Total Recall: Harrison Ford's Best Movies
We count down the best-reviewed work of the Extraordinary Measures star.
5. Witness
In retrospect, it helped signal his shift toward more adult drama roles, but in 1985, Witness was something new for Harrison Ford -- namely, a quiet thriller that forsook set pieces and relied on a taut script and solid acting to get its point across. Needless to say, the Peter Weir-directed film wasn't a Star Wars-sized smash, but plenty of people still showed up for Witness -- and it was a critical winner, too, netting eight Academy Award nominations (and two wins) as well as a pile of other awards. At bottom, the role of John Book wasn't terribly different from the other tough, morally upstanding heroes Ford had played, but the circumstances of the story -- which traces the aftermath of a Philadelphia murder witnessed (get it?) by a young Amish boy -- let audiences focus more on Ford's natural talent than special effects or a pulse-pounding John Williams score. And he was up to the challenge: As Roger Ebert succinctly put it, "Harrison Ford has never given a better performance in a movie."
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
As was the case with Han Solo, the role of Indiana Jones only fell to Harrison Ford after the filmmakers' original plans came to naught. Not wanting Ford to be "that guy I put in all my movies," Lucas initially balked at casting Ford, instead handing the whip and fedora to Tom Selleck -- only to have Selleck walk away from the movie when he couldn't swing it against his schedule with Magnum, P.I. Ford was, of course, the perfect fit for Lucas and Spielberg's swashbuckling archaeologist -- something the rest of the world knew by the end of 1981, when stubble and a decrepit leather jacket were synonymous with high adventure and Paramount was on its way to pocketing more than $380 million in ticket receipts. A delirious mashup of everything from classic Saturday serials to Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics, Raiders took audiences on a thrill ride so breathtaking that not even the New York Times' Vincent Canby could keep from cheering that it was "one of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made." In the words of Flipside Movie Emporium's Rob Vaux, "If you can't love this film, you have no business loving movies at all."
3. The Fugitive
Movies based on television shows aren't always box office duds -- the first Brady Bunch and Addams Family films were harmless fun, and borderline Fresh on the Tomatometer besides -- but it's exceedingly rare that they achieve the kind of critical and commercial success enjoyed by 1993's The Fugitive. It helped, of course, that the original series was one of the more highly regarded TV dramas of the '60s, and that its central plot device -- a man on the run for a crime he didn't commit, and in pursuit of the real villain -- was exceedingly easy to move to the big screen and turn into a pulse-pounding 1990s action thriller. What The Fugitive really had going for it, though, was a pair of terrific leads in Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. As the titular wanted man, Dr. Richard Kimble, Ford got to play another of the reluctant action heroes he embodied so well in the '80s and '90s -- and Jones might has well have been born to play the blunt, brilliant, and driven U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard. A movie so successful it made the studio think 1998's "spiritual sequel" U.S. Marshals would be a hit, The Fugitive sold tons of tickets while earning high praise from critics like the Washington Post's Rita Kempley, who wrote, "A flurry of stunts, close shaves and deeds of desperate daring, it easily transcends its television origins to become a stylish pacemaker-buster on the order of Die Hard, MD."
2. Star Wars
On playgrounds across America in 1977, two things were true no matter which school you went to or which grade you were in: One, Luke Skywalker was the hero of the coolest sci-fi action movie ever to grace the screen; and two, when it came time to play Star Wars during recess, you wanted to be Han Solo anyway. Luke might have been the chosen one, but Han got all the coolest lines, and nobody ever looked cooler with a laser pistol slung low on his hip. As would become something of a habit with Ford, he acquired the role of Han through unusual circumstances; he was originally only hired to read lines during casting sessions, but eventually impressed George Lucas enough to win what would become a cornerstone part in one of the most beloved film franchises in history. He'd scored movie roles before, but really, this is where it all started for Harrison Ford -- and although no one could have guessed where Star Wars' amazing success would lead, plenty of critics loved it. As Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "It is, all in all, hard to think of a place or an age group that would not respond to the enthusiastic inventiveness with which Lucas has enshrined his early loves."
1. The Empire Strikes Back
Everyone knows most sequels are lame, but quite a lot of that has to do with the fact that most sequels are made for money -- and although Star Wars made more than enough dough to demand a follow-up, George Lucas had always intended for it to be the first installment in a space opera anyway. As a result, 1980's The Empire Strikes Back is that rare second installment that's obviously setting up the saga-concluding events of its sequel, but has enough of a story of its own -- and moves through its plot so deftly -- that it never feels like it's marking time between the bookends of a trilogy. Empire's somber tone was a bit of a surprise to fans who expected another helping of Star Wars' crowd-pleasing intergalactic adventure, but what it lacked in exploding Death Stars, it more than made up for with a deeper, more affecting storyline, and some of the most resonant scenes of the series -- not the least of which being the arrest and imprisonment (and possible death) of Han Solo. Ford did, in fact, argue for his character's demise, but his pleas fell on deaf ears -- and even without that added bit of pathos, Empire earned the approval of critics like the late, great Gene Siskel, who noted, "It balances bloodshed with charm, spectacle with childlike glee. It's a near flawless movie of its kind."
In case you were wondering, here are Ford's top ten movies according RT users' scores:
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark -- 98%
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- 97%
3. The Empire Strikes Back -- 96%
4. Star Wars -- 96%
5. The Fugitive -- 95%
6. Return of the Jedi -- 94%
7. Blade Runner -- 93%
8. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom -- 92%
9. Witness -- 91%
10. Patriot Games -- 88%
Take a look through Ford's complete filmography, as well as the rest of our Total Recall archives. And don't forget to check out the reviews for Extraordinary Measures.
Finally, here's Ford putting in a plug for the smooth, refreshing taste of Kirin Lager:
tgibfo on 01-20-2010 05:17 PM
Regardless of Tomatometer, I still say RAIDERS is the best, closely followed by EMPIRE. What an amazing career this guy's had. Love it!