Every Guy Ritchie Movie, Ranked

Ritchie and his new bride, global pop star Madonna, partnered on an ill-advised remake of the 1974 Italian stranded-on-an-island romantic adventure of the same name starring Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato. Madonna's character is the grating, rich socialite wife of a millionaire who, while on a private sea voyage, continually insults deckhand Giuseppe (Adriano Giannini, Giancarlo Giannini's son!), eventually leading to them being stranded on a deserted island. Hijinks and eventual romance ensue.

The film was a notorious bomb, making only a little over a million dollars globally. Ritchie would never again go near a romantic comedy, and he and Madonna would split up in 2008. 

"A deserted island movie during which I desperately wished the characters had chosen one movie to take along if they were stranded on a deserted island, and were showing it to us instead of this one." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Going back to basics with very mixed results, Revolver is now essentially remembered as the movie where Jason Statham has hair! Statham stars as Jake Green, a violent gambler who has been released from seven years in solitary confinement. Once out, he gets involved with a casino heist against gang boss Dorothy Macha, played by Ray Liotta. Goodfellas actor? Check. Vincent Pastore from The Sopranos? Check. OutKast's André Benjamin (a.k.a. André 3000)? Sure, why not?

Ritchie tried playing it serious, critics weren't kind, and audiences stayed away, with the film only making a little over $7 million worldwide. 

"Guy Ritchie shoots a blank with Revolver, which replays the low-life criminal shtick from his first two features with an ill-advised overlay of pretension. The action, attitude and wise-guy talk all feel moldy this time around." —Todd McCarthy, Variety"

The Arthurian legend gets the Guy Ritchie treatment in a failed franchise launch with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Featuring Undeclared, Sons of Anarchy, and Pacific Rim star Charlie Hunnam as the titular Arthur and Jude Law (from Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films) as villain Vortigern, the film (which was clearly trying to capitalize on Game of Thrones' then-massive audience) ultimately failed to connect with audiences and couldn't make back its reported $175 million budget.

Many critics blamed the mismatch of Ritchie's violent and edgy sensibility with the more somber perception of the classic Arthurian tale. Also frequently criticized were the overabundance of lackluster CGI, overcooked action, and lack of heart. 

"King Arthur is neither Guy Ritchie's worst film nor his best, but it might well be his most frustrating. A compendium of all the things that make the British director so occasionally exciting and so often irritating, this new, hyper-stylized take on the Arthurian legends veers between genius and idiocy." —Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice

Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, and Irene Adler return for Guy Ritchie's only sequel to date. But Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was not as positively received as 2009's Sherlock Holmes. This time, the gang are after similarly brilliant Professor Moriarty, played by character actor legend Jared Harris. Notable additions to the sequel are Noomi Rapace as fortune teller Madame Simza and Stephen Fry as Holmes' older brother, Mycroft.
The criticisms of the sequel were similar to those of its predecessor, calling the film overly plotted and not as smart as it would lead you to believe.

But Shadows was slightly more successful than the original, earning nearly $550 million at the global box-office. It was the second biggest hit of Richite's career, and there've been persistent rumors of a third film and a potential television spinoff of the franchise. 

"Virtually every set-up and set-piece in this extravagantly tedious adventure is misleading, or worse, irrelevant." —Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Matthew McConaughey enters the Ritchieverse as American "Mickey" Pearson, a marijuana magnate looking to offload his business in London. A colorful bunch of characters played by Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Strong, Hugh Grant, and Guy Ritchie mainstay Eddie Marsan plot and scheme to steal the green. Most critics acknowledged the return of Ritchie's "Mockney'' style, which some were excited about and others were exhausted by.

The film was a hit, making over $115 million, which likely contributed to the decision to turn it into the Netflix series of the same name that premiered last month. Ritchie co-wrote and directed the first two episodes of the eight-episode season that stars Theo James (The White Lotus) and features the return of old-school Ritchie discovery Vinnie Jones. 

"The Gentlemen is a mongrel of a movie. There are not enough twists and tangles for a proper mystery, not enough thrills for an action flick, and not enough laughs for a comedy." —Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

An espionage thriller and Hollywood satire are put into a blender with a healthy shot of Jason Statham and scene-stealing turns by Aubrey Plaza and Hugh Grant thrown in for good measure. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is about spy Orson Fortune (Statham), trying to prevent the sale of new weapons tech to baddie Greg Simmonds (Grant). Hollywood star Danny Francesco (a pre-Oppenheimer Josh Hartnett) is recruited by Fortune's team (Plaza, Cary Elwes) and hijinks ensue!

Critics were right in the middle, saying the movie was a breezy international caper, but nothing to write home about. The Lionsgate/Amazon Prime co-pro was just shy of making its $50 million budget back at the global box-office. 

"The cast does its best with what they've got but only so much can be done. The mission might be complete, but it's hard to call it a success, and there were undoubtedly casualties." —Simon Thompson, The Playlist

The Disney live-action remakes of their animated classics started to gain momentum with Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland and Jon Favreau's 2016 take on The Jungle Book. Was the next logical step to get Guy Ritchie to direct the live-action Aladdin?!?

As implausible as that seems, perhaps as implausible as ever having someone other than Robin Williams—let alone Will Smith—portray the genie, the film went on to gross over a billion dollars globally and is by far Ritchie's biggest success to date, middling reviews be damned. In pre-pandemic 2019, audiences couldn't get enough of Prince Ali/Aladdin (Mena Massoud), Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott), evil Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) and yes, Will Smith's Genie. 

"The filmmakers aren't much interested in developing these characters out of their original two dimensions, or leaning into the character dynamics that make Ritchie movies distinctive. As a result, the whole endeavor feels unfinished and unresolved." —Kendra James, The Verge

Surprisingly, action mainstay Gerard Butler and Guy Ritchie have only worked together once. Stop us if you've heard this one before, but this gangster crime comedy stars the late Tom Wilkinson as standout balding baddie Lenny Cole, who's involved in shady land deals that increasingly involve stylized violence and characters played by the likes of Thandiwe Newton, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Jeremy Piven, and Chris Bridges a.k.a. Ludacris).

Many critics complained that the exaggerated violence on display in RocknRolla comes off as cartoonish and increasingly lacks stakes. The low-budget flick reportedly cost around $18 million to produce and made about $25 million around the globe. Ritchie said around the time that he had a script for a sequel, but considering how long ago that was, we may never see it. 

"As punchy and energetic as the first few moments are, the rest of the film quickly falls back into mediocrity." —James Berardinelli, ReelViews

The much-ballyhooed follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels that starred megastar Brad Pitt was essentially a facsimile of its predecessor. This time, criminal boxing promoters, amateur crooks, crooked bookmakers, fake jewelers, and a Russian gangster are trying to apprehend a stolen diamond. Notable additions to the cast are Pitt (doing an incomprehensible Irish accent, for laughs) as boxer Mickey O'Neil, Benicio del Toro as gambling junkie Franky Four-Fingers, and Dennis Farina as jewelry expert "Cousin Avi."

Ritchie was cementing his style with his sophomore feature and depending on what review you read, that was either a good thing or a bad thing. In 2017, a Snatch TV series debuted starring Harry Potter's Rupert Grint and lasting for two seasons. 

"If the film is too similar to Ritchie's first movie, 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' with its multiple story lines, complex plotting, and double-crossing antics, it's at least colorfully told with dialogue that shines with the inventive slang of Ritchie's screenplay." —David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor

An attempt to turn the '60s television spy series into a cinematic franchise, Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. stars Henry Cavill as CIA agent Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as KGB agent Illya Kuryakin, rival agents who must team up to take down the villains looking to control nuclear tech. The film also stars Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant and was met with mixed reviews with critics commenting on the disparate tone that veers from a serious opening act to a silly section set in Rome.

Ultimately, the film made just a little over $100 million on a reported $75 million budget, and given Hammer's controversial personal life, this might be the last we see of these particular men from U.N.C.L.E. 

"Stylish to a fault and straying from the source, Guy Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. revives a 1960s television hit for the short attention spans of today's youth-skewing movie audience." —Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times

Robert Downey Jr., hot off of his MCU-inception 2008 hit, Iron Man, stars as the titular detective with Jude Law featured as his sidekick, Dr. Watson. This being a Guy Ritchie movie, Holmes and Watson stylishly kick ass in massive setpieces while solving/preventing an overly plotted scheme that threatens all of England. Critics largely attacked the film for its murky look and for dumbing down the Sherlock Holmes mythos by turning it into a superhero-esque film with massive CGI action.

Nevertheless, Holmes, which also starred Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong, was Ritchie's biggest hit to date at that time, making over half a billion dollars. It was no mystery that a sequel would happen, and a couple of years later Watson and Holmes returned in A Game of Shadows. 

"In short, Ritchie's come up with precisely what you'd expect of him — a pumped-up, anachronistically modern Sherlock Holmes designed for the ADD crowd. Expect a sequel. Or six." —Bob Mondello, NPR

Ritchie and Jason Statham re-teamed in 2021 for the first time since 2005's Revolver, and many critics thought it was worth the wait. A remake of the 2004 French film Le Convoyeur (Cash Truck), Wrath of Man follows a new armored car guard who reveals a surprising set of skills while defending a payload during an attempted robbery, resulting in a more serious revenge action drama that delivered vicarious excitement during the pandemic.

Critics appreciated Ritchie dialing down the silliness for a more straightforward action thriller. The film was a modest hit, making over $100 million on a reported $40 million budget. 

"Wrath of Man feels like a homecoming for director and star, and an evolution, too. With Statham in the lead, playing one of his classically taciturn and tactically lethal action heroes, Ritchie is as restrained and controlled as he's been in years." —Katie Walsh, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The newest Guy Ritchie film is a throwback World War II action movie loosely based on a true story about a covert group of British fighters assembled by Winston Churchill to give the Nazis hell in Nazi-occupied Europe. The team is led by a gloriously unhinged Henry Cavill as Gus March-Phillipps and also includes a stellar supporting cast that includes Reacher's Alan Ritchson, 3 Body Problem's Eiza González, The Gentlemen's Henry Golding, and Dune/Dune Part Two's Babs Olusanmokun. The film is notably co-produced by action legend Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun).

Ritchie, continuing his recent cinematic assault, already has two films ready to go after this. Next year's In the Grey stars Eiza González, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Henry Cavill, and after that John Krasinski and Natalie Portman search for the Fountain of Youth. 

"Though not Guy Ritchie's best film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has enough slick style and exhilarating action to be a helluva fun ride." -Molly Freeman, Screen Rant

Guy Ritchie finally gets his name above the title! Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is arguably Ritchie's most serious movie to date, which was reflected with some of the best reviews of his career. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as an Army Special Forces master sergeant that's wounded in the Afghanistan War. Dar Salim plays an interpreter that essentially saved his life, but is apprehended and held captive. Once home in the U.S., Gyllenhaal's character realizes he must free the man who saved his life—using deadly force, if necessary.

The consistent tone and strong performances by Gyllenhaal and Salim were frequently recognized by critics, but the serious tone didn't resonate with audiences: Covenant only grossed $21 million. 

"This is a serious-minded, well-acted drama that shows just as keen an interest in character, specifically the integrity of two men from vastly different cultures who provide the story of brotherhood and survival with its racing pulse." —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

Ritchie blasted onto the film scene in a big way in 1998. It's hard to explain how massive Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was in the film landscape of the late 1990s. Ritchie's style was fully formed from the jump, and his arrival on the scene wasn't just as a promising filmmaker, but also as a brand. Cockney accents and fast-paced cheeky gun violence created a fervor with young viewers looking for their next Tarantino-esque fix.

The heist-gone-wrong flick would be the first time many audiences were introduced to actors Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham; both would turn up in Ritchie's follow-up Snatch, and Statham would go on to become one of the most prolific and consistent action stars in the world. In 2000, there was even a seven-episode spinoff series (Lock, Stock…) that Ritchie co-wrote and executive produced and which starred Martin Freeman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau before their respective The Office (UK) and Game of Thrones breakouts. 

"A dynamite bundle from British writer-director Guy Ritchie. Even when the accents are as indecipherable as the plot, Ritchie keeps the action percolating and the humor on high." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone