Brad Pitt is easily one of the most famous actors to ever grace the silver screen and you'd be hard-pressed to find a movie fan who couldn't name at least one performance that they love. Over the decades, he's been a part of many groundbreaking projects behind the camera as well as in front of it. But, for many, his committed performances are his crowning achievement.
From leftfield art movies to Oscar-winning dramas, Pitt has pretty much done it all at one point or another and, as these 10 very highly-rated movies show, he manages to nail his creative choices time and time again. These are his 10 best movies according to scores from Metacritic.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (70)
The most recent of Brad Pitt's collaborations with master director David Fincher is their best, by Metacritic's calculations. Adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of the same name, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated for 13 Oscars, winning 3.
Pitt takes the title role in this story of a man's unusual life spent aging backward from birth, starting life with the appearance of a very old man and getting younger with each year.
12 Monkeys (74)
Terry Gilliam's seminal time travel movie stars Pitt in a ing role to Bruce Willis' lead. He plays an eccentric eco-terrorist character who is tied to the titular group at the center of the movie's mystery.
A wild performance that showed off the actor's skills with distinct characters, 12 Monkeys was the movie that earned Pitt his first Oscar nomination for Best ing Actor.
Ocean's Eleven (74)
Pitt stars alongside an ensemble of fittingly famous and talented actors such as George Clooney and Matt Damon in this remake of the 1960s Rat Pack movie of the same name.
The plot sees a group of highly-skilled thieves attempt to rob a major Las Vegas casino and its success has spawned many imitations in the years since its release.
Ad Astra (80)
Pitt stars as an emotionally distant astronaut in the near future who embarks on an epic journey to Neptune to find the source of a destructive force that's hitting the Earth in this sci-fi thriller from writer and director James Gray.
As blockbuster as the plot may sound on paper, Ad Astra is really more of an emotional mood piece about the distant relationship between Pitt's character and his brilliant father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who lies at the center of the mystery at Neptune.
The Big Short (81)
Director Adam McKay is still much more well-known for his goofy comedies (Anchorman, The Other Guys, Step Brothers, and many others) but he successfully branched more into serious drama with this informative comedy about the roots of the global financial crisis and those who predicted it.
Pitt takes a ing role in the movie alongside a number of notable cameos designed to grab the audience's attention and relay detailed information from the non-fiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (83)
The movie that finally earned Pitt his first Oscar win for acting, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a wholly idiosyncratic ode to a bygone era of movies from writer and director Quentin Tarantino.
Pitt plays the stuntman and chauffeur of Leonardo DiCaprio's fantastically neurotic over-the-hill star and comfortably steals the show with a leading role in the best scenes of the movie.
The Tree of Life (85)
Pitt stars as a stern but loving father in this complex but compelling drama from revered filmmaker Terrence Malick.
Malick's movies certainly aren't for everyone and The Tree of Life's non-linear structure has vexed many people but impressed many others, especially critics.
Moneyball (87)
Pitt stars as Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in this real-life baseball drama that earned him another two major Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Picture as one of the movie's producers.
The plot concerns the reshaping of the team through a controversial method of cold statistical calculations and it's given warmth by the performances of both Pitt and co-star Jonah Hill.
Thelma & Louise (88)
Pitt takes a brief but memorable role as an attractive man that the titular pair meet on their road trip/run from the law.
Ridley Scott's unusual crime journey remains one of the director's most highly-rated works amongst both critics and movie fans, standing out as a surprising landmark in feminist cinema.
12 Years a Slave (96)
Pitt again takes a ing role in this harrowing of the experiences of Solomon Northup who is abducted and sold into slavery in the mid-19th century.
The movie was co-produced by Pitt's production company, Plan B, and he took a lead producing credit on the movie which earned him an Oscar when 12 Years a Slave took home Best Picture.
