Jason Statham is one of the most popular and charismatic actors working today and one of action cinema’s only remaining bona fide stars.
The Fast and the Furious franchise and the Mission: Impossible franchise are currently the world’s biggest action movies (and Statham has quickly risen through the ranks of one of them, getting a spin-off after three movies), but they rely on their brand recognition to get audiences in.
Studios can sell a Jason Statham movie purely on the promise that he’ll fight a 75-foot prehistoric shark. So, here are Jason Statham’s 10 best movies, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (67%)
The extended Fast & Furious cast were unhappy about this spin-off since Universal delayed the next installment in the mainline Fast & Furious franchise to make room for it. But it’s hard to deny that it’s a heck of a fun movie.
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprise their Fast & Furious roles as Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, respectively (it doesn’t really matter which one’s which but the movie constantly reminds you anyway), as they’re forced to work together.
It’s a classic mismatched buddy action movie in the vein of Tango & Cash, and director David Leitch went really wild and self-referential with it.
The Expendables 2 (68%)
Although the first movie in The Expendables franchise had its budget slashed so much during production that the studio considered forgoing a theatrical release and going straight to home video, it still ended up being a box office smash. So, the sequel was given a nice, hefty $100 million budget for Sylvester Stallone to go wild with.
Jason Statham and Jet Li are the new kids on the block, joining a cast of action movie legends like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and Chuck Norris. Statham and Li are two of the only traditional action stars still around today, and they hold their own alongside those aging heavyweights.
Fast & Furious 6 (70%)
Jason Statham’s appearance in Fast & Furious 6 went uncredited. He appeared in the mid-credits scene set around the time of Tokyo Drift and killed Han. Then, he said, “You don’t know me. You’re about to.”
It was a pretty shocking scene that set up Deckard Shaw – the brother of Fast & Furious 6’s primary villain, Owen Shaw – as an intimating antagonist for Furious 7. However, since Statham proved to be popular enough with Fast fans to be invited into the main cast, many viewers were miffed that the fact he murdered Han in cold blood in this scene has been brushed over, prompting the #JusticeForHan campaign.
TIE: Snatch (73%)
Guy Ritchie’s sophomore effort, Snatch, balanced its various intertwining crime stories and its huge ensemble cast even more deftly than his directorial debut, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The former sort of acts as a companion piece to the latter.
If Ritchie didn’t reuse a lot of the same actors, they could be set in the same universe (not that anyone’s complaining – returning actors like Jason Flemyng, Vinnie Jones, and of course, Jason Statham, are perfectly matched with Ritchie’s signature style of sharp humor). Snatch also stars Brad Pitt as a bare-knuckle boxer and Benicio del Toro as a jewel thief.
TIE: The Italian Job (73%)
Remaking any classic movie is dangerous territory. The original British version of The Italian Job is possibly the greatest heist movie ever made, with iconic vehicular set pieces and hysterical gags in abundance. F. Gary Gray’s 2003 Hollywood remake was more of a straight crime movie than the original, but it was almost just as fun.
Jason Statham appears as Handsome Rob alongside such A-listers as Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, and Edward Norton. The remake turned out to be so good that there was even talk of a sequel called The Brazilian Job, although it seems to be stuck in development hell.
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (75%)
Before Guy Ritchie was known for making big-budget box office bombs that fail to start a franchise for Warner Bros. he was known as one of the freshest voices in British cinema.
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels established the style that would make him a famous and revered director: an ensemble crime movie about a bunch of people whose illegal activities impact each other’s lives in humorous ways in search of a MacGuffin.
The movie famously made actors out of two professional athletes – Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones – and neither of them hasas looked back in the years since.
The Bank Job (79%)
The true story behind The Bank Job is as interesting as the movie itself. It’s adapted from a real-life bank robbery that took place in London in 1971. The money and valuables that were stolen during the robbery were never found and the incident wasn’t spoken about for years.
According to the producers of The Bank Job, this was due to a D-Notice to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family. So, they set out to reveal the truth with this movie, although it does contain many elements that were fictionalized to make it a more exciting crime thriller.
Furious 7 (81%)
After being teased in a mid-credits scene tagged onto Fast & Furious 6, Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw made his first full appearance in Furious 7. James Wan did a terrific job of framing Statham’s awesomeness, like tracking him as he walked out of a collapsing hospital in his opening scene.
Shaw was initially characterized as a villain, but Universal would later request more scenes involving Statham and a redemption arc turning him into a hero in The Fate of the Furious before giving him his own spin-off alongside Dwayne Johnson, so he clearly made quite an impression in Furious 7.
Collateral (86%)
Jason Statham only makes a minor appearance in Collateral, credited as “Airport Man.” The movie’s real stars are Tom Cruise, who plays a hitman with several jobs to do, and Jamie Foxx, who plays the cabbie whose taxi Cruise hijacks for the night.
Statham’s early appearance is simply to make a handoff to Cruise’s character, but it was still key. This is an example of a high-profile star being cast to play a small role to make the audience realize how pivotal and important the scene is to the plot. (The same thing was done with Ted Danson in Saving Private Ryan.)
Spy (95%)
The star of Paul Feig’s critically acclaimed 2015 action-comedy Spy is the brilliant Melissa McCarthy. She plays Susan Cooper, a clerical CIA desk jockey who gets her shot at fieldwork when the suave gentleman spy she assists from behind a computer, Bradley Fine (Jude Law), is abducted by the villain, Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne).
Jason Statham only plays a supporting role in the movie but steals every single scene he’s in. His character is Rick Ford, an absurd parody of a typical death-defying Jason Statham character. Ford continually insists that he’s the agency’s best, despite constantly screwing up.
