These are the best Will Ferrell movies, according to science.
By Doug Norrie
Which is Will Ferrell’s best movie? It feels like Will Ferrell has been around forever, and in a lot of ways, it seems like he’s been playing much of the same character since he hit the scene in the early 2000s. That’s fine by me because I could basically watch the dude read the phone book and get a laugh out of it.
Fans spend a lot of time arguing over which Will Ferrell movie is the best, but we’ve come with a definitive ranking using math. To make it on this list, a Will Ferrell movie had to finish over 50% in the critical consensus, Ferrell had to have something like or close to a starring role in the movie, and we aren’t including any voice-over work.
We did the math, and these are Will Ferrell’s best movies.
1. Elf | 2003
Will Ferrell’s best-reviewed movie and maybe the most universally loved. Elf has turned into a holiday season staple in my household and many others. The story of Buddy, a displaced “elf” who does the lost-in-New York thing to hilarious results. Elf is just a great movie through and through, with plenty of drop-dead laugh moments and a touching story.
Frankly, it baffles me that it’s even this “low” on the Tomatometer and without throwing out the cliches about lumps of coal in the negative reviewers stocking (I did it anyway). Those who gave it a thumbs down simply got it wrong.
2. The Other Guys | 2010
The Other Guys opens with a hilarious flourish, putting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Samuel Jackson out on display as the don’t-give-a-f@#$ cops who take down the bad guys, blow shit up and get the girls only to fall to their death almost before the opening credits are done rolling.
In steps Ferrell as a bean-counting, rule-following cop and his hotheaded partner in Mark Wahlberg. The Other Guys has plenty of great one-liners, an awesome dynamic between the two leads, Michael Keaton T.L.C references, and a ton of laughs. It easily could have been a schlocky stupid mess, but they pulled it off. I’ll never get tired of the movie’s running gag involving Eva Mendes as Will Ferrell’s wife.
3. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues | 2013
The rare sequel that outpaces its predecessor in the eyes of the critics, Anchorman 2 gets the gang back together for another go around in the wonderful world of the “news”. This Will Ferrell movie sequel didn’t deviate much from the formula that worked the first time and, in this case, I suspect the critics knew what they were getting into early.
The team is just as ridiculous as ever, the jokes are over the top and the world of 24-hour-news was never filled with more debauchery.
4. Everything Must Go | 2010
I suppose on a technical level, Everything Must Go is a comedy, but it’s really more a story about loss and redemption. Ferrell, from a character standpoint, doesn’t deviate all that much from what he’s done in the past but this has just enough sour to to go with the sweet.
He plays a struggling, alcoholic salesman whose wife leaves him and literally throws everything out on the front lawn. What ensues is Ferrell living on said lawn among the things he once cherished, drinking his way into oblivion and befriending a neighborhood boy going through his own shit. It’s a touching story and one of Will Ferrell’s better dramatic turns in a movie.
5. Stranger than Fiction | 2006
Marketed as a comedy, this Will Ferrell movie is actually a super meta-story about a guy who’s living the life of a character an author is writing a story about, except they both live in the same reality. Get it? It plays out smoothly enough on screen, but making this kind of interwoven and overlapping story without running into too many space-time hiccups was almost an accomplishment just on its own.
As the loveable loser, Ferrell is very much in his element as he “navigates” a world that’s playing out on paper in front of someone else. See what I mean? It’s confusing.
6. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby | 2006
Did this Will Ferrell movie do more for auto racing than anything in the sport’s actual history, or did it set NASCAR back a decade? It’s kind of tough to tell.
Ferrell and running mate John C. Reilly put it all on display in a flick that goes off the rails just as much as it garners laughs. In many ways, this epitomizes the almost farcical nature of Ferrell’s career. It’s full of shameless ads, borderline offensive interpretations of racecar culture, the folks who participate, and very, very stupid jokes. It still works. The scene with Ricky Bobby saying grace is almost worth the price of admission on its own.
7. Blades of Glory | 2007
You’ll notice that Will Ferrell movies like to take concepts, in this case, sports, and make movies about the subculture. Heck, we aren’t even going to get to Semi-Pro (22%), but these kinds of films are somewhat the hallmark of Ferrell’s career.
In Blades of Glory, he dons the skates and plays Chazz Michael Michaels, who is desperate to get back into figure skating after being handed a lifetime ban. So he teams up with Jon Heder, fresh off of Napoleon Dynamite, and they put on a skating display very much in line with what two guys who look like this would do on the ice.
8. The Campaign | 2012
Ferrell has plenty of political satire under his belt, having played the heal version of George W. Bush through the 2000s on Saturday Night Live and in his own one-man play, You’re Welcome, America. As far as satirical presidential runs go, it might be the most iconic.
Here, he and Zach Galifianakis play rival candidates, and Ferrell is basically just doing that “W” impersonation under a different name as a US Congressman. In an ever-escalating series of campaign stunts, these two face off in just another Ferrell mockery, this time of the election process and the core political system.
If Will Ferrell’s movies feel a little too close to home in how they portray these institutions, it’s because he has a knack for the ridiculous and the sublime. The Campaign might be the best example of that strategy.
9. Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy | 2004
In Anchorman, Will Ferrell takes us into his glass case of emotions for this cult and box office favorite about the halcyon days of San Diego nightly news. When it’s all said and done, Ron Burgundy might go down as Ferrell’s most memorable character, which is really saying a lot considering the list above.
He turns in an epic performance as the womanizing, mahogany-loving, jazz-fluting leader of the nightly news team. Anchorman goes so, so, far over the top (Brick killed a guy!) that you almost lose a sense of reality. In a good way.
10. Step Brothers | 2008
Ferrell and John C. Reilly have teamed up in three widely released movies, but it sure feels like more. Maybe that’s because whenever they do, it’s such a tour-de-force of abject silliness that it seems we’ve watched a thousand hours of it.
Here, they are as “close” as ever as middle-aged man-boys who end up as step-brothers. While inhabiting fully grown adult bodies, they are every bit the petulant children you’d expect them to be.
Will Ferrell Honorable Mentions
I didn’t add these three Will Ferrell movies to the main list because he didn’t technically have a starring role in any of them, but he for sure steals every scene in all three. Whether it’s Frank the Tank streaking, Mugatu plotting fashion world dominance, or Chazz Reinhold yelling for his mom to cook him some meatloaf, Ferrell does seem to come away as the star in all three.
Old School
Zoolander
Wedding Crashers