Bradley Cooper’s Best (and Worst) Movies, Ranked
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It all started because people realized smoking is bad for you. In 1999, an unknown actor named Bradley Cooper played Jake, a single and straight smoker in an episode Sex and the City; a classic Carrie Bradshaw guy-who-wasn’t-Big-of-the-week. The following year, Cooper went to acting school and never looked back.
Over the past two decades, Bradley Cooper has truly done it all. His film career started two years after his acting debut with a small role in 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer, which would become a cult hit and launch an early career in comedies. After roles on television shows in the early aughts including Alias and Kitchen Confidential, Cooper cemented his movie star status with his role as Phil in the hit summer comedy The Hangover in 2009. In the 2010s, he dabbled in action with 2010’s The A-Team, and built something of an attachment to rising star Jennifer Lawrence, whose performance in 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook helped him earn his first Oscar nomination. By the end of the decade, Cooper was a modern auteur and triple threat. His first film as a director, A Star Is Born, came out in 2018 and shook culture to its core—and launched one of the best memes in meme history. But Maestro, which he wrote, directed, and stars in as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, is his masterpiece, and launches on Netflix today.
In honor of Maestro's Netflix premiere, we ranked Bradley Cooper film performances from worst to best. Since he has quite a lot of credits, we gave ourselves some time to be alive with an established criteria: movies within this ranking are primarily (although not limited to) leading roles that are culturally significant or significant to Cooper’s career. For example, All About Steve is not culturally significant (although its awfulness did make a splash): it is, however, significant to Cooper’s resume and trajectory. As for supporting roles, his critically acclaimed performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza earns a spot as well as his contributions to Garry Marshall’s ensemble comedies. His supporting roles in Failure to Launch and War Dogs however, did not make the cut.
So, without further ado, here are the 22 most significant Bradley Cooper performances, ranked from worst to best.
Serena (2014)
The early to mid 2010s were like working at a startup for Mr. Cooper, in that he was wearing many hats: action star, rom com star, Oscar contender, Jennifer Lawrence scene partner. Silver Linings Playbook cemented their chemistry, while Serena, in which Cooper plays a timber barron and husband to Lawrence’s Serena, exploded, and therefore, ruined it. Serena is the worst entry in both the Cooper-Lawrence saga and Cooper’s entire filmography, as well as a complete misfire and lifesucker for anyone who watched it.
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All About Steve (2009)
The only thing that makes sense about this baffling and creepy attempt at screwball comedy is Bradley Cooper’s performance as the titular Steve, a cameraman so handsome and charming that Sandra Bullock is inclined to stalk him around the country, trying to get him to fall in love with her. To be fair, Cooper didn’t have to do much beyond showing up for work to accomplish this.
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Aloha (2015)
Bradley Cooper and Cameron Crowe make sense. Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone make sense. Bradley Cooper being sentimental in Hawaii does not.
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The A-Team (2010)
Now that Cooper has transformed his career into that of an auteur of cinema, it’s difficult to accept that at one point long–but not that long–ago, he was, for a brief period in the early 2010s, making an attempt at action stardom. Was he trying to be the next Tom Cruise, as if that’s possible? In retrospect, it’s likely. In The A-Team, Cooper co-led alongside Liam Neeson. The movie is typical 2010: both Dark Knight and Iron Man coded, aka serious cinema plus playful characters times a Snyder-esque rock inspired soundtrack. The movie is fine, but Cooper’s performance alongside Needson’s demonstrates he has movie star chops, and that he can turn any dull screenplay into a decent enough time.
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Valentine’s Day (2010)
Hot couple alert! Cooper and Eric Dane (of Euphoria and Dr. McSteamy fame) play romantic partners. Their scenes together are extremely limited, at a detriment to the film: they have chemistry, and have one of the only compelling narratives in the sprawling list of plotlines.
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Joy (2015)
In Joy, Cooper and Lawrence reunite once again, under David O. Russell’s direction. Cooper’s role as a QVC exec is extremely limited, but his compelling, slightly campy monologue has the impact of a lead performance, which is something he’ll do more successfully in a better film in just a few years (keep reading for more on that).
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American Hustle (2013)
How did Cooper’s performance as a smarmy FBI agent in the 1970s earn him his second Oscar nomination? Because of the wig and because Amy Adams makes everyone–even the star-studded but possibly clueless cast of a film so bloated it has completely escaped my memory—look like gods.
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Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Although Cooper’s role as Ben in Wet Hot American Summer is very small, it is very important in that it was his first film fresh out of acting school, and because he would play the role again in the 2015 Netflix revival series Wet Hot American Summer; First Day of Camp, only to be replaced by Adam Scott in the 2017 series Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later (he was very busy). Over the years, the summer camp satire that pokes fun at acting morphed into a cult classic, and its sprawling cast of actors and comedians who rose to prominence (including Cooper) after the film’s release helped. Cooper’s comedic impact in Wet Hot defined his early career in comedy, which led to Wedding Crashers and ultimately The Hangover, which launched him into movie stardom.
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Wedding Crashers (2005)
Bradley Cooper did not hold back a thing in his performance as Sack Lodge, the asshole boyfriend to Rachel McAdams in Wedding Crashers. The performance accomplished a few things: firstly, it established Cooper as a comedic genius who could go up against aughts comedy darlings Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, and it's also his first cinematic entry as a relentlessly charming douchebag.
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He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)
Mr. Cooper has a dark side, and he has never been more vile than he was as the frosted tipped, cheating, lying smoker married to eyebrow queen Jennifer Connelly in He’s Just Not That Into You. Really fucking A-plus job playing a completely unredeemable asshole. Only an auteur such as Cooper could convincingly deliver the line, “I mean, am I not allowed to have friends anymore? I mean, am I not allowed to be friends with people that are hot? I mean, what kind of reverse prejudice is that?” I mean?!
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The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
In this gutsy (literally and figuratively) thriller, Cooper explores toxic masculinity in Leon Kaufman, a struggling photographer who becomes obsessed with capturing images of a serial killer who catches his prey on the subway late at night. The underrated role didn’t really cement more immediate dramatic roles for him because it didn’t have much impact pre-The Hangover fame, but it provided a glimpse at what he could do with obsessive characters who descend into madness, a common theme in his present-day work.
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American Sniper (2014)
While the movie is little more than American military propaganda, Cooper’s performance as marksman/man-with-two-first-names Chris Kyle brought necessary emotional weight into Clint Eastwood’s well-directed agenda. His performance provides substance where there is none, but most importantly, marked a turning point in his career. It established Cooper’s relationship with Eastwood (whose direction is a heavy influence on his own), and the critical praise (and another Oscar nomination) changed the trajectory of his career, paving the way for his auteur era.
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Burnt (2015)
Cooper plays chef Adam Jones, a michelin-starred chef with the personality of an early season Top Chef contestant. The film itself leaves much to be desired, but Cooper’s performance is a seamless blend of his best assets: his charm, his razor-sharp edge, and his comedic timing.
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Limitless (2011)
Limitless asked one question: can Bradley Cooper carry a movie so well that even the most pretentious cinema freaks forget it is daft? The answer is yes.
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Licorice Pizza (2021)
Cooper improves Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age story with his small role–a role so small that it sparked debate over whether or not he deserved to be in the running for best supporting actor at awards shows–as Jon Peters, ex boyfriend of Barbara Streisand. Cooper makes the most of his seven minutes of screentime with a passionate portrayal of a real person and harnesses his anger/douchebag energy in a fresh way.
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The Hangover (2009-2013)
Two of these movies are bad, but Cooper is good in all of them. In fact, his performance as the snarky asshole Phil was so sharp in the first that it turned him from “that guy from Wedding Crashers'' into nine-time Oscar nominated actor, writer, and director Bradley Cooper. Button-down shirts and aviators haven’t been the same since.
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The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
This film is often forgotten, perhaps because Ryan Gosling was positioned as the lead and because Silver Linings Playbook came out later the same year, but it is essential to the Cooper filmography. The film follows Cooper’s character, Avery, over the course of 15 years and as he reckons with having killed someone (Gosling’s character) on the job. While he’d certainly shown his dark side in previous projects like Midnight Meat Train, this one felt more authentic, confident, and deeply human.
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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
In the 2010s, Hollywood put us in a chokehold. Following the critical and awards success of Bradley Cooper’s performance as Pat, an easily irritated man living with bipolar disorder opposite newcomer Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, the industry attempted the Old Hollywood tradition of pairing co-stars frequently like Rock Hudson and Doris Day, or Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Cooper’s performance in Silver Linings Playbook made people take him more seriously, but it was Lawrence who stole the movie (and won an Oscar); Cooper had some more battles to fight before he could become what he is today.
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Nightmare Alley (2021)
Cooper assimilates comfortably into Guillermo del Toro’s neo-noir Nightmare Alley as Stan, an ambitious and charming but ultimately creepy carnie. The film follows a common narrative for Cooper’s dramatic characters; as Stan grows more powerful, he becomes more insidious and descends into madness. The performance is, perhaps, the best example of Cooper as a scene partner: his on-screen chemistry with the impressive cast, which includes Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, and Willem Dafoe, is better than ever.
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Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU (2014-present)
Not to be melodramatic, but Bradley Cooper’s performance as Rocket Raccoon defies the laws of gravity, space and time (quite like the MCU). His performance is the most moving, emotional performance to ever come out of an MCU picture, including the human beings who showed up in person in front of green screens for many movies. The key to his compelling voice work is its apparent effortlessness. At the same time, Bradley Cooper conceals Bradley Cooper’s voice so well that he’s hardly recognizable unless you already know it's him. And even with the knowledge that Cooper is behind the voice, you forget. Rocket Racoon is culturally not really associated with Cooper, either, thanks to a decade of relatively lax promotional obligations (I’ve said it once and I will say it again: Bradley Cooper’s MCU contract should and will be studied for centuries to come). As it should, because it is a heartbreaking, funny, gritty performance deserving similar praise as his portrayals of Jackson Maine and Leonard Bernstein.
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A Star Is Born (2018)
Cooper is at his best when he transforms himself into someone unrecognizable from Bradley Cooper. A decade of being defined by playing a certain type of guy will do that to an actor who likes a challenge.
In A Star Is Born, Cooper plays Jackson Maine, an alcoholic country rock star with a voice several tones down from Cooper’s. Maine is, like a classic Cooper character, not terribly likable, but Cooper plays him without judgment and exhibits a rare vulnerability that translates from behind the screen as a director to his performance to the songs, which he sung himself. His performance is so tangible that it makes you hold your breath while he’s talking, makes you root for his relationship with Lady Gaga’a Ally despite an atmosphere of inevitable doom, and it hardly makes you question whether or not someone like Jackson Maine would be as popular as he is within the film’s universe. Cooper’s charisma alone makes it make sense.
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Maestro (2023)
Cooper has wanted to play a composer since before Lydia Tár existed, and it shows. In Maestro, Cooper becomes Leonard Bernstein, with or without the unnecessary prosthetic nose. It’s the kind of passion-fueled performance you can feel in your bones. During the six-minute scene in which Cooper actually conducts an orchestra, you can feel every beat of sweat pouring out of his body and every quick, tense movement he makes with his arms. Cooper’s power here is an ability to create tension, narrative, and feeling both for people who understand what conducting is and people whose knowledge of how conducting works is limited to films such as Tár and Maestro.
But the true MVP of Cooper’s Maestro performance is, like A Star is Born, the woman opposite him. Carey Mulligan brings out an uninhibited expression of love, fear, anger, and excitement that make the film a modern classic.
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