Blade Runner 2049
2017
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- American actor
Harrison Ford filmography. Harrison Ford is an American actor who has had a long and varied career in the entertainment industry across seven different decades. Ford made his film debut in 1966 and spent most of the first ten years of his career in small supporting roles in both films and television before rising to stardom for his portrayal of ...
- Who's scruffy looking?
- 10. What Lies Beneath (2000)
- 9. Clear and Present Danger (1994)
- 8. The Mosquito Coast (1986)
- 7. Air Force One (1997)
- 6. Working Girl (1988)
- 5. Witness (1985)
- 4. The Fugitive (1993)
- 3. Blade Runner (1982)
- 2. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
By Jesse Schedeen, Matt Fowler
Updated: Jan 23, 2024 7:50 pm
Posted: Jan 23, 2024 6:23 pm
Harrison Ford could have retired decades ago and he'd still be considered one of the biggest actors in the world. That's the benefit of being the guy who played both Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Luckily, Ford is still active in Hollywood and has even reprised many of his old famous heroes, like the aforementioned Solo and Jones (and Blade Runner's Rick Deckard).
Ford's also made the leap to TV in recent years, with big acclaimed roles in Yellowstone prequel 1923 and Apple TV+'s Shrinking. A working actor since the 1960's, Ford is still adding mega-franchises to his resume by joining the MCU, succeeding William Hurt as General "Thunderbolt" Ross in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World.
In the interest of not turning out a Top 10 list that's mostly comprised of Star Wars, Indy, and Jack Ryan movies, we've decided to only pick the best film from each franchise - the one that most represents Ford's strengths as an actor. These are the best Harisson Ford movies of his career.
Where to Watch: Paramount+, MGM+, Fubo
At the tail end of a decade filled with A-list directors and actors doing horror (Misery, Cape Fear, The Silence of the Lambs, Dracula, etc) Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer starred in a Robert Zemeckis ghost thriller, What Lies Beneath, where Ford got to flex his spookiness by playing a role that was a bit more menacing. As a stressed out scientist whose past sins come back to haunt his wife, literally, Ford played against type and effortlessly entered the "jump scare" arena. It's a co-headlining role that both elevated the tormented spirit genre while the movie itself allowed its stars to roll around in the macabre mud.
Where to Watch: Max, Paramount+
A lot of actors have played Tom Clancy's signature action hero, Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and soon to be Chris Pine). But unless Pine can master than Han Solo swagger, we suspect fans will still look to Harrison Ford as the definitive Jack Ryan.
Clear and Present Danger is the third Jack Ryan film, and the second to feature Ford in the lead role. The plot sees Ryan reluctantly step in as acting Director of the CIA after his former boss and mentor, Vice Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones), is diagnosed with cancer. No sooner does Ryan step into his new role than he gets swept up in a battle with Colombian drug lords, a group deemed to pose a "clear and present danger" to national security.
Clear and Present Danger offered a major step-up from the previous effort, Patriot Games, because it more faithfully captured the tone and flavor of Clancy's novels. Ford himself was a natural fit for Ryan at that stage in his career - still a capable action hero but older, grizzled, and feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Perhaps River Phoenix was the logical choice to play a young Indiana Jones in the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After all, he had already played Harrison Ford's son in this 1986 drama. The Mosquito Coast is an adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel about a brilliant inventor (Ford), who uproots his family and moves to the "Mosquito Coast" section of Central America. His belief is that he can bring civilization to the natives by introducing them to ice. Unsurprisingly, his obsession winds up getting the better of him.
Critics were torn on whether Mosquito Coast was a successful adaptation of the novel or even a great movie on its own merits. It certainly wasn't the box office success most of Ford's films are. But everyone could agree that the actors delivered strong performances, and none more so than Ford. This movie offered him the rare chance to break away from the action hero mold and explore a much more fundamentally flawed character.
Where to Watch: Peacock, Fubo
By 1997, Ford was starting to get up there in years. Many feared his days of punching Nazis, shooting Replicants, and making the Kessel Run were behind him. Air Force One served as proof that Ford could still wrestle with the bad guys and rescue his family with the best of them. Air Force One doesn't really win any points for originality, as it's basically "Die Hard on a Plane."
Underdog movies don't always have to be about sports. Working Girl is a particularly engaging example of a person bucking against the system and managing to rise above their humble origins. Here, Melanie Griffith starred as Tess McGill, an assistant with ambitious dreams but who constantly falls victim to bad luck and opportunistic colleagues. Tess finds a chance to make a name for herself when her boss (Sigourney Weaver) is injured and she takes advantage of being able to pass herself off as someone she's not. With a little help from her new business partner/lover Jack (Ford), McGill begins building the life she always craved.
This is the sort of concept that could just as easily been fodder for a forgettable romantic comedy, but Working Girl thankfully took itself more seriously than that. The combination of a tightly-plotted script and a talented cast of actors elevated it into something much better.
Where to Watch: Prime Video, Paramount+, MGM+, Fubo
You don't really need a summary for Witness when the theatrical poster sums it up so well: "Harrison Ford is John Book - a big city cop who knows too much. His only evidence - a small boy who's seen too much."
Witness was a chance for Ford to break away from franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones in the mid-'80s. The film revolved around a murder conspiracy where a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) witnessed a murder in Philadelphia, and Detective Book was charged with investigating the crime and protecting both the boy and his mother (Kelly McGillis). Book is wounded and the trio retreat back to Amish country where the big city cop learns about the simpler ways of life amongst the Amish.
Witness was widely praised as being a strong suspense thriller worthy of Hitchcock. Ford filled the lead role well, earning what is still his only Academy Award nomination to date. And the movie proved that Ford and director Peter Weir made a winning combination, paving the way for Mosquito Coast the following year.
Where to Watch: Paramount+
It's not often that a modern film based on a classic TV series is worth watching, but that's because the result is usually dreck like Bewitched and The Dukes of Hazzard. At least The Fugitive proved that it's possible to succeed and even thrive with this formula; it even snagged a Best Picture nomination to boot. This 1993 action/suspense film updated the 1960's TV series. Ford starred as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man who is framed for the murder of his wife and escapes custody to expose her true killers. Tommy Lee Jones played his nemesis, a U.S. Marshal named Samuel Gerard.
One year before George Lucas freed Han Solo from carbonite and completed his original Star Wars saga, Ford starred in a very different sort of sci-fi film. Blade Runner is adapted from Philip K. Dick's classic novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. This visually bedazzling neo-noir is set in futuristic Los Angeles, a place where neon billboards dominate the skyline and it never seems to stop raining. It was the perfect environment for Ford to deliver a new take on the hard-edged noir detective.
Ford played Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner called in to perform the proverbial "one last job." Blade Runners are charged with hunting down and "retiring" the highly advanced but emotionally unstable androids known as Replicants. The case proves to be Deckard's most challenging, as he clashes with an entire group of Replicants led by the desperately insane Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer).
Where to Watch: Disney+
As mentioned in the intro, we're only including the best and most representative movie from any given franchise in this list. And when it comes to Ford, there can be no better example of how important his contribution to the Star Wars saga was than The Empire Strikes Back. While the six Star Wars films as a whole are really devoted to the story of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, it was very often Ford as Han Solo who stole the show in Empire. His performanced helped make it the absolute best Star Wars movie of the series.
Han was as cocky and arrogant as ever, but we also saw him as a man struggling to do the right thing even as the whole galaxy seemed to be hounding him. And there was his rocky romance with Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia top further inject the movie with heart and tragedy. The original Star Wars gave us Han Solo in the first place, but Empire gave his character the depth and weight that made him endure. Plus, Empire was the only time we got to see Han wield a lightsaber. That has to count for something.
See our guide to Star Wars movies in order.
- Jeremy Urquhart
- Feature Writer/Senior List Writer
- 'Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope' (1977) Directed by George Lucas. It's hard to name movies that are more iconic, popular, and influential than the original Star Wars from 1977.
- 'Blade Runner 2049' (2017) Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Of the numerous great movie sequels released in 2017, Blade Runner 2049 was one of the very best.
- 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' (1989) Directed by Steven Spielberg. A highlight of 1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the third movie in the series, and certainly felt like the final one, owing to its title and the way it ultimately ends.
- 'Witness' (1985) Directed by Peter Weir. Despite decades of giving memorable performances, Harrison Ford has only received one acting nomination for the Oscars, and it was for 1985's Witness.
Jun 30, 2023 · We evaluate everything from the Ford’s career, from ‘American Graffiti’ to ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’, to present the best Harrison Ford Movies, ranked.
- THE STAR WARS series (1977, 1980, 1983) Directors: Various. Writers: Various. Starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford. I remember the first time I saw George Lucas’ “Star Wars” in the spring of 1977.
- WITNESS (1985) Director: Peter Weir. Writers: Earl W. Wallace, William Kelley. Starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lucas Haas, Alexander Gudunov.
- THE INDIANA JONES series (1981, 1984, 1989, 2008, 2023) Directors: Steven Spielberg, James Mangold. Writers: Various. Starring Harrison Ford. Like the first “Star Wars,” when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” first appeared in 1981, it took moviegoers completely by surprise.
- BLADE RUNNER (1982) Director: Ridley Scott. Writers: Hampton Fancher, David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos.
His other films include Witness (1985), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, The Mosquito Coast (1986), Working Girl (1988), Presumed Innocent (1990), Regarding Henry (1991), The Fugitive (1993), Sabrina (1995), The Devil's Own (1997), Air Force One (1997), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Random Hearts (1999), ...
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Harrison Ford. Actor: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive.
