Every Will Smith Movie, Ranked

Will Smith's worst film to date is this manipulative and sentimental 2016 drama (labeled a "knockoff Hallmark special" by critic Susan Wloszczyna) from director David Frankel (Marley & Me) and writer Allan Loeb (Things We Lost in the Fire). Smith plays an advertising executive caught in a spiral of grief and refusing to work after his young daughter dies from a rare illness. His coworkers then hitch a plot to—well, to convince him that he has lost his mind (and in the most convoluted way imaginable: by hiring a group of actors to embody the concepts of love, time, and death). The cast is filled with accomplished talent like Helen Mirren, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Naomie Harris, and Keira Knightley, but the material they have to work with sinks all of them.

"It's dire. It's emotionally manipulative without understanding how human emotions actually work. And it robs us of the Will Smith we love. ... Navel-gazing Will Smith is not what we want. It's not the actor we embraced, nor is it the best possible version of the actor we love. It's as if Tom Hanks suddenly decided that he should play a serial killer in a movie." —Dave Schilling, The Guardian

Just one year after starring in the lowest-scoring film of his career, Smith returned in 2017 with his second-worst effort—the only time he ever appeared in back-to-back critical duds (unless you count his cameo appearance in 2014's Winter's Tale, which followed the abysmal After Earth). The straight-to-Netflix Bright (at the time the streaming service's most expensive original production, though it has since been surpassed by several newer films) reunited Smith with his Suicide Squad director David Ayer for a fantastical action-thriller set in a world where mythical beasts co-exist with humans. Will Smith, falling into the latter category, plays an LAPD cop alongside an orc partner played by Joel Edgerton. Netflix doesn't like to reveal exact viewership numbers, but Bright appears to be one of the service's most-viewed original films, and a sequel, though delayed, could still head into production at some point in the near future. But reviewers certainly didn't like the film when it debuted, though they reserved much of their criticism for the screenplay by Max Landis.

"Bright pulls off the uncommon (and not at all admirable) hat trick of being confusing, boring, and vaguely insulting about the matters it wants to appear smart on. The movie is a case of reading the room very wrongly, then slapping a lot of violence and muddled mythology on top as a means of distraction." —Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

Several films that Will Smith produced but did not star in could be dismissed as "vanity projects." But if there's one film in which he appears that merits such a label, it is this one. The only film on which Smith has a writing credit (technically, a "story by" credit), this 2013 sci-fi action-thriller finds Smith starring alongside his son Jaden Smith for the second time (following the much better 2006 drama The Pursuit of Happyness). Directed by M. Night Shyamalan at his career nadir (it came just after his lowest-scoring film, The Last Airbender), After Earth finds the two Smiths playing a father and son who must fight for survival after crash landing on a hostile 31st century Earth that has been abandoned by humans. It isn't quite the worst film rumored to be based on the teachings of Scientology (this one is), but it is mostly terrible, hampered by a thin, nonsensical story and likely the worst performance either Smith has ever delivered (though at least the young Jaden has the excuse of being forced into a role he was not yet ready for).

"Fans of either Smith will be sorely disappointed. The elder never before appeared this listless on screen, and the younger misplaced his unforced rapport with the camera that made the Karate Kid reboot so impressive. Only Shyamalan delivers what moviegoers expect from him, and that's a shame." —Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times

Two years after his Oscar-nominated turn in The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith reunited with the director of that film, Gabriele Muccino, for another drama. But there were few accolades for this 2008 dud that found Smith playing an IRS agent hiding a major secret who sets out to improve the lives of seven strangers. Seven Pounds performed decently at the box office, but critics mostly hated it, calling the film overly sentimental, pompous, phony, and silly.

"Saintliness is a heavy burden to carry, and Smith can't help but buckle a bit. He's always interesting to watch, but crafting a real person out of his cardboard character proves an impossible task." —Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

Smith immediately followed his first sequel (2002's Men in Black II) with his second. Bad Boys II returned both Smith and Martin Lawrence and director Michael Bay from their 1995 buddy-cop comedy, and the result was both a bigger box office hit (nearly doubling the grosses of the original) and a lesser film. Few critics liked the sequel, with reviewers finding it dumbed-down, devoid of laughs, and overly long, but that didn't stop the two stars from returning for another sequel 17 years later.

"Bad Boys II is the rare case in which escapism involves leaving the theater." —Scott Tobias, A.V. Club

By far the worst film ever directed by the usually solid Ang Lee (Life of Pie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Gemini Man is a 2019 action-thriller—released, in some theaters, at a distracting 120fps—that finds Smith playing both the government assassin Henry Brogan and (through the magic of CGI de-aging) Henry's much younger clone who is sent by a villain (Clive Owen) to take him down. As was the case for other Smith duds, many critics actually liked the star's performance and instead faulted the generic screenplay and not entirely successful effects. And a box office gross of nearly $175 million wasn't enough to make the expensive production profitable.

"It gives you two Will Smiths for the price of one, but you still might feel ripped off by its clunky dialogue, thin characters and underwhelming action. Encourage your younger clone to avoid it." —Ben Travis, Empire

Following a string of box office hits that established the rapper-turned-actor as a bona fide movie star, Smith closed out the 1990s with his first flop. And oh what a flop it was. Also starring Kevin Kline (in dual roles, with one being President Ulysses S. Grant), Wild Wild West reunited Smith with his Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld for a big-budget comedic steampunk western based loosely on the 1960s TV series. And by "big-budget," we mean one of the most expensive movies ever made—which made its seemingly decent worldwide gross of $222 million wildly insufficient to render the movie profitable. Terrible reviews certainly didn't help West's box office performance (though they did help the film collect five Razzie Awards), and it is widely considered one of the biggest duds in movie history.

Smith, by the way, turned down the lead role in another movie in order to make Wild Wild West. That other film? The Matrix.

"The movie is exhausting, utterly without feeling, and pointless -- though Smith looks great in his Western outfit." —David Denby, The New Yorker

Smith's second superhero movie (following the one-off Hancock) was this poorly received 2016 DC Extended Universe outing directed by David Ayer. Playing the assassin Floyd Lawton/Deadshot—and turning down a chance to star in the sequel to Independence Day as a result—Smith was part of a large ensemble that also included his Focus co-star Margot Robbie plus Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and more. The film grossed nearly $750 million despite mostly lousy reviews that faulted a poor script (and, to a lesser extent, Ayer's direction) for the film's bloat, failed humor, and muddled story and characters.

Smith was originally expected to reprise his role for the similarly titled (and much improved) 2021 sequel The Suicide Squad but was forced to sit that one out due to a scheduling conflict. However, because director James Gunn opted not to recast the role of Deadshot in the sequel (and instead just removed the character), Smith could still return in a future DCEU installment—perhaps even in a Deadshot-centered film.

"When you compare Suicide Squad to what James Gunn and Marvel Studios achieved in Guardians of the Galaxy — low-profile property, oddball characters, make-it-fun brief — the film makes you cringe so hard your teeth come loose. But it's a slog even on its own crushingly puerile terms." —Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Kicking off what would eventually become a three-film series (for now), this 1995 Michael Bay-directed buddy-cop comedy pairs Smith with Martin Lawrence as Miami detectives. It was the first action role for then-TV star Smith—a replacement for Arsenio Hall, who turned the role down—and the film's major box office success despite lackluster reviews ensured that it wouldn't be his last. From this point forward, Smith was a movie star.

"Crucially, the teaming of standup favorite and 'Martin' star Lawrence and 'Fresh Prince' Smith clicks from the outset, with both right at home handling action and comedy on the bigscreen. Even when it's not particularly funny, their interplay is engaging, and their lively, raucous personalities keep the proceedings punchy and watchable for the slightly overlong running time." —Todd McCarthy, Variety

Trying to escape the shadow of his notorious 1999 flop Wild Wild West, Smith took on a very different role in a very different kind of movie, but the result was another failure (albeit on a smaller scale). The Robert Redford-directed Bagger Vance is an adaptation of Steven Pressfield's golf novel (itself modeled after the Bhagavad Gita) set in Depression-era Georgia, with Smith playing a sort-of magical caddie to Matt Damon's troubled golfer who has been traumatized by his involvement in WWI. Despite the solid cast (which also includes Charlize Theron as well as Jack Lemmon in his final role), critics and audiences weren't impressed, and the film grossed under $40 million during its late 2000 run.

"The actors, especially the ever appealing Smith, do what they can to ground the movie in reality, but it stubbornly remains dawdling, remote and pretentious." —Richard Schickel, Time

Will Smith's first voiceover performance in an animated film came in this 2004 DreamWorks Animation feature that weirdly shoehorns an organized crime story into an undersea children's comedy (complete with Italian-American stereotypes, according to groups that protested the film). Smith takes the lead as the voice of Oscar, a fish who becomes entangled with the shark mafia after he is mistakenly believed to be the killer of a crime lord's oldest son (voiced by The Sopranos' own Michael Imperioli). Other voices come from the likes of mob movie and TV veterans like Robert De Niro, Vincent Pastore, and even Martin Scorsese, and Shark Tale went on to gross $375 million and earn an animated feature Oscar nomination despite reviews that were mediocre at best.

"Story is everything and Shark's is rather thin and soupy, despite the winning improvisational skills of stars Will Smith and Jack Black." —Claudia Puig, USA Today

Hoping to end a streak of three straight box office duds, Smith signed on to his first sequel in 2002. Reuniting the star with director Barry Sonnenfeld and co-star Tommy Lee Jones, MIB2 grossed nearly $450 million—over $100 million less than the 1997 original but still more than enough to make the film a financial success and merit a follow-up a decade later. Critics, however, were much less supportive this time—with praise for the effects but complaints about the plot and the staleness of the premise—making this the worst-reviewed of Smith's three Men in Black outings.

"The only active ingredient is the dynamic between Smith and Jones. There's just enough of that to get us through." —Desson Thomson, The Washington Post

Will Smith's second film appearance came in this 1993 Richard Benjamin-directed comedy about Black teenager Zora (Nia Long), who discovers that her father was a sperm donor—in fact, a white car salesman, played by Ted Danson (and loosely based on Southern California TV used car pitchman Cal Worthington)—much to the surprise of Zora's mom, played by Whoopi Goldberg. The fourth-billed Smith played Zora's friend Tea Cake Walters, a character inspired by real-life comedian T.K. Carter. Critics didn't love it, but America was a minor box office hit.

"Newcomer Long is a pleasure to watch and Smith kind of riffs by himself off to the periphery of the action as though looking for a movie to belong to." —Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

While Smith would later appear in DC's Suicide Squad, his first superhero movie was this darkly comedic original story (by Vy Vincent Ngo) that finally arrived in theaters in 2008 after spending over a decade in development. Eventually directed by Peter Berg after previously attached names like Michael Mann and Tony Scott dropped out—and featuring a script partially rewritten by Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan—Hancock finds Smith playing an alcoholic superhero named John Hancock whose destructive behavior renders him unpopular in his hometown of Los Angeles, though a local PR consultant (Jason Bateman) hopes to revive his image. The decade of iterations left the final product a bit muddled, according to the majority of critics, though Hancock was a major box office hit. Still, a planned sequel has remained stuck in limbo ever since, with no concrete plans at the moment to actually make the film.

Hancock kicked off a string of 13 straight films for Smith with mixed to negative reviews. He wouldn't receive another green Metascore until 2021.

"More intelligent than most summer blockbusters and features at its center a thought-out and committed performance by Will Smith. But in the end it's merely ALMOST good. " —Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Smith's first film since his infamous slap of Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony was initially dogged by questions about whether the star's antics would doom its Oscar chances. Turns out: Those chances were never all that great to begin with. Antoine Fuqua's historical action-drama—released in theaters and streamed by Apple TV+ in December 2022—finds Smith playing a brutally tortured but newly escaped slave who journeys to the North and joins the Union Army. Though Smith had some approval from critics, those reviewers felt the film as a whole suffers from banality and unrelenting brutality.

"Directed by Antoine Fuqua with an occasionally puzzling combination of restraint and stylization, Emancipation turns a potent image into a pageant of spectacle and suffering." —Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

The only Will Smith film to gross more than $1 billion is this 2019 live-action reimagining of Disney's 1992 animated classic. Directed, oddly enough, by Guy Ritchie (it's both his only PG-rated film and his only musical), the remake finds Smith taking on the role of Genie originated by the late Robin Williams. And despite the fact that Smith is a Grammy-winning recording artist, Aladdin is his first (and only) musical as well, and the rapper performed classic Aladdin numbers like "Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali" in the film. Critics were a bit less than delighted by the film, though they generally liked Smith's performance (and would have liked it even more but for the "ghastly CGI" used to put his face on a floating blue body).

"It's pretty clear after watching the new live-action Aladdin that doubts about Will Smith's casting as the Genie are overblown. It's the guy behind the camera who should be doubted. And stuffed into a small lamp forever." —Mark Kennedy, AP

Smith's first animated film since Shark Tale 15 years earlier is a 2019 release from Blue Sky Studios (best known for their Ice Age franchise)—in fact, the final film ever released by the now-shuttered animation house. (And it wasn't the middling performance of Spies that did the studio in but rather the acquisition of parent 21st Century Fox by Disney.) The family comedy has Smith voicing the suave spy Lance Sterling (no relation to Sterling Archer—we think) who is turned into a pigeon by his scientist colleague (Tom Holland) as a disguise for a big mission. Critics found the result to be good-natured but forgettable, and definitely (unlike, say, the bulk of the Pixar catalog) for kids only.

"Smith's easy way with a joke keeps the tone light, and for all the mayhem, this is still pretty fluffy and cute. It's not 'The Incredibles,' but it's a reasonable and quite amusing facsimile." —Roger Moore, Movie Nation

This well-meaning but unsuccessful 2015 true-story drama from Peter Landesman (Parkland) attempts to shine a light on the dark side of football. Smith plays the real-life forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu who battles the NFL as the league attempts to bury his research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by repeated blows to the head while playing football. Concussion was a money loser at the box office—it grossed less than any Will Smith release since Bagger Vance—and didn't do much better with critics, though Smith's performance was singled out for praise.

"Concussion may start off as a stirring conspiracy thriller with the best performance from Will Smith in years, but it's hard to care when it's wrapped in a two-hour after school special." —Bryan Bishop, The Verge

Written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I Love You Phillip Morris), this 2015 caper stars Smith as a con man who becomes romantically entangled with his protege (Margot Robbie). A modest hit, Focus earned decent reviews from some critics who appreciated the film as enjoyable escapist entertainment. But other reviewers found it dull and overly slick.

"Co-stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie remain consistently charismatic, even once the script for this heist caper collapses in a punishing pile of its own twists and double-crosses." —Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

After taking a rare four-year break from acting (a period in which he took on a more active role as a film producer on projects including his son's star turn in a remake of The Karate Kid), Smith returned to the big screen in 2012 with his first "threequel," a follow-up to 2002's Men in Black II. This third MIB film (which also returned star Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld, and added Josh Brolin as a younger version of Jones's character) actually scored better with critics than the prior installment and grossed nearly $200 million more at the box office. But for now it stands as the final film in the series with those men; a poorly received 2019 sequel/spinoff featured an all-new cast and a different director.

"The effects are cheese-whizzy fun, but it's the unexpected spark between Smith and Brolin that makes MiB3 primo summer fun. Way cool." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Despite Smith's charismatic on-screen presence, the actor never took the lead in a romantic comedy until this 2005 film from director Andy Tennant (Anna and the King, Fools Rush In). Smith plays a professional dating expert who meets his match in the form of a gossip columnist played by Eva Mendes. Reviews were just so-so at the time, but Hitch was an unexpected box office hit—to the tune of $371 million, making it the third-highest-grossing rom-com in history behind only My Big Fat Greek Wedding and What Women Want—and was recently singled out by EW's Derek Lawrence as "the greatest rom-com of all time."

"Smith is an endearing, driving comedic force, one who makes the buoyant Hitch more enjoyable than it has any reason to be." —Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald

Seventeen years after the poorly reviewed Bad Boys II, stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence returned in early 2020 for a superior sequel, this time directed by the duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (who are now at work on a Batgirl film for HBO Max) rather than Michael Bay. Life was a big hit, grossing over $425 million (or about as much as the two previous films combined) despite being forced to close early in some markets due to the pandemic, and a fourth film is now in development.

"It's impressive and enjoyable to behold how easily Smith and Lawrence slide back into these characters and actually make them more accessible and fun to be around than before." —Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

We wouldn't dare joke about I, Robot this Christmas. Nor should you: It's not really worth the effort. Directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City), this middling sci-fi action thriller very loosely inspired by Isaac Asimov's short story collection of the same name (so loosely that it borrows little more than a title and Asimov's famed "three laws of robotics") is set in a dystopian near future filled with intelligent robots. Smith stars as a Chicago homicide detective who investigates the death of the founder (James Cromwell) of a leading robotics company and identifies a robot (Alan Tudyk) as his prime suspect. I, Robot boasts Oscar-caliber visual effects (it was nominated) but not an award-worthy plot: Critics find it poorly paced and disappointingly rote and derivative.

"If you subtracted from the story and style components recycled from landmark sci-fi films of Hollywood past, you'd be left with Will Smith wisecracking over a box of unformatted floppies. I, Unimpressed." —Aaron Hillis, Premiere

How big of a hit was Independence Day? Twenty-five years after its release it remains Will Smith's second-highest-grossing film to date—and that's without factoring for inflation. The Roland Emmerich-directed alien invasion thriller found a top-billed Smith playing a Marine fighter pilot in an ensemble that also included Bill Pullman and Mary McDonnell as the president and first lady, and Jeff Goldblum as a brainy scientist (a few years after playing a similar role in Jurassic Park). Emmerich had to fight the studio (20th Century Fox) to cast Smith as the lead, but given that Independence Day grossed more than $800 million, Smith wouldn't have any problem landing jobs in the future.

"Smith's good-natured bravado is heroically appealing, while Goldblum's herky-quirky demeanor is winningly apt as mankind's counterintelligence to the aliens' attack." —Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter

Smith's second (and, to date, final) Oscar nomination for best actor came for this 2006 film which is one of the few straight dramas the actor has appeared in. Co-starring for the first time with his real-life son Jaden Smith (here making his film debut at the age of eight), the elder Smith plays Chris Gardner, a father and salesman who is left homeless (and wifeless) after a risky business decision and underpayment of income taxes leave him unable to pay his rent. But an unpaid internship at a stock brokerage eventually leads to a much better life in this feel-good, true-story drama adapted from the real Gardner's memoir. Some critics found the film as a whole "slick" and "manipulative," but nearly all reviewers praised Smith's performance.

"It's the same old bootstraps story, an American dream artfully told, skillfully sold. To that calculated end, the filmmaking is seamless, unadorned, transparent, the better to serve Mr. Smith's warm expressiveness." —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Will Smith was in the middle of a six-year run on NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when he made his big-screen debut in this low-budget 1992 neo-noir about a group of teen runaways living together on the streets of Los Angeles. Smith (playing the legless Manny) was part of a surprisingly well-stocked ensemble that also included Kyle MacLachlan, Balthazar Getty, Lara Flynn Boyle, James LeGros, Sean Astin, Dermot Mulroney, Alyssa Milano, David Arquette, and Nancy McKeon, but you'd be forgiven if you didn't even know the film exists: Considering that it grossed less than $400,000, it appears that few people ever saw it, though critics gave it decent reviews when it played in limited release and on the festival circuit.

"The movie is effective, well-acted and convincing." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Smith's first Oscar nomination for best actor came in this 2001 biopic in which he stars as the legendary boxer and activist Muhammad Ali. Michael Mann's film, which also brought co-star Jon Voight an Oscar nomination, received a positive reception from critics—a welcome change for Smith following two poorly reviewed films—but it marked the star's third consecutive money-loser at the box office. That trend would end with Smith's next two films, both sequels to some of his past hits.

"While Smith gets into Ali's head and under his skin, the movie around him has more footwork than punch." —Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Adapted from Richard Matheson's 1954 novel (previously filmed several times, including as The Omega Man in 1971), this 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller from director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games) finds Smith playing the last living human in New York City after a virus has killed off most of the world's population (and turned most of the remaining humans into people-hunting mutants). Smith spends much of the running time as the only human actor on screen and does his part to make Legend a success, according to critics, even if the film as a whole is betrayed a bit by its disappointing third act and weak CGI effects. It was not betrayed by its box office performance, however: I Am Legend grossed nearly $600 million worldwide, making it one of 2007's biggest hits and one of Smith's best-performing films. It would also be the last Will Smith movie to receive positive reviews until 2021's King Richard.

"In what has been a pretty remarkable career up to now, it's this performance that fully affirms Smith as one of the great leading men of his generation." —Scott Foundas, The Village Voice

Following a pair of sci-fi blockbusters Smith took on a more grounded project in 1998 with this Washington D.C.-set political conspiracy thriller that stars Smith as a lawyer who gets caught up in an NSA plot to assassinate a congressman. His co-star in the Tony Scott-directed film is Gene Hackman, playing a role similar to the one he inhabited in Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant 1974 thriller The Conversation, almost to the point where you could consider State to be an unofficial sequel. The film earned solid reviews and was another box office success—Smith's fourth straight money-making hit. (That streak would end with his next film, Wild Wild West.)

"It has a hurtling pace, nonstop intensity and a stylish, appealing performance by Will Smith in his first real starring role." —Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

Widely considered the movie that established Smith as a viable big-screen star (though not, as some believe, Smith's first movie), this 1993 dramedy is a Fred Schepisi-directed adaptation of John Guare's Pulitzer-nominated stage play which in turn was based on the true story of con man David Hampton, who convinced a number of wealthy New Yorkers that he was the son of Sidney Poitier. (He wasn't; instead, he was their friendly neighborhood robber.) Smith plays the charlatan (here renamed Paul) opposite Stockard Channing (returning from the original stage production) and Donald Sutherland, and critics think the one-time rapper holds his own against his more established stars in one of the better stage-to-screen adaptations of the past three decades.

In case you were wondering, Kevin Bacon wasn't in the film. But Bacon was in Sleepers, which starred Jeffrey Donovan, who was in Hitch with Will Smith.

"Six Degrees is magical when addressing the preposterous. Like any good storyteller, Paul is deft at knitting eyes with wool. Smith proves himself an extremely charismatic presence, convincing in his sincerity and cunning in conveying his ability as a human sponge." —Leonard Klady, Variety

Smith's first film since his breakthrough blockbuster hit Independence Day was another sci-fi film involving extraterrestrials, but that's where the comparisons end. While that prior film was an action-packed thriller, Men in Black's emphasis is on comedy, with Smith starring alongside Tommy Lee Jones as operatives in a secret government organization charged with overseeing aliens secretly living on Earth. Loosely based on Lowell Cunningham's comics, the breezy 1997 film was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (fresh off Get Shorty and a pair of Addams Family features), and its critical and commercial success would lead to three sequels, with Smith appearing in two.

"Sonnenfeld deftly orchestrates the intricate two-part harmony, and Smith and Jones -- a powerhouse comic pair -- make it all look easy." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Smith's most recent film may be his best yet. (As we write this, no Will Smith movie has a higher score.) And it ends a string of 13 consecutive Will Smith movies without a green Metascore. Expected to be a contender for multiple Oscars, this 2021 biopic tells the story of Richard Williams (Smith) as he guides his two young daughters, Venus and Serena Williams, at the beginning of their careers that will see them become tennis legends. The sisters are producers on the film, which is directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Joe Bell), and it will receive a simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max release on November 19 following a widely praised festival debut in Telluride a few months ago.

"King Richard is a simple tale of triumph over adversity. The supporting cast shines, Will Smith excels, and while this might not be the full story, King Richard nevertheless works as both character study and feel-good sports movie." —Chris Tilly, IGN