Ryan Reynolds Movies Ranked: The 10 Best, From Waiting to Deadpool

No modern star has turned a single quality into a career quite like Ryan Reynolds. The Canadian actor's rapid-fire, self-mocking wit carried him through college comedies and romantic comedies before it found its perfect outlet in Deadpool, the foul-mouthed antihero who made him one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. The Ryan Reynolds movies ranked here show that wit in every shade, but they also include the films where he dropped the jokes altogether and proved he could hold a camera with nothing but nerve.

Placement depends mostly on what Reynolds does with each role, weighing his timing, his commitment and how much the part stretches him, with the quality of the film as a whole acting as the tiebreaker. A smaller, stranger film can therefore beat a slicker crowd-pleaser, and his dramatic work gets as much attention as his blockbusters.

Ryan Reynolds Movies Ranked by Role, Year and Director

10. Waiting… (2005)

Rob McKittrick's Waiting… is a raunchy workplace comedy set over a single shift at Shenaniganz, a chain restaurant staffed by bored, prank-happy young people. Reynolds plays Monty, the cocky, motor-mouthed veteran server who trains the new hire and torments everyone else. Justin Long plays Dean, a waiter who begins to wonder whether he is wasting his life, Anna Faris plays Monty's colleague Serena, David Koechner is their hopeless manager Dan, and Luis Guzmán plays the cook Raddimus.

Monty is essentially an early prototype of the Reynolds persona: quick, crude and impossible to dislike despite himself. The film is scrappy and juvenile, but he dominates every scene with a confident comic energy that hinted at the stardom ahead. It ranks tenth because the material is thin, yet anyone who has survived a restaurant shift will recognize its chaos, and it is a fascinating snapshot of the actor sharpening his trademark delivery long before Deadpool.

9. Definitely, Maybe (2008)

In Adam Brooks's Definitely, Maybe, Reynolds plays Will Hayes, a Manhattan advertising executive in the middle of a divorce whose young daughter Maya, played by Abigail Breslin, demands to know how he met her mother. Will tells her the story of his romantic life since the early 1990s, changing the names so that she has to guess which woman is her mom: his college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), the free-spirited April (Isla Fisher), whom he met on a presidential campaign, and the ambitious journalist Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz).

The film's clever framing device turns a standard romantic comedy into a gentle mystery, and Reynolds anchors it with an appealing mix of charm and regret. His scenes with Breslin are especially lovely, a father trying to be honest with a child without losing her. It ranks ninth because it is a modest, low-stakes film, but it showcases the warmth and sincerity he often hides beneath sarcasm, and it has aged better than many romantic comedies of its era.

8. Mississippi Grind (2015)

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Mississippi Grind is a low-key road movie about gambling. Ben Mendelsohn plays Gerry, a down-on-his-luck real estate agent in Iowa with crushing debts, who meets Curtis, a charming drifter played by Reynolds, at a poker table. Convinced that Curtis is a lucky charm, Gerry persuades him to join a trip down the Mississippi River toward a high-stakes game in New Orleans, stopping at racetracks, bars and casinos along the way. Sienna Miller plays Simone, a woman from Curtis's past, and Alfre Woodard is a lender Gerry owes.

Curtis is the most quietly impressive role Reynolds has played, a man whose easy charisma masks loneliness and aimlessness. He underplays everything, letting Mendelsohn's desperation take the spotlight, and their friendship feels lived in. It ranks eighth because the film is small and deliberately unresolved, which will frustrate some viewers, but it is a fine example of what Reynolds can do without a single wisecrack to hide behind, and the gentle, bittersweet ending lingers long after the cards are put away.

7. The Proposal (2009)

Anne Fletcher's The Proposal is a romantic comedy in which Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a feared New York book editor who learns she is about to be deported to Canada. Her solution is to announce that she is engaged to her long-suffering assistant Andrew Paxton, played by Reynolds, who agrees on the condition that he gets a promotion. To convince a skeptical immigration officer, they travel to his family home in Sitka, Alaska, where his parents, played by Craig T. Nelson and Mary Steenburgen, and his ex-girlfriend Gertrude (Malin Akerman) complicate the ruse.

Reynolds and Bullock have terrific chemistry, and he plays Andrew as the rare romantic hero who is funnier when he is being bossed around. His dry reactions to Margaret's demands and to his family's eccentricities are the comic engine of the film. It ranks seventh as the best of his romance movies, a polished, endlessly rewatchable studio comedy that confirmed his status as a leading man before the superhero years.

6. Buried (2010)

Buried, directed by Rodrigo Cortés, takes place entirely inside a wooden coffin. Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, an American truck driver working for a contractor in Iraq who wakes up buried alive with only a lighter and a mobile phone. He spends the film calling anyone who might help, from a government hostage official voiced by Robert Paterson to a cold-hearted company manager voiced by Stephen Tobolowsky, while his kidnapper (José Luis García Pérez) demands a ransom. Samantha Mathis voices his wife, Linda.

This is the most demanding performance of Reynolds's career and the strongest evidence of his dramatic ability. With no other actors on screen and nowhere to move, he holds attention through panic, fury, black humor and despair, often in near darkness. The claustrophobia is relentless, and Reynolds makes every phone call a small drama. It ranks sixth only because it is a punishing watch rather than an enjoyable one, but anyone who doubts his range should start here.

5. The Adam Project (2022)

The Adam Project, also directed by Shawn Levy, is a time-travel adventure in which Reynolds plays Big Adam, a fighter pilot from the year 2050 who steals a jet and crash-lands in 2022. There he meets his own twelve-year-old self, played by Walker Scobell, a sharp-tongued boy still grieving his father. Together they set out to fix the future, encountering their scientist father Louis (Mark Ruffalo) and their mother Ellie (Jennifer Garner), while Zoe Saldaña plays Laura, Big Adam's wife.

The film's best trick is casting a young actor who can match Reynolds's rhythm, so the scenes between young and grown Adam play like an argument with a mirror. Beneath the banter, Reynolds finds a melancholy edge, a man trying to heal wounds that his younger self is only beginning to feel. It ranks fifth because it is a warm, nostalgic family adventure with real emotion, even if the action set pieces are routine. His scenes with Garner, in particular, are among the most tender of his career.

4. Free Guy (2021)

In Free Guy, Reynolds plays Guy, a cheerful bank teller who wakes up every morning to the same routine without realizing that he is a background character in an online game called Free City. When he spots a player avatar named Molotovgirl, controlled by the programmer Millie Rusk (Jodie Comer), something in his code changes, and Guy begins making his own choices. Lil Rel Howery plays his loyal security guard friend Buddy, and Joe Keery and Utkarsh Ambudkar play Keys and Mouser, developers at the studio that runs the game.

Guy is a sunnier, more innocent character than Reynolds usually plays, and the sincerity suits him. His wide-eyed optimism makes the comedy charming rather than snarky, and the film turns into a sweet story about free will and kindness. Shawn Levy directs with energy and a gamer's eye for in-jokes. It ranks fourth because it is the most purely likable of his non-Deadpool hits, an original crowd-pleaser that shows how effective he can be when the irony is dialed down.

3. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine brings Wade into the multiverse after the Time Variance Authority, represented by Matthew Macfadyen's officious Mr. Paradox, informs him that his world is about to be erased. Hoping to save it, Wade recruits a variant of Logan, played by Hugh Jackman, who is considered the worst Wolverine of them all. Exiled to the Void, a wasteland of discarded heroes ruled by the psychic Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), they cross paths with familiar faces, including Dafne Keen's Laura, while Reynolds also pops up as the cheerful variant Nicepool.

The pairing of Reynolds and Jackman is the whole engine of the film: one never shuts up, the other wants to hit him, and the bickering is often uproarious. Reynolds plays Wade's desperation to matter with more depth than the jokes suggest. It ranks third because the endless cameos and franchise references can overwhelm the story, yet the chemistry between its leads makes it one of the most entertaining action movies in the superhero genre, and it brought Deadpool fully into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

2. Deadpool 2 (2018)

In David Leitch's Deadpool 2, Wade is reeling from a personal tragedy when he crosses paths with Russell, a furious teenage mutant who calls himself Firefist, played by Julian Dennison. Russell is being hunted by Cable, a grim cybernetic soldier from the future played by Josh Brolin, who believes the boy will grow up to become a killer. Wade assembles a ragtag team he calls X-Force, including the impossibly lucky Domino (Zazie Beetz), to protect the boy. Morena Baccarin returns as Vanessa, and Reynolds also supplies the voice of the hulking Juggernaut.

The sequel is bigger, faster and even more self-referential, and Reynolds pushes the comedy further while giving Wade a surprisingly emotional arc about grief and found family. His sparring with Brolin's straight-faced Cable is a highlight, as is a gleefully cruel gag involving the doomed X-Force recruits. It ranks second because it is nearly as funny as the original and arguably richer in feeling, falling just short only because the first film had the shock of the new on its side.

1. Deadpool (2016)

Tim Miller's Deadpool tells the origin of Wade Wilson, a former special forces soldier working as a mercenary in New York who falls hard for Vanessa, played by Morena Baccarin. When Wade is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he agrees to an experimental treatment run by the sadistic Ajax (Ed Skrein), which unlocks a power to heal from any wound but leaves him badly scarred. Wearing a red suit and wielding katanas, he sets out for revenge, helped by his bartender friend Weasel (T.J. Miller) and opposed by Gina Carano's Angel Dust.

Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009, but this is the version that does the character justice, and it feels like the role he was born for. Deadpool talks directly to the audience, mocks superhero conventions and never stops joking, but Reynolds also lets real pain show through the gags, especially in the love story with Vanessa. The film's adult rating and meta humor felt genuinely fresh. It ranks first because it fused his comic persona with a character so completely that the two are now hard to separate.

Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy: A Winning Partnership

Few directors have understood Reynolds's appeal as well as Shawn Levy. Their partnership began with Free Guy (2021), continued with The Adam Project (2022) and reached its biggest scale with Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

Each film plays to a different part of his persona. Free Guy uses his sincerity, The Adam Project his warmth and melancholy, and Deadpool & Wolverine his full irreverence. Together they mark the most consistent run of his later career, and they show a director who knows when to let Reynolds riff and when to rein him in.

Honorable Mentions Beyond the Top Picks

Reynolds has made a lot of films, and several just outside the top picks are well worth a look.

• National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), as Van Wilder: the perpetual college student whose party-throwing charm made him a comedy name.
• Blade: Trinity (2004), as Hannibal King: a wisecracking vampire hunter who steals scenes with a stream of insults.
• The Nines (2007), as Gary, Gavin and Gabriel: a puzzle film in which he plays linked characters across interlocking stories.
• Safe House (2012), as Matt Weston: a junior CIA officer guarding Denzel Washington's rogue operative in South Africa.
• Life (2017), as Rory Adams: a crew member aboard the International Space Station when a Martian organism turns hostile.

His thrillers from this period sit naturally alongside other tense, contained genre films, and anyone who admired Buried will find more of the same nerve in Safe House and Life.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Ryan Reynolds movie?

Deadpool (2016) ranks first. Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, the scarred, wisecracking mercenary, in the role that best fuses his comic persona with a character.

Has Ryan Reynolds won an Oscar or a Golden Globe?

No. Reynolds has not won an Academy Award or a Golden Globe, and his best known work has come in comedies and action films.

Which Ryan Reynolds movies did Shawn Levy direct?

Levy directed Free Guy (2021), The Adam Project (2022) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

What is the movie where Ryan Reynolds is buried alive?

That is Buried (2010), directed by Rodrigo Cortés, in which he plays Paul Conroy, an American truck driver trapped in a coffin in Iraq.

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