Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is one of the most revered actors working today. Born in Wales in 1937, Hopkins began acting in repertory theatre shortly after graduating from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1957. In 1965, the legendary Laurence Olivier convinced him to join the city’s Royal National Theatre, where he became Olivier’s understudy and began auditioning for film roles.
Hopkins landed his breakout role in 1968, playing Richard the Lionheart in “The Lion in Winter,” a role which won him his first BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nomination, as best supporting actor.
He received his only Academy Award as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs” — one of five Oscars and two additional nominations the film earned. Hopkins has been nominated for five more Academy Awards since then, most recently for his role as a man suffering from dementia in last year’s “The Father.” (Find The Silence of the Lambs and more on our list of the 100 Best Movies of the Last 100 Years, According to Critics.)
Hopkins has made his presence known to a younger audience via the Marvel cinematic universe as Odin in several “Thor” movies, along with a masterful TV performance as Robert Ford on “Westworld.”
24/7 Tempo has assembled a list of Sir Anthony Hopkins’ 31 best movie performances, based on an index of IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes movie ratings. (IMdb is an online movie database owned by Amazon. Rotten Tomatoes is an online movie and TV review aggregator.) Only films with 25,000 reviews or more on IMDb were considered for this analysis. Each movie’s domestic box office was obtained from The Numbers, an online movie database owned by consulting firm Nash Information Services.
The next Hopkins movie to be released will be “The Virtuoso,” a thriller due out later this year. If you’d like to see that — or have a look at “The Father” before the Academy Awards on April 25 — on a big screen, see if your state’s on track to get you back into theatres: COVID-19: States Doing the Best in the Race to Roll Out Vaccines.
31. Alexander (2004)
> Fellow leads: Colin Farrell, Rosario Dawson, Angelina Jolie
> Director: Oliver Stone
> Domestic box office: $34.30 million
In this historical drama, Hopkins portrays the Ancient Roman geographer, mathematician, and philosopher Claudius Ptolemy, friend to Alexander the Great.
30. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
> Fellow leads: Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock
> Director: Michael Bay
> Domestic box office: $130.17 million
Hopkins plays Sir Edmund Burton, a historian and astronomer who happens to be an expert in the story of the Transformers’ time on earth.
29. The Rite (2011)
> Fellow leads: Colin O’Donoghue, Ciarán Hinds, Alice Braga
> Director: Mikael Håfström
> Domestic box office: $33.05 million
In this film, said to be based on true events, Hopkins plays a Jesuit priest who specializes in exorcisms.
28. The Wolfman (2010)
> Fellow leads: Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Simon Merrells
> Director: Joe Johnston
> Domestic box office: $62.19 million
Hopkins plays another nobleman here, an English lord whose estranged sons return to their home under dire circumstances.
27. Solace (2015)
> Fellow leads: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell
> Director: Afonso Poyart
> Domestic box office: Not available
In a twist on his role in “The Silence of the Lambs,” here Hopkins is a psychic asked to use his abilities to help the FBI to capture a serial killer.
26. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
> Fellow leads: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Gemma Jones
> Director: Woody Allen
> Domestic box office: $3.25 million
This time, Hopkins plays a divorcé who makes some regrettable decisions and hopes to win his ex-wife back.
25. The Human Stain (2003)
> Fellow leads: Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise
> Director: Robert Benton
> Domestic box office: $5.38 million
Hopkins plays a disgraced college professor who has been living with a close-kept secret for most of his life.
24. Instinct (1999)
> Fellow leads: Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, Maura Tierney
> Director: Jon Turteltaub
> Domestic box office: $34.11 million
This psychological drama delves into the mind of an anthropologist, played by Hopkins, who is convicted of murdering two park rangers while living with mountain gorillas in Uganda.
23. Noah (2014)
> Fellow leads: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson
> Director: Darren Aronofsky
> Domestic box office: $101.20 million
Hopkins plays Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, who gives Noah a seed from the Garden of Eden, from which a forest will grow overnight.
22. Hannibal (2001)
> Fellow leads: Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta
> Director: Ridley Scott
> Domestic box office: $165.09 million
In his second turn as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins’ character is on the run from the authorities and a surviving victim ten years after the events that took place in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
21. RED 2 (2013)
> Fellow leads: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich
> Director: Dean Parisot
> Domestic box office: $53.26 million
Hopkins portrays a physicist whose covert actions during the Cold War come back to haunt him.
20. Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
> Fellow leads: Anton Yelchin, Hope Davis, Mika Boorem
> Director: Scott Hicks
> Domestic box office: $24.19 million
As a boarder in a sleepy Maine town, Hopkins confides in his host’s son that he is on the run from powers unknown.
19. Hitchcock (2012)
> Fellow leads: Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston
> Director: Sacha Gervasi
> Domestic box office: $6.01 million
Hopkins plays the famous filmmaker of the title in this film that tells the story of his relationship with his wife during the making of “Psycho.”
18. Bobby (2006)
> Fellow leads: Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Harry Belafonte
> Director: Emilio Estevez
> Domestic box office: $11.24 million
Hopkins joins an ensemble cast to play a retiree who was working at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Robert F. Kennedy was shot following his victory in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary.
17. Meet Joe Black (1998)
> Fellow leads: Brad Pitt, Claire Forlani, Jake Weber
> Director: Martin Brest
> Domestic box office: $44.65 million
In this film, Hopkins is a wealthy media mogul confronted with the knowledge that he only has a few days left to live.
16. The Edge (1997)
> Fellow leads: Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson, Harold Perrineau
> Director: Lee Tamahori
> Domestic box office: $27.78 million
Hopkins plays a man stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his traveling companions after their plane crashes. Hunted by a Kodiak bear, the men’s relationships fray.
15. Red Dragon (2002)
> Fellow leads: Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel
> Director: Brett Ratner
> Domestic box office: $92.96 million
For a third time, Hopkins plays the psychiatrist and serial killer Hannibal Lecter, this time years before to the events of “The Silence of the Lambs.”
14. Fracture (2007)
> Fellow leads: Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Rosamund Pike
> Director: Gregory Hoblit
> Domestic box office: $39.02 million
In this legal drama, Hopkins plays a man acting as his own attorney while on trial for the attempted murder of his wife.
13. Nixon (1995)
> Fellow leads: Joan Allen, Powers Boothe, Ed Harris
> Director: Oliver Stone
> Domestic box office: $13.67 million
Hopkins turns in a chilling performance as the 37th president as he copes with fallout from the Watergate scandal of 1973.
12. The Mask of Zorro (1998)
> Fellow leads: Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, José María de Tavira
> Director: Martin Campbell
> Domestic box office: $93.83 million
Hopkins plays the original masked vigilante, who, too old for his former escapades, escapes from prison with the aid of a young protegé.
11. Thor (2011)
> Fellow leads: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston
> Director: Kenneth Branagh
> Domestic box office: $181.03 million
Hopkins had never read the Marvel comics on which the “Thor” series is based before taking this role as Odin, Thor’s father and the ruler of Asgard.
10. Legends of the Fall (1994)
> Fellow leads: Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond
> Director: Edward Zwick
> Domestic box office: $66.50 million
In this drama based on a noted Jim Harrison novel, Hopkins plays a retired U.S. Army Colonel who moves his family to Montana in the early 1900’s.
9. Amistad (1997)
> Fellow leads: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman
> Director: Steven Spielberg
> Domestic box office: $44.21 million
Hopkins portrays former president John Quincy Adams in the days leading up to the legal battle surrounding La Amistad, a Spanish slave ship captured by the U.S. Navy after its passengers stage a mutiny and take command from their captors.
8. Proof (2005)
> Fellow leads: Gwyneth Paltrow, Hope Davis, Jake Gyllenhaal
> Director: John Madden
> Domestic box office: $7.54 million
In flashbacks, Hopkins plays a now deceased mathematical genius who suffered from mental illness, and whose daughter is trying to live in his looming shadow.
7. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
> Fellow leads: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves
> Director: Francis Ford Coppola
> Domestic box office: $82.52 million
Hopkins plays Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the famed vampire hunter and priest who narrates the tale.
6. Howards End (1992)
> Fellow leads: Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter
> Director: James Ivory
> Domestic box office: $26.12 million
In this period drama, Hopkins plays the head of a wealthy family in Edwardian England.
5. The World’s Fastest Indian (2005)
> Fellow leads: Diane Ladd, Iain Rea, Tessa Mitchell
> Director: Roger Donaldson
> Domestic box office: $5.13 million
Hopkins’ role here is as Burt Munro, the speed bike racer from New Zealand who sets multiple land speed records in his 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle.
4. The Lion in Winter (1968)
> Fellow leads: Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, John Castle
> Director: Anthony Harvey
> Domestic box office: $22.28 million
In his breakout role, plays Richard the Lionheart, eldest surviving son of Henry II. This performance earned him a BAFTA nomination as best supporting actor.
3. The Remains of the Day (1993)
> Fellow leads: Emma Thompson, John Haycraft, Christopher Reeve
> Director: James Ivory
> Domestic box office: $22.96 million
Hopkins plays a butler to an English manor who has an opportunity to set his past right.
2. The Elephant Man (1980)
> Fellow leads: John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud
> Director: David Lynch
> Domestic box office: $26.01 million
Hopkins portrays the doctor who frees the deformed John Merrick from a Victorian freak show and brings him to stay in the London Hospital.
1. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
> Fellow leads: Jodie Foster, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons
> Director: Jonathan Demme
> Domestic box office: $130.73 million
In perhaps his most famous role, Hopkins creates his role as Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist and serial killer who is asked to help the FBI track down another murderer before he strikes again. Hopkins won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in 1992.