of all life, and the film opens with him crushing what is left of the Asgardian people. Thor, rescued from the wreck by the Guardians of the Galaxy, spends the film chasing a weapon strong enough to kill the Titan.
Thor has the most complete arc in a very crowded film. Hemsworth plays him as a man who has lost almost everything and is running on rage and bad jokes, and his arrival in Wakanda with his new axe, Stormbreaker, is the biggest crowd-pleasing moment in the whole Avengers saga.
2. Rush (2013)
Director: Ron Howard | Role: James Hunt | Co-stars: Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde | Written by Peter Morgan
Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan tell the story of the rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), building to the 1976 season. Hunt is the hard-living British charmer, Lauda the precise and prickly Austrian, and the film refuses to pick a side between them.
It is Hemsworth’s finest dramatic performance. He gives Hunt a swagger that is fun to watch and a fear underneath that he drowns in parties and recklessness. Hans Zimmer’s score and the racing sequences are superb, but the film works because both leads make you understand why the other man drives them so hard.
1. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Director: Taika Waititi | Role: Thor | Co-stars: Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum
Taika Waititi’s third Thor film strands the god of thunder on the junk planet Sakaar, where he is forced into gladiator combat against an old friend, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Meanwhile his sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) takes Asgard for herself. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster round out one of Marvel’s best ensembles.
Hemsworth had shown flashes of comic timing before, but Waititi built a whole film around it. His Thor loses his hammer, his hair and his home, and keeps cracking jokes through all of it, which makes the moments of real grief land harder. It reinvented a character many viewers had found stiff, and every Thor appearance since has followed its lead.
Every Chris Hemsworth Thor Movie in Order
Hemsworth has played Thor since 2011. These are the films where the character takes part in the main story, in release order:
- Thor (2011), directed by Kenneth Branagh
- The Avengers (2012), directed by Joss Whedon
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017), directed by Taika Waititi
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), directed by Waititi
- Avengers: Doomsday (December 18, 2026)
He also appears briefly in the mid-credits scene of Doctor Strange (2016). For the wider timeline, including every film between his appearances, see our Marvel movies in order guide.
New and Upcoming Chris Hemsworth Movies
His most recent release is Crime 101, which opened on February 13, 2026. Before that he voiced a young Optimus Prime, then called Orion Pax, in the animated Transformers One (2024). Next on his schedule:
- Avengers: Doomsday: the Russo brothers return to direct, with Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, and the film opens on December 18, 2026
- Extraction 3: Hemsworth returns as Tyler Rake, with Sam Hargrave directing again and Idris Elba and Pierce Brosnan in the cast
- Subversion and Kockroach: two further films in post-production
Away from fiction, he appeared in A Road Trip to Remember, a 2025 National Geographic documentary about his father’s experience with Alzheimer’s disease.
What Makes a Great Chris Hemsworth Role
Hemsworth’s best performances tend to undercut the image the audience walks in with. Three things show up again and again in the films that last:
- Comedy inside the hero: Ragnarok and Endgame let Thor be ridiculous without becoming a joke
- Charm turned dark: Billy Lee and Dementus use the same easy smile as his heroes, for very different ends
- Real people: James Hunt in Rush and Mitch Nelson in 12 Strong ask him to play a recognisable person, not a type
Box office tells you less. Snow White and the Huntsman grossed $396.6 million worldwide, but Rush is the film that shows what he can do as an actor.
Which Chris Hemsworth Movie Should You Watch First?
Start with what you want from the night:
- For pure fun: Thor: Ragnarok
- For a true story: Rush, then 12 Strong
- For action: Extraction, then Furiosa
- For a twisty thriller: Bad Times at the El Royale or Crime 101
- For horror with a sense of humour: The Cabin in the Woods
If you only have time for one non-Marvel film, choose Rush. It is the clearest evidence that his career was never only about the hammer. His Thor movies also put him opposite Anthony Hopkins as Odin, whose own career is ranked in our guide to Anthony Hopkins movies.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chris Hemsworth’s best movie?
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) is his most popular film and the one that redefined his Thor. Rush (2013), in which he plays the Formula One driver James Hunt, is his strongest dramatic performance.
What was Chris Hemsworth’s first movie?
His Hollywood film debut was Star Trek (2009), in which he played George Kirk, the father of Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk. Before that he spent 2004 to 2007 as Kim Hyde on the Australian soap Home and Away.
What is the newest Chris Hemsworth movie?
His most recent release is the heist thriller Crime 101, which opened on February 13, 2026. Avengers: Doomsday, with Hemsworth back as Thor, is scheduled for December 18, 2026.
Is Chris Hemsworth in Avengers: Doomsday?
Yes. He returns as Thor in Avengers: Doomsday, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, alongside Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. It is due in cinemas on December 18, 2026.
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