The best movies of Adrien Brody From the Pianist until Midnight in Paris

Adrien Brody may be best known for his roles in Wes Anderson films. Still, the actor's career shows his ability to play various roles.

Anna Last Updated: April 3, 2024

10 minutes read

Adrien Brody may be best known for his roles in Wes Anderson films. Still, the actor’s career shows his ability to play various roles.

Brody has had an acceptable performance either in Wes Anderson’s strange films, action films, or alongside stunning monsters. A remarkable impact always accompanies his presence, a situation few actors have experienced. We often see him thinking in action movies, while in Anderson’s films, he portrays a strange but creative character.

Throughout his career, Adrien Brody has proven to be a fascinating and thoughtful actor who always strives to portray the most accurate image of his character. Critics have praised his ability to hold the audience’s attention. Brody’s wide range of films is a good indication of his knowledge and talent.

This brilliance was to the extent that Brody finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for playing the role of Vladislav Shipelman in the drama film The Pianist by Roman Polanski. This award also made him the youngest actor to win an Oscar in this category. His efforts over the years of his career have made him famous and a respectable actor noticed by the people of the cinema world.

The best Adrien Brody movies

15- Village movie

The Village movie

Genre: Mystery, Drama, Thriller
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Publication year: 2004
Actors: Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Phoenix and William Hart
The average score of The Village on IMDB: 6/6

While working in cinema and television, Brody has collaborated with many famous directors. The film “The Village” by M. Night Shyamalan results from one of these collaborations.

Brody plays the role of “Noah Percy,” a prominent role in the story of the village film. Its inhabitants fear unknown monsters living in the surrounding forests; like other works of Shyamalan at that time, this film has a unique and complicated ending.

Brody mentions in an interview that when Shyamalan called him to offer to play in the movie Village, he asked him what kind of work and role he was interested in. He also said with utmost honesty that he would like to play the role of a prominent American man who seeks to attract the attention of a young girl. Shyamalan kept quiet and told him this role was not what he desired. However, Brody considers this presence an inspiration in his career, which was given to him when he was looking to play the role of an iconic man.

14- Sam’s summer movie

Summer of Sam movie

Genre: Drama, romance, crime
Director: Spike Lee
Publication year: 1999
Actors: Adrien Brody, John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino
Average rating of Summer of Sam on IMDB: 6/7

Summer of Sam is director Spike Lee’s take on the murders of the serial killer known as ‘Son of Sam.’ In this film, Brody plays the role of Richie, the main character’s best friend. So she accompanies John Berkowitz, the infamous Bronx killer, as he roams the streets.

Young Brody presents a different role in the role of Richie, a driven but passionate individual who somehow fits into the heart of the story. This role-playing paved the way for him to get better parts.

He believes that if this film had been released after The Pianist, his portrayal of Richie would have been praised for its boldness and uniqueness. But at the time of the release of this film, no one knew much about him. No one knew that the punk culture had never impacted his life and that the actor who played Richie had to make himself something miles away from his real personality.

13- Jacket movie

The Jacket movie

Genre: fantasy, mystery, drama
Director: John Maybury
Publication year: 2005
Actors: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley and Daniel Kerbaugh
The average rating of The Jacket on IMDB: 1.7

In Jacket’s exciting and psychological drama, Brody shined as “Jack Starks”—a Persian Gulf War veteran mistakenly imprisoned in a criminally insane prison.

He undergoes medical experiments that use absurd methods to treat patients, changing the Starks’ lives forever. For example, in one of these tests, we see him wearing a particular hospital coat and being left alone in a morgue coffin for hours.

Brody says he had his ideas for the film but had to put those ideas on hold while casting. Because he has a unique style of play, he must believe everything his character experiences in the film. Therefore, if the character is going to go crazy, he must feel this madness and experience it as a part of the reality of his existence.

12- Darjeeling Films Limited

The Darjeeling Limited movie

Genre: Drama, Comedy
Director: Wes Anderson
Publication year: 2007
Actors: Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman
The average score of The Darjeeling Limited on IMDB is 2.7

Darjeeling Limited was the first collaboration between Adrien Brody and Wes Anderson. Remember that Anderson is one of the cinematographers with a style known for his unique look and style of filmmaking. That’s why this movie is a fantastic work, both in terms of filming and script, as well as the use of color and space, that there is nothing like it.

Brody does an excellent job of bringing Anderson’s characters to life, adding to the story’s essence. Owen Wilson and Bill Murray, who are Anderson’s old colleagues, are as always well suited to their roles and have impressed the viewer.

11- Rupture movie

Detachment movie

Genre: Drama
Director: Tony Kay
Publication year: 2011
Starring: Adrien Brody, Christina Hendricks, and Marcia Gay Harden
Average rating of Detachment on IMDB: 7/7

Adrien Brody’s acting in the film The Breakup is another brilliant performance. In this film, he plays the role of a substitute teacher named “Henry Barrett” and faces comedic and tragic events.

The story of this film is dedicated to one month of Bart’s life when three women enter this teacher’s life, and each involves his feelings in some way. On the other hand, Bart’s emotional conflict with each of them overshadows his view of his mother’s suicide. This movie is one of the influential works that have been made about the lives of teachers or professors.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brody talked about his love for this project. He believes this film was made for the right reasons but got little attention. It was sad for Brody because he enjoyed playing this role, and the performance made him think about our children’s future and the scary world they face, both of which were interesting to him.

10- Kale Fashangi movie

Bullet Head movie

Genre: Drama, Thriller, Crime
Director: Paul Soult
Publication year: 2017
Starring: Adrien Brody, John Malkovich, and Rory Culkin
Average rating of Bullet Head on IMDB: 5.4

Adrien Brody plays the role of a brutal and experienced criminal named “Stacey” in the action and thriller movie, who has to do a big job in an old warehouse and get rid of the police and his partners. Little does he know, however, that a far more dangerous threat than the police is lurking inside the warehouse: a gigantic killer dog.

This film is made with a particular point of view. Still, it is not among the extraordinary or unique works of Brody’s career. Brody did what he was assigned to do, and from a filmmaking point of view, there is nothing special about this movie. That may be why Rotten Tomatoes scored slightly above average for this movie.

9- The movie Robbers

Movie Predators

Genre: action, adventure, fantasy
Director: Nimrod Antal
Publication year: 2010
Actors: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne and Topher Grace
The average rating of Predators on IMDB is 6.4

Before Brody went on a murderous dogfight, he faced a much more classic, albeit more serious, threat. That is when he met an alien race in the movie Marauders and stood up to confront them. This movie, another work of the Marauder movie series, is again the scene of the fight between new mercenaries and trained shooters who must face and repel the deadly threats of this alien creature.

Adrien Brody’s performance in this movie is fantastic, and it’s clear that he’s trained well to do this. However, it cannot be said that this version has managed to overcome the original version and appear better than it. However, the excitement and charm of this movie are enough to make it worth watching.

8- French report film

The French Dispatch movie

Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy
Director: Wes Anderson
Publication year: 2021
Actors: Arden Brody, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton
The average rating of The French Dispatch on IMDB is 1.7

Adrien Brody is one of the few actors that Wes Anderson likes, so it’s not surprising that after appearing in several works of this director, he is also present in the latest film made by Anderson, The French Report. You should know that this movie had one of the best action sequences of Anderson’s works, formed from the creative combination of animation and natural scenes.

The French reportage film is an anthology of three complex stories in a publication’s office. Adrien Brody also plays the role of Julian Cadazio, an art dealer involved in a tax evasion case. His performance is excellent and has helped maintain the integrity of the film’s structure.

7- Red thin line movie

The Thin Red Line movie

Genre: war, drama, historical
Director: Terrence Malick
Publication year: 1998
Actors: Adrien Brody, Sean Penn and Nick Nolte
The average score of The Thin Red Line on IMDB is 7.6

The story of the film The Thin Red Line tells a true story of World War II. The story is about a group of soldiers involved in a search and rescue mission and, of course, doing something big, i.e., capturing strategic and essential hills. According to the Independent report, Adrien Brody was initially supposed to play one of the leading roles but later became a more minor role.

Even though the film The Thin Red Line is a classic war drama that both questions the theme of war and portrays it in the most violent way possible, it still tries to have a convincing performance. The film’s score on Rotten Tomatoes shows that the production team has succeeded in achieving this goal, and almost many viewers are satisfied with watching this work.

6- King Kong movie

King Kong movie

Genre: adventure, romance, action
Director: Peter Jackson
Publication year: 2005
Actors: Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts, and Jack Black
The average rating of King Kong on IMDB: 2.7

Peter Jackson is one of the successful Hollywood directors who created the popular and award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy. The director also succeeded in making the movie King Kong, which starred Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll.

The movie King Kong is one of the best works that have been made based on this vast gorilla. This film follows almost the same structure and storyline as the original work. However, it has been tried to present a more modern impression to the audience, and the film’s editing has been done much better.

5- The King of the Hill movie

King Of The Hill movie

Genre: Drama, Historical
Director : Steven Soderbergh
Publication year: 1993
Actors: Adrien Brody, Jess Bradford and Jeroen Kraba
The average rating of King Of The Hill on IMDB is 3.7

The movie King of the Hill is about coming of age when the great economic recession caused problems in everyone’s life. In this film, Brody plays the role of Lester, who could be a more important character. However, his performance portraying the sincere story of a boy trying to build his life alone in this dire situation is satisfactory and acceptable.

This film is among the valuable works of Brody’s professional career. This experience was undoubtedly instructive for the actor and helped him take his acting to higher levels.

4- Freedom Heights movie

Liberty Heights movie

Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director: Barry Levinson
Publication year: 1999
Actors: Adrien Brody, Ben Foster and Joe Mantegna
Average rating of Liberty Heights on IMDB: 7

The events of the film Freedom Heights take place in 1954. Adrien Brody plays the role of the main character’s older brother in this movie.

Adrien Brody’s performance in this film may not seem as complete and realistic as his later performances. However, the film Heights of Freedom is not disappointing and has successfully attracted the audience’s attention.

3- The Grand Budapest Hotel movie

The Grand Budapest Hotel movie

Genre: adventure, comedy, adventure
Director: Wes Anderson
Publication year: 2014
Actors: Adrien Brody, Riff Fiennes, Murray Abraham and Willem Dafoe
The average score of The Grand Budapest Hotel on IMDB: 1/8

One of the most iconic works in Adrien Brody’s best movies list is The Grand Budapest Hotel, which can be called one of the actor’s best collaborations with Wes Anderson.

Brody plays the role of Dimitri in this movie. The story’s main antagonist is a wealthy heir who devotes his time and energy to fighting anyone who gets in his way and prevents him from achieving his goals. This role-playing is one of the strangest and, at the same time, the most convincing roles of Adrien Brody.

2- Midnight in Paris movie

Movie Midnight In Paris

Genre: family, comedy, romance
Director: Woody Allen
Publication year: 2011
Starring: Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates
The average score of Midnight In Paris on IMDB is 7/7

Adrien Brody is not acting in Midnight in Paris. Still, he is portraying Salvador Dali in the middle of time travel and reviewing a love story. The company of Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson with Brody has made the film even more attractive, making viewers fall in love with Paris.

This film is one of the masterpieces of Adrien Brody’s career and a vital launch pad that brought him to the attention of famous directors. This is how, a few years later, we saw his presence in high-level works such as the Grand Budapest Hotel.

1- Pianist movie

The Pianist movie

Genre: Drama, Biography
Director: Roman Polanski
Publication year: 2002
Actors: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kerchman, and Frank Finale
The average score of The Pianist on IMDB is 8.5

One of the most well-made and attractive works in Adrien Brody’s career is the movie The Pianist, which portrays him as a skilled pianist in the city of Warsaw, Poland. He was a Jewish pianist who experienced World War II right before his eyes and saw things he never thought he would share. However, this musician does his best to fight for what he believes in and the things that are dear to him and keep them for himself.

The Pianist is a fusion of emotions and dramatic atmosphere mixed with a backdrop of actual historical events, something a moviegoer will always enjoy. It is a work that commemorates those who experienced these bitter but actual events and became one of the charms of cinema history.

Finally, what do you think about Adrien Brody’s career? Which work mentioned in this list is this actor’s best performance, and why did you come to such a conclusion? We are still eager to hear your opinions and views, so share them with us and your other friends. Thank you.