Incredibly, we’ve been watchingHenry Cavillin movies and TV shows for nearly 20 years. The square-jawed star’s first role was in the 2001 movieLaguna. As of September 23, his most recent role will be in Netflix’sEnola Holmes, which also starsMillie Bobby BrownandSam Claflin. FromLagunatoEnola, Cavill has racked up 26 on-screen credits, with 19 of those consisting of his work in movies. Beyond those stats, it’s the shape of Cavill’s career that also intrigues. He began in supporting roles which frequently demanded little of him other than to show up and be, to some degree, a totally handsome dude. Luckily, Cavill’s been able to take on meatier roles which have helped push him and let him evolve as an actor in interesting ways.
To celebrate the release ofEnola Holmes, which sees Cavill as the latest actor to don the Sherlock Holmes mantle, I wanted to whittle down his list of movie credits to what I believe are his best movies. And, because I love a good plot twist, I’ve decided to rank those movies not only based on how good they are but use Cavill’s performance in any given movie as a key deciding factor. So, what are Cavill’s best movies and how do they rank in the humble opinion of this writer? Keep scrolling and find out.
Allie Gemmill is the Weekend Contributing Editor for Collider. you’re able to follow them on Twitter@_matineeidle.
The Cold Light of Day
Although 2012’sThe Cold Light of Dayis an incredible bomb (it grossed $3.7 million domestic on a $20 million budget), itisan intriguing entry in Cavill’s career. The movie follows Wall Street trader Will (Cavill) as he tries to rescue his family after they’re kidnapped while summering in Spain. Initially, Will is forced to team with his surly, secretive father, Martin (Bruce Willis), who also manages to evade capture. Martin eventually reveals to Will his line of work is far shadier than the cover story he’s fed his family for years, which might explain the situation Will and Martin find themselves in. But as Will goes further into the search to get his family back, he finds he’s tested in unexpected ways.
Now,The Cold Light of Dayis on this list (albeit at the very bottom) because it’s doing some cool things. First off, it’s asking me to believe Cavill could be 50% Willis' son, and that premise appeals to me on a spiritual level. Secondly, the movie makes use of the classic, very recognizable day-for-night shot and then asks me to believe Cavill and Willis were both like, “Yeah, this is totally fine, let me work under these conditions.” Finally, and most importantly,The Cold Light of Dayrepresents Cavill’s continued push into action star/leading man territory just one year after his first major leading role inImmortals(more on that below). Given the fact he’s mostly failed by a weak script and chaotic direction, Cavill firing on all cylinders is nothing short of a miracle. He’s bringing the weight, the focus, and the capability required on his position in the story. He’s able to make me believe some truly unhinged sequences, like a close-quarters shootout in an apartment kitchen, are actually cool, legit circumstances in an action movie. And if that’s not applause-worthy, I don’t know what is.
Justice League
Contrary to what some may believe, there is actually a good reason for me ploppingJustice Leaguenear the bottom of this list. First, I’ll remind you this ranking is of Cavill’sbestmovies, which means that technically,Justice Leaguebeing here means I think it is one of the actor’s best credits to date. Secondly,Justice Leagueis overall a not-so-great movie that gets a big boost of focus and purpose once Cavill arrives on the scene. So, just be thankful this movie is even on here, okay?
Justice League, a DCEU team-up movie ostensibly intended to have the same excitement and importance around it as MCU counterpartThe Avengers, arrived way too soon in the DCEU timeline. The solo movies meant to establish Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) had not been released or, in the case of the latter two actors, concretely conceived by the time this movie hit theaters, which means audiences were left to fill in any and all narrative blanks around those newcomers. After a well-documented and troubled production,Justice Leaguecame to theaters in November 2017 hoping we’d ignore the more negative aspects of production and focus on the “wow”-factor of the storied Justice League coming together. What we got was just a muddled and illogical movie which bore the burden of fan expectation, the confused visions of two different directors and an overbearing studio, and the deeply earnest efforts of an A-list cast who couldn’t make us forget the story they were telling didn’t hang together all that well. Even after all this time, it’s still hard to sit throughJustice Leaguewithout it feeling like a chore.
Cavill is one of a few really good things about this movie. (The other two are Gadot in all her Wonder Woman glory and Momoa growl-shouting “My man!” as he surfs on a Parademon.) I mean, what’s not to love about Superman being revived from the dead by a Mother Box in the amniotic techno-fluid of a Kryptonian ship? What’s not to love about Clark Kent standing in a field of Kansas-grown corn and contemplating what it means to come back from the dead? How can I be mad at Cavill acting his ass off through hisMission: Impossible - Falloutmustache, which will get fixed later in post? Cavill is doing his damnedest here. When he’s onscreen, it’s likeJustice Leagueactually finds its footing and we get a better sense of Superman as a leader, a team player who can rely on allies rather than bear the way of heroism on his own. Simply put, Cavill’s Superman rips inJustice League.
WhetherJustice League’s ranking position remains intact onceZack Snyder’s Justice Leaguearrives on HBO Max in 2021 remains to be seen. Until then, I stand by this.
Blood Creek
2009’sBlood Creekis one of the more bizarre entries on Cavill’s resumé (in addition to a little-seen musical version ofRed Riding Hoodco-starringJoey Fatonethat he totally appeared in).Blood Creekis a rare dip into the dark side of storytelling for Cavill and one of two horror movies he’s appeared in, in addition to a small role in 2005’sHellraiser: Hellworld.
The movie, directed fairly gamely byJoel Schumacher, follows Evan Marshall (Cavill), a paramedic who is shocked when his older brother, Victor (Dominic Purcell), suddenly returns home after disappearing on a camping trip. Victor asks for Evan’s help in killing his captors, which Evans blindly agrees to do. It’s eventually revealed Victor was held captive at a farm where a family was living in a semi-immortal state because they were keeping a Nazi (Michael Fassbender) captive after said Nazi wanted to excavate a Viking runestone on their property in 1936 in order to take it back to Germany and use its powers to help the Nazis do evil Nazi shit.
Yeah, that’s actually the plot.
Blood Creekis gory and weird and a bit hammy, but it’s mostly fun. Well, fun if you love horror movies. It’s also fun to see Cavill appearing in a movie that’s just outside his typical action comfort zone. Of course, he’d eventually return to this general horror-supernatural arena with Netflix’sThe Witcher, but hisBlood Creekturn is such a refreshing turn you kinda wish he’d work in this genre more often. Let Henry Cavill be the leading man in horror movies!
In the arc of Cavill’s career, 2011’sImmortalsmarks a major turning point. After a decade spent hacking it out in supporting roles in both movies and TV where often he was solely asked to hit his mark and be dashing, Cavill was finally able to cut his leading man teeth in a role that tested him. Under the direction of visionary directorTarsem Singh, Cavill is taking big leaps as an actor that he succeeds in which in turn makes up for some ofImmortals' stumbles.
InImmortals, Cavill plays the soon-to-be-legendary Theseus. A mortal man trained to be an incredible fighter, Theseus rises when King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, benefitting greatly from the movie’s lighting and stylized cinematography) poses a threat across Greece. Theseus and his small group, which includes characters played byFrieda PintoandStephen Dorff, must attempt to find a weapon that could destroy humanity before Hyperion does. Naturally, their mission sees them tangling with humans, supernatural creatures, and Greek gods.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a sucker for a movie set in Ancient Greece, butImmortalsand, specifically the way Cavill is used inImmortals, is pretty freakin' great. Yes, the borderline overwrought stylization ofImmortalsthreatens to bring the movie to its knees. Yes, it’s basically a more artsy-fartsy300. Yes, some of the performances are, uh, not that great! But where Cavill is concerned,Immortalssucceeds. He knows exactly what kind of movie he is in: One that demands he look like the picture of modern masculinity while throwing spears and wielding swords and making epic faces as he leaps through the air.Immortalsis proof of Cavill’s abilities as a leading man and it helps lay the groundwork for the kind of movie star he would become and the kind of projects he would tackle in the coming decade. Because of this,Immortalsis a fascinating snapshot of Cavill’s professional development and very much worthy to be on this list.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Zack Snyder’s 2016 DCEU showdownBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justicedared to ask an important question: If we had our druthers, would we root for Superman to beat the living shit out of Batman, or Batman to beat the piss out of Superman?
Dawn of Justiceis Cavill’s second outing as Clark Kent/Superman andBen Affleck’s big DCEU debut as Bruce Wayne/Batman (heard of him?). Set after the events ofMan of Steel,Dawn of Justicesets up a big battle between Superman and Batman. Each man finds the other at fault for the current state of affairs in both Gotham and Metropolis. Bruce is angry with Superman after the destruction and chaos left in the wake of the battle against Zod, while Clark is disturbed by Batman’s brutal “take no prisoners” style of vigilante justice. The tension between the two men grows as their fact-finding missions while in their Clark and Bruce forms culminates in a no-holds-barred — and Lex Luthor-approved — fight that leads to some truly silly (read:the “Martha” moment) and frustrating (read: the “Martha” moment) places.
Affleck’s Batman is something I’ve never been too keen on and it doesn’t help that his performance is a one-note, minimum-range slog. To be fair, theDawn of Justicescript doesn’t favor anything in the way of real emotional growth or stakes for Batfleck, instead hinging any of that sensitive stuff on the aforementioned “Martha” moment which feels like a last-minute addition. It’s really Cavill who benefits fromDavid S. GoyerandChris Terrio’s script. Superman is dealing with the real-world implications of his superpowers and how they affect the rest of the world. He knows he can be a force for good, but what happens when is just a force? The Lex Luthor (JesseEisenberg)-Senator Finch (HollyHunter) arc that focuses on reigning Superman in and/or eradicating him gives Cavill something good to chew on. There’s noticeable and tangible psychological and emotional growth in Superman; Cavill does a mighty good job of pulling it off. In a movie that otherwise feels frequently overwrought and noisy, what Cavill does in his performance is damn near a miracle.
Enola Holmes
There have been countless depictions of world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes over the years, but none have managed to make him into a devastatingly hot jock/nerd who wears the hell out of a waistcoat. That honor goes to Cavill, who trades Sherlock’s deerstalker for a megawatt smile in 2020’sEnola Holmes.
Enola Holmesis reallyMillie Bobby Brown’s movie, which sees theStranger Thingsstar tackle one of her biggest leading roles to date as the teenager sleuth sis of Sherlock and Mycroft (Sam Claflin) Holmes. The gents are called home from London to figure out what to do with Enola when their mother (Helena Bonham Carter) suddenly goes missing the morning of Enola’s 16th birthday. Instead, Enola evades her brothers (and the plans to maybe just tuck her away in finishing school until she’s ready to be married) and goes to London to find their missing mom.
Enola Holmesmakes the very smart decision to not force Cavill to perform the same, potentially stale Sherlock tricks we’ve seen from previous iterations. While there are some fun scenes where Cavill gets to dig into Sherlock’s powers of deduction, he is mostly there to cast a knowing glance as he quietly predicts Enola’s next move or furrow an eyebrow at his genuinely odious older brother. In this way, Cavill is allowed to sink back into the refreshingly easy and assured performance space that he lived in duringThe Man From U.N.C.L.E.without having to go all the way. This allows Cavill to make his take on Sherlock feel refreshing while letting him do what he does best as an actor. Andthat— on top of getting to enjoy Cavill going full-on Brit after years of seeing his American side in the DCEU — is a true treat.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Reloading your arms mid-fight as if you’re cocking a gun is, perhaps, the most badass thing I’ve ever seen in aMission: Impossiblemovie — and Cavill makes it look so damn good. InMission: Impossible - Fallout,we’re once again back with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Luther (Ving Rhames). The original trio is tasked with stopping a shadowy operation known The Apostles, the remnants of terrorist Solomon Lane’s (Sean Harris)The Syndicate now working to fulfill the goals of a man named John Lark. Ethan, Benji, and Luther get stuck with Walker (Cavill), an agent with the CIA’s Special Activities Division and whose rough-around-the-edges reputation precedes him.
Having Cavill join theM:Ifray feels like a natural fit. He’d certainly racked up the street cred in action films aplenty by the time filming began in April 2017. He had the training and capability to keep pace withM:Ifranchise star Cruise. And, as always, Cavill’s shrewd awareness of how he reads onscreen means he is able to perfectly calibrate his performance as a shady, double-dealing American agent without letting on that something is amiss until the exact right moment. Heck, he’s got the evil mustache. That’s gotta count for something, right?
Seeing Cavill and Cruise together in the same frame during their brief period as allies also makesFalloutan interesting watch. Here are two generations of action stars showcasing their different approaches to the genre through their characters. Cruise prefers to show us the work by running across rooftops in London or zipping through the narrow Parisian streets on a motorbike. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt would prefer to infiltrate a secret meeting with the silicone masked his special briefcase cooks up for him. Meanwhile, Cavill is cool, calm, and collected, barely sweating over the task as hand — until a brief flash of brute force is required. It’s a treat to see Cavill and Cruise come together under these circumstances because they play so well as allies and enemies; I wouldn’t be mad if they decided to team up again in the future.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The fact that Cavill plays a man named “Napoleon Solo” (which is, in fact, the coolest fucking name ever put on film) should be the only reasonThe Man From U.N.C.L.E.is #2 on this list. But, as it happens, I have a few other very good reasons for putting this absolute banger of aGuy Ritchiemovie so high in the rankings.
First off,The Man From U.N.C.L.E.is the perfect showcase for Cavill being extremely cool. Like, almosttoocool. It’s a side of Cavill that we rarely see in its purest form, but it’s a side that Cavill knows how to use to his advantage. As Napoleon, Cavill is poised, calm, self-assured, and able to wear the hell out of a suit. His take on the super-secret ’60s-era spy will frequently make you say, “James Bond who??” He knows exactly how far to ratchet up the suaveness inThe Man From U.N.C.L.E., and he really leans into it as the movie goes on. He’s magnetic, the ideal leading man for a Ritchie movie.
Secondly, Cavill regularly steals scenes from fellow handsome tall boyArmie Hammer, who is tasked with maintaining a believable Russian accent and wooingAlicia Vikander. Meanwhile, Cavill is free to let his bachelor spy guy antics fly free as he and Ilya (Hammer) try and take down the villain of this piece, Victoria Vinciguerra (played by the flawlessElizabeth Debicki). And, when all else fails, Cavill plays a man who cooks a killer risotto and makes pickpocketing look like foreplay. I mean, what’s not to love?
Man of Steel
When we look back on Cavill’s career (which I hope still has a fair few decades left in it), the conversation will come back to one thing: HeisSuperman. (I can’t even imagine what the character would be in the hands of one of theactors Cavill beat outfor the part.) And, to be even more specific, he istheSuperman of his generation, much in the same wayChristopher Reeveis remembered as his generation’s Superman. It’s one of the first characters — if notthefirst — you probably think of when you think “Henry Cavill.” And that starts with 2013’sMan of Steel.
Man of Steelkicks off what has now become a near-infamous union between Warner Bros. and directorZack Snyder. For the sake of the metaphor,Man of Steelsits comfortably in the honeymoon period of the union, with Snyder managing to make a stirring and meaningful movie out ofDavid S. Goyer’s script.Man of Steelis a solid origin story for a character whose origin story we know so well, with Snyder and Goyer laying the groundwork for what would eventually become the DCEU and this iteration of Superman’s cinematic arc. Sure, it’s a comic book movie with some bloat, but that’s standard by 2013. But at least the bloat is helpful in letting theMan of Steelcharacters and stories breathe and live. Time is given for all those involved to consider what it means to live in a world where an alien superhero is coming to the forefront and might possibly be the pseudo-Messianic savior mankind needs. And regardless of the cinematic universe it lives in,Man of Steelis one of the most compelling superhero origin stories of the last 20 years.
It’s also undeniable that both Superman and Clark Kent are characters that feel tailor-made to showcase Cavill’s abilities as an actor. Cavill has always read as an irrepressibly charming, devilishly handsome man onscreen; there is a workaday, accessible gentle side, too. In past roles, he’s been asked to lean too far to either side without effectively bringing it all together. That changes inMan of Steel. There are shades of Superman’s otherworldly gravitas when he’s in Clark mode and touches of Clark’s shy, quiet side when he’s Superman. Cavill is showing off a wider range of skills as an actor inMan of Steelthan he had ever been asked to do up to that point — and he succeeds mightily in that challenge. What Cavill establishes about Superman’s mental state inMan of Steelmakes for a nuanced, emotionally-affective progression through the rest of his DCEU appearances and thus, makes Superman one of the best characters in that extended universe. Cavill is, simply put, firing on all cylinders. If you want to see just how great an actor Cavill is, watchMan of Steel.
