Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a fascinating actor, known for taking on violent roles, but also known for being one of the most amiable in real life, making for some true talent in his best movies and TV shows. Morgan got his start in the early 1990s with small roles in movies and TV. Because so many of his roles have been in a recurring capacity on television, he has become something of a character actor, popping into shows as father figures, charismatic love interests, or even villains that the audience loves to hate.

In recent years, however, he has also become the owner of a farm, which he updates his fans about on social media, and even co-owns a candy store in Rhinebeck, New York, giving him a very different career path in addition to acting. Though he has a huge resume of acting work behind him, he is best known for his role of Negan in The Walking Dead franchise, a role he has been continuing to play in multiple projects since 2016.

10 Rampage (2018)

As Harvey Russell

Rampage is not one of the most critically lauded of projects, so it might be a surprising pick for one of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s best movies. The role he plays in the popcorn flick is perfectly suited to him and a lot of fun.

Rampage is inspired by a series of video games. It features animals who become mutated and giant-sized after coming into with a genetically engineered bioweapon. One of those animals is a gorilla raised in a zoo environment and the man who has worked with him is determined to stop the military from putting him down.

Morgan stars as one of the soldiers in the movie who is tasked with the nearly impossible task of containing a giant gorilla, wolf, and alligator after they have all been lured to the middle of Chicago. He could have been a one-note character as so many military leaders are in these movies, but Morgan plays the role with his usual charisma and seems to have a good time trading quips with the movie’s lead Dwayne Johnson.

It might not be an award-winning chapter of Morgan’s career, but it’s a fun popcorn flick that will keep his fans entertained.

9 The Postcard Killings (2020)

As Jacob Kanon

They will see shades of a more contained Negan here, and it’s certainly a great role for Morgan.

The Postcard Killings is based on the 2010 novel of the same name. It did not make a huge splash with critics, but it is really a great look at Morgan’s dramatic talent.

The movie follows a detective (Morgan) who goes on the hunt for the person who killed his daughter. Her death is linked to a serial killer who sends postcards to a journalist concerning his kills. The nature of the story means that the audience gets to see Morgan as both a grieving father and a committed investigator, and the story has to find a way to balance those two without going off the rails.

The portrait of grief that Morgan paints is incredibly moving, but the investigation is also captivating. Audiences should not let the movie’s low critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (22%) keep them from seeing Morgan work. They will see shades of a more contained Negan here, and it’s certainly a great role for Morgan.

8 The Boys (2024-)

As Joe Kessler

Morgan only appears in a handful of episodes of The Boys, so far, but they are certainly interesting ones for him and the show.

The Boys is one of several comic book or graphic novel adaptations Morgan has appeared in. This show is not the clean-cut superhero series that others might be though. Instead, the project is a satire of other superhero stories, pushing the envelope in both violent and comedic ways.

Morgan’s role in the series is as a government operative who helps Billy Butcher on a mission. As it turns out, however, Morgan’s Kessler is someone who already died and Butcher has been hallucinating him as a side effect of the tumors he has. Morgan’s role becomes one of imaginary advisor, helping Butcher even though he’s really a part of Butcher as well. It’s a fine line to walk, making the audience believe that a character is real while still dropping hints to the alternative, and Morgan pulls it off well.

7 Magic City (2012)

As Ike Evans

...it makes it very clear that Morgan is a star.

Magic City is one of the short-lived projects of Morgan’s career. The series was cut short after only two seasons on Starz.

Magic City is a 1950s crime drama set in Miami. The show follows the life of the man who runs Miami’s most prestigious hotel, the place where the wealthy come to stay when they visit. The trouble is that he finds his business world and his personal life getting tangled up with the local mob boss.

Morgan plays the lead in Magic City, and if the series had become a hit, it might have ended up costing him his role in The Walking Dead a few years later. In fact, many of his best projects might not have ended up being his, so it’s easy to forgive the cancelation of the show, though it makes it very clear that Morgan is a star. He is perfect as the man who gets in over his head and sees no way out.

6 The Good Wife (2015-2016)

As Jason Crouse

Morgan did not appear throughout the entire run of the stellar drama The Good Wife. Instead, his appearances occurred primarily in the seventh season of the show.

The Good Wife focuses on the titular character, played by Julianna Margulies, as she returns to work as a lawyer after having spent time out of the work force to her political-minded husband. A scandal from him causes her to change her life. The series has had two spin-offs so far - The Good Fight and Elsbeth.

When Morgan s the show in season 7, the show is already well-established, and it can be hard to endear a character to an audience so late in a series. He did it though as a private investigator and former lawyer who begins working with the team. Morgan is at his most charismatic in the series, and he is poised to be Marguiles’ character’s endgame love interest - except fans never get any closure for their characters.

That is the one downside to Morgan ing the show in what ended up being the final season.

5 The Losers (2010)

As Clay

Morgan has actually appeared in quite a few comic book or graphic novel adaptations. The Losers is one of those that frequently ends up forgotten even though it features a cast who nearly all have gone on to other big comic book projects as well - Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, and Idris Elba, for example.

The movie sees an undercover military team choose to rescue children from a drug lord’s compound before they finish their mission. As a result, their means of escape is destroyed and their boss considers them dead. They end up stranded and needing to find a way back to their old lives, choosing to team up with a woman who wants revenge on their old boss. Morgan plays one of those team .

The Losers received largely mixed reviews, and it had the misfortune of getting a lot of comparisons to The A-Team with that remake premiering shortly after. It meant the movie got lost in a crowd of action movies, despite the cast turning out great performances. Morgan in particular got to play up his sense of humor instead of being stuck as an ultra-serious leader, and his lightness really helped cement the chemistry of the team.

4 Grey’s Anatomy (2006-2009)

As Denny Duquette

This is likely the role of Morgan’s that will bring the most tears to the eyes of the audience...

Morgan recurs in 23 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy across three different seasons. The emotional role is one of his most memorable and one of his few memorable roles that does not involve him chasing monsters or toting a gun.

Grey’s Anatomy follows a group of interns and doctors in their day-to-day lives working in a busy teaching hospital. Each episode has cases of the week as part of a medical procedural format, but the larger arcs of the show concern the personal and romantic lives of the characters.

Morgan recurs as Denny, a patient with a heart condition that Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) takes a liking to. His sweetness and genuinely good attitude charms her and she nearly loses her job when she takes drastic measures to save his life. In later episodes, Izzie also hallucinates him after he has already died, giving the audience a clue into her own declining health.

This is likely the role of Morgan’s that will bring the most tears to the eyes of the audience, as he knows exactly how to play his scenes to make the audience mourn him before he is even lost.

3 Watchmen (2009)

As The Comedian AKA Edward Blake

Watchmen, at its core, is a murder mystery.

Watchmen is one of the most ambitious comic book movies. It strives to stay extremely close to the artwork and the vision of the graphic novel, which makes for a nearly Herculean task. It is also, however, why so many audiences praise the aesthetic of the movie as much as the performances.

Watchmen, at its core, is a murder mystery. The story kicks off with the murder of the Comedian, a supposedly revered hero, and it immerses the audience into a world populated with heroes who might not be exactly who they seem.

While Morgan does not have a ton of screen time in the movie, his character’s murder at the top of the film is not his only time in the movie. His character is also explored through flashbacks that allow the audience to see that he is not a traditional superhero, but instead, he is a violent vigilante with a bend towards nihilism. Morgan does an irable job of making the character walk right off the graphic novel page.

2 Supernatural (2005-2019)

As John Winchester

Though Jeffrey Dean Morgan only appears in 13 episodes across 15 seasons of Supernatural, he is a huge part of the lore of the show. He plays the father of the brothers at the center of the fantasy thriller.

Supernatural follows two brothers who hunt monsters on a regular basis. Trained by their father from a young age, they initially reunite when their father goes missing. They end up maintaining the hunt after working together to save the world time and time again and realizing how difficult living a normal life can be given what they know.

The core of Supernatural is the family element. The brothers at the center of the series are the only thing that really remains constant in the show, but they have a network of friends and fellow hunters, mostly introduced to them because of their connection to their father, that maintains that family element. Morgan’s role as John Winchester makes it clear that he might not have been the best father growing up, but that he also inspires a lot of loyalty. Morgan plays the role with a certain amount of charm and danger that makes him perfect.

1 The Walking Dead Franchise (2016-)

As Negan

Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s most memorable role is in The Walking Dead franchise. He has played the role across multiple series. It’s also his best role to date because it is one of the most layered of his career.

The Walking Dead is the flagship series, chronicling how one group of humanity survives in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. Negan makes his debut in that series as the leader of a violent group called The Saviors. The series, however, humanizes him, working his backstory into the show and demonstrating how he grew into a strategic and violent leader. He eventually appears in other shows in the franchise as well that help to expand the lore of the show and detail how others survived.

Negan is initially violent and power-hungry. It’s a testament to Morgan’s acting that the audience does not just hate him outright. Instead, they’re intrigued by him. Morgan makes Negan charismatic as often as he is rigid in his ways, and that goes a long way in keeping his character entertaining for the audience. Negan is the character most fans wanted to see in a spin-off show, so it makes sense that his complicated history with Maggie would get the spotlight in Walking Dead: Dead City.

The Walking Dead’s Negan is Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s best TV series character to date.