Top 13 Chris Pratt Movies, Ranked

There’s a moment in the first Guardians of the Galaxy where Peter Quill dances his way through an alien ruin to “Come and Get Your Love,” and something clicked for audiences worldwide: this guy was a movie star. That one scene captured everything that makes Chris Pratt so watchable — the physical comedy, the effortless charm, the ability to make something completely ridiculous feel completely real. At TV Hulk, we ranked these performances by how convincing and memorable they are, and how much Pratt himself makes you feel something in the role, whether that’s joy, tension, or something you didn’t expect from him at all. From early supporting work to franchise-defining leads, here are his 13 best.

13. The Five-Year Engagement (2012)

Alex Eilhauer isn’t the lead, but Pratt treats him like he is. In this Judd Apatow-produced rom-com, he plays the boisterous best friend of Tom (Jason Segel), committing to every bit with the loose, improvisational energy he was perfecting during his Parks and Recreation years. There’s a running gag involving Alex’s unlikely romantic arc that Pratt plays with complete sincerity, which makes it funnier than it has any right to be. He doesn’t have the most screen time, but every scene he’s in gets a little more alive. It’s a warm, funny supporting turn that rewards anyone who goes back to find it.

12. Wanted (2008)

Barry the office co-worker is a small role in a big, loud action movie, but Pratt makes him so specifically, gleefully obnoxious that he’s hard to forget. In the early scenes where Barry lords his petty workplace power over James McAvoy’s Wesley, Pratt leans into the smug entitlement with real comedic precision — there’s a particular pleasure in watching him needle and belittle Wesley with such cheerful, oblivious confidence. It’s a pure character turn in a film that was a major box office success, and the earliest clear signal that Pratt had a gift for making supporting parts land harder than they needed to. Hollywood noticed.

11. Her (2013)

Pratt’s role in Spike Jonze’s film is brief. He plays Paul, a co-worker and friend of Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore, but it’s a reminder of where Pratt was in his career before the blockbusters arrived. He’s relaxed and naturalistic here, fitting seamlessly into an ensemble that includes Rooney Mara and Amy Adams without a single moment of his usual comedic deflection. There’s a scene where Paul and Theodore share a friendly, low-key interaction that Pratt plays with real warmth and zero showboating. Being part of one of the best-reviewed films of the entire decade, even briefly, says something about the range of projects he was quietly attaching himself to.

10. Onward (2020)

Barley Lightfoot is the kind of older brother who names his van Guinevere, quotes fantasy lore at every opportunity, and would absolutely die for his little sibling without a second thought. Pratt voices him with a big, rumbling enthusiasm that never tips into annoying. There’s a genuine sweetness underneath all the bluster, and you hear it most clearly in the quieter moments when Barley realizes what the quest actually means to his brother Ian. The scene near the end where Barley’s sacrifice lands works almost entirely because of the emotional weight Pratt has been building in his voice throughout the film. COVID kept this Pixar gem from finding the audience it deserved in theaters, but the performance holds up completely.

9. The Tomorrow War (2021)

Dan Forester is a biology teacher and Army veteran who gets drafted into a future war against alien invaders, which sounds like pure spectacle territory, and it partly is. But Pratt grounds the film in something more personal: Dan’s complicated relationship with his father (J.K. Simmons) and his fierce protectiveness of his daughter give the time-travel mechanics actual emotional stakes. There’s a scene where Dan breaks down after an early mission that Pratt plays with a rawness that catches you off guard in what you expected to be a popcorn movie. He also produced the film, which became one of Amazon Prime’s biggest original launches, and his commitment to making Dan feel like a real person rather than just an action archetype is a big reason it works as well as it does.

8. Passengers (2016)

Jim Preston wakes up 90 years too early on a spacecraft headed to a colony planet, and what he eventually does about his loneliness is the moral knot at the center of this film. Pratt’s performance was recognized by critics, and it’s easy to see why: the role asks him to make a man who does something morally indefensible sympathetic enough that audiences stay invested, which is a far harder acting task than anything he’d attempted before. Watch the long stretch of the film where Jim is completely alone on the ship. Pratt carries those scenes on physical performance and facial expression alone, building a portrait of isolation that makes the character’s eventual choice feel tragically human rather than simply villainous. Flawed film, fascinating performance.

7. The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Joshua Faraday arrives on screen flipping cards and talking his way out of trouble, and Pratt plays him with a loose, roguish confidence that fits the western genre like a worn leather jacket. An early scene showcasing his character’s roguish charm is a small masterclass in physical charm. Faraday is performing for the room, and Pratt is performing for the audience, and both of them know it. What’s impressive is how well he holds his own in a cast that includes Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, finding his own register without trying to compete. Antoine Fuqua’s remake had a lot to prove against the 1960 original, and Pratt’s Faraday is one of the clearest reasons it earns its place as an entertaining western in its own right, not a pale imitation, but a film with its own pulse.

6. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

The casting of Pratt as Mario was one of the most debated decisions in recent animated film history, and then the movie made an absolutely staggering amount at the box office and became one of the highest-grossing animated features ever released. His Mario is energetic and earnest, leaning into the character’s relentless optimism rather than trying to replicate the iconic video game voice. There’s a sequence where Mario is training through increasingly brutal obstacle courses and Pratt’s breathless, determined delivery gets funnier with each failure. Kids loved it, nostalgic adults showed up in massive numbers, and voicing the most recognizable video game character of all time is simply a fact of Pratt’s career now, whatever anyone thinks of the choice.

5. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Pratt’s Justin is stripped of every comedic instinct he’d built his early career on. In Kathryn Bigelow’s procedural thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, he plays a Navy SEAL with a quiet, coiled credibility. No quips, no charm offensive, just a guy doing a dangerous job with professional focus. The tense climax in the film’s final act is one of the most gripping stretches of cinema from that entire decade, and Pratt holds his own in it alongside Joel Edgerton and others without a single false note. His willingness to disappear into serious ensemble work this early in his career is the underrated chapter of his story that most people skip past.

4. Moneyball (2011)

Scott Hatteberg is a catcher who can no longer catch, trying to reinvent himself as a first baseman for the Oakland A’s while quietly wondering if his career is already over. Pratt plays him with a warmth and vulnerability that feels completely unforced. There’s a scene where Hatteberg faces a high-pressure moment at the plate, and the way Pratt captures that mix of fear and determination sticks with you long after the film ends. This was years before anyone was casting him as an action lead, and director Bennett Miller trusted him with a real person’s story in a critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated film. It remains the strongest argument that there’s a serious dramatic actor in there, one who doesn’t always get the material to prove it.

3. The Lego Movie (2014)

Emmet Brickowski is relentlessly, almost aggressively ordinary, a construction worker who follows every rule, loves a terrible pop song, and has no idea he’s supposed to be special. Pratt voices him with a bright, slightly clueless sincerity that somehow makes you root for him completely. The trick is that he never plays Emmet as a joke: even when the character is being laughed at by everyone around him, the voice performance stays genuine and a little heartbreaking, which is what makes the film’s emotional turn in the third act actually work. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s film became one of the most acclaimed animated movies of the 2010s, and a huge part of why it connects so deeply is that Pratt turns a plastic minifigure into someone you know.

2. Jurassic World Franchise (2015–2022)

Owen Grady trains raptors for a living, and Pratt plays him with such easy, unflappable confidence that you never question whether this is a reasonable job. The original Jurassic World scene where Owen walks into the raptor paddock and holds a pack of raptors at bay through sheer calm authority is the moment that proved his Marvel stardom wasn’t a fluke. It’s physically committed, completely straight-faced, and wildly entertaining all at once. Across three films that grossed billions of dollars worldwide, Pratt anchored one of Hollywood’s most beloved legacy franchises with a style that prioritizes likability and grounded physicality over flashiness. Owen isn’t the most complicated character he’s ever played, but Pratt makes him exactly the kind of hero you want standing between you and a Velociraptor.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Franchise (2014–2023)

Peter Quill is a kid from Missouri who got abducted by aliens, grew up to be a space outlaw, and never quite got over losing his mom. Pratt plays him with a swagger that always has a little sadness underneath, and that combination is what elevates Star-Lord beyond just a funny guy in a red coat. The opening of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, Quill dancing through an alien ruin to a Walkman, completely alone on a strange planet, tells you everything about this character, and Pratt sells it without a single line of dialogue. By the time Vol. 3 arrived, he’d grown into the emotional weight the franchise was asking of him. The scenes where Peter has to reckon with loving someone who doesn’t remember him are played with a genuine ache that his earlier work only hinted at. The whole run is remarkable, and Peter Quill is the role he’ll be remembered for.

Chris Pratt built his film career on years of television work, most notably as Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation (2009–2015), and looking back, that comedic groundwork pays off in every performance on this list. The dramatic instincts were always there too; Moneyball and Zero Dark Thirty proved that long before the blockbusters arrived. The best version of his career is one where both sides keep getting used.