The 10 most overrated acting performances in cinema history
What constitutes a good actor is highly subjective. Different people like different things, and while there are generally recognised methods of judging greatness – awards, critical reviews, public opinion, box office dollars, and so on – there is no true scale when it comes to ability.
Some of Hollywood’s highest-paid and highest-grossing stars aren’t the best actors, and vice versa. Names like Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds earn tens of millions of dollars yearly, but they’re never going to be troubling the Academy Awards when they do nothing but play variations on the same character.
At the other end of the scale, Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep aren’t going to start popping up in action blockbusters and superhero movies, but they’ve got six Oscars between them to reiterate their credentials as two of the best. A good performance may be in the eye of the beholder, but certain turns have gotten more praise than they deserved.
The cinematic establishment holds each of the following ten in high regard, but they’re average at best. Some have won Oscars, some have revitalised careers, and some have become deeply embedded in the very fabric of our culture. Unfortunately, while not all of them are bad, they are most certainly overrated.
Cinema’s 10 most overrated acting performances:
Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, John G Avildsen, 1976)
The first Rocky movie launched a billion-dollar franchise, changed the training montage forever, and made Sylvester Stallone the star he is today. This is incredible, especially given how awful he is in the title role.
Apart from being almost completely unintelligible in every scene, Stallone’s ‘Italian Stallion’ simply isn’t likeable. He lucks his way into a title fight and then spends most of the runtime worrying about his girlfriend, who initially didn’t even want to be with him. The whole thing stinks, and ‘Sly’ is very lucky that audiences in the 1970s were so forgiving.
Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect franchise, various, 2012-2017)
Comedy is extremely fragile. What is and isn’t funny changes like the wind, and nowhere is that more obvious than in Rebel Wilson’s character from the three Pitch Perfect movies.
As Patricia ‘Fat Amy’ Hobart, Wilson became the breakout star of the a cappella trilogy. Unfortunately, her character essentially boils down to ‘I’m on the larger side’, a concept that has aged like milk. These jokes aren’t funny anymore. Honestly, were they even funny to begin with? Wilson owes a lot to ‘Fat Amy’, but let’s all be glad she seems to have moved on from her.
Hugh Grant (Heretic, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, 2023)
Hugh Grant is firmly in his ‘I don’t give a toss’ era, and we’re all here for it. Many people were caught off guard when he turned up as the villain in an A24 horror movie, the seemingly mild-mannered Mr Reed in Heretic.
Grant was praised for going against type and even picked up a Golden Globe nomination, but while Heretic is a thoroughly un-Grant setting, the performance is still basically the same as all his others. His quirky mannerisms are basically identical to his famous rom-com roles, but only now are they presented as creepy instead of endearing. You’ll never see Notting Hill in the same light ever again.
Kristen Stewart (Spencer, Pablo Larrain, 2021)
Following the release of Spencer, a story about Princess Diana, several members of her staff came forward and proclaimed Kristen Stewart’s performance as the most accurate on-screen portrayal of the late royal. Sadly, that doesn’t translate to an enjoyable viewing experience.
As Diana, Stewart is supposed to be the underdog, an ordinary person trapped in a world that doesn’t accept her. Instead, she comes across as whiny. It’s hard to truly root for her, which feels awful given how this story ends, but at least some old butlers were happy. That’s the highest praise there is.
Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side, John Lee Hancock, 2009)
Leigh Ann Tuohy, the character played by Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, has become an extremely controversial figure since the release of that particular movie. Even before all that, Bullock’s portrayal of her rubbed some people up the wrong way for being completely and utterly average.
Bullock won an Oscar for bringing Tuohy to life, but very little about her performance stands out. She plays a doting mother figure about as well as most other competent actors. The story – which has since come under question – does a great deal of the emotional heavy lifting rather than the actor at its centre.
Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, 2023)
After heading up the biggest movie franchise in the world for over a decade, Robert Downey Jr transitioned into the next phase of his career with a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Oscar win for his role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. The question is – why?
Downey is fine as Strauss, but his performance is nothing special. His storyline is easily the weakest part of this nuclear epic, and while it was great to see him rewarded after decades of hard work, this felt more like a career award than anything else.
Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan, 2012)
Following the late, great Heath Ledger as the next villain in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy was always going to be a tricky task. It fell to Tom Hardy, whose interpretation of Bane spent most of The Dark Knight Rises as the main antagonist.
The Brit certainly looked the part. The problems arose every time he spoke. Hardy’s utterly ridiculous voice killed any presence the character had, especially when combined with Christian Bale’s equally stupid Batman voice. He should have stayed in that pit and saved everybody’s ears a whole lot of trauma.
Robert Pattinson (The Batman, Matt Reeves, 2022)
Following a few years in the dark, interest in the ‘Caped Crusader’ on the big screen was reunited by Matt Reeves’ neo-noir style offering, The Batman. Even critics who didn’t like the film praised Robert Pattinson for his portrayal of Bruce Wayne, which is bizarre, as he’s easily one of the worst Batmans (Batmen?) of all time.
The actor makes Bruce Wayne look like a broody teenager, skulking around in the dark with a face that looks like his mum told him he has to clean his room. When he isn’t melancholy, he’s boring. There’s nothing special about him as either side of the Batman equation, making a three-hour film feel even longer.
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd, 2012)
Everybody knows that Meryl Streep has been nominated for about eight billion Oscars, but it’s easy to forget that she won three. Her third and (thus far) most recent victory was for her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, a performance that fails to stand up under a rewatch.
Thatcher was a larger-than-life character, it’s true, but Streep’s rendition of the divisive politician borders on the absurd. She fails to bring much humanity to the Conservative leader – which some would say was fairly accurate – and it’s a shame that such an impressive accolade as a third acting Oscar should be linked to such a mediocre job.
Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody, Bryan Singer, 2018)
Playing a beloved musician can go one of two ways for an actor, but people really embraced Rami Malek’s portrayal of the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The Egyptian-American even won ‘Best Actor’ at the Oscars, which boggles the mind when considering how average the performance is.
Malek makes for a decent Mercury impressionist, but it sometimes comes across as a parody. When he’s not on stage, he can come across as somewhat reserved, the biggest insult to a real-life diva of the calibre of ‘Mr Bad Guy’. To top it all off, he doesn’t even do his own singing. Oh, mamma mia indeed.
