Gerard Butler is one of Hollywood’s top stars.

The 54-year-old Scottish actor and producer first kicked off his career studying law, but went on to explore the acting world by the mid ’90s with small roles in major productions.

10 Best Gerard Butler Movies of All Time, Ranked

His presence in film and television grew over time, as did the critical recognition for his roles, resulting in awards and accolades steadily throughout the ’00s and beyond.

In celebration of the actor’s prolific career, we’re taking a look back at the most lauded films in Gerard Butler‘s filmography.

We’ve rounded up the 10 best Gerard Butler movies, based on their Rotten Tomatoes scores, which aggregates critic reviews from around the world. Is your favorite Gerard flick among the bunch?

Gerard Butler

10. The Cherry Orchard (1999)

Rotten Tomatoes score: 54%

Set in Russia at the turn of the century, “The Cherry Orchard” chronicles a noblewoman’s return to her family estate after a five-year absence to escape troubling memories her son’s death.

Lyubov Ranevskaya (Charlotte Rampling) arrives home to find the cherry orchard in full bloom, but the finances of the estate on the verge of ruin. Lyubov and her brother, Gaev (Alan Bates), find themselves scrambling to retain a vision of gentility amidst a climate of huge social and economic transition.

9. RocknRolla (2008)

Rotten Tomatoes score: 60%

Old-school mobster Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) rules London’s underworld with an iron fist and a score of well-greased palms.

As big-time gangsters and petty crooks all scramble to get their cut of a Russian mobster’s crooked land deal, street-wise hustler One Two (Gerard Butler) tries to play both sides of the fence as the lucrative deal falls into the lap of Lenny’s presumed-dead son.

8. 300 (2006)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 61%

In 480 B.C. a state of war exists between Persia, led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and Greece. At the Battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas (Gerard Butler), king of the Greek city state of Sparta, leads his badly outnumbered warriors against the massive Persian army. Though certain death awaits the Spartans, their sacrifice inspires all of Greece to unite against their common enemy.

(TIE) 7. Plane (2023)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%

A pilot finds himself caught in a war zone after he’s forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm.

(TIE) 6. Greenland (2020)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%

John Garrity, his estranged wife and their young son embark on a perilous journey to find sanctuary as a planet-killing comet hurtles toward Earth. Amid terrifying accounts of cities getting leveled, the Garrity’s experience the best and worst in humanity. As the countdown to the global apocalypse approaches zero, their incredible trek culminates in a desperate and last-minute flight to a possible safe haven.

5. Dear Frankie (2004)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81%

Frankie (Jack McElhone) does not know his father because his mother, Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), ran away from the abusive lout when Frankie was just a baby.

Instead of telling the truth to her deaf son, she concocts an elaborate lie, telling him that his father is a merchant seaman on the MS Accra. She even writes letters for Frankie posing as his father. But when the actual MS Accra docks in their small Scottish town, Lizzie quickly needs to find a fake father for Frankie.

4. Copshop (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%

On the run from a lethal assassin, a wily con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small-town police station–but when the hitman turns up at the precinct, an unsuspecting rookie cop finds herself caught in the crosshairs.

3. The Vanishing (2018)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%

Three lighthouse keepers arrive on an isolated island off the Scottish coast and find an object that becomes the catalyst to a struggle for survival as they are overcome by greed and paranoia.


(TIE) 2. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown (1997)

Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%

After the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) withdraws from public life, so the court appoints a former servant of the prince, John Brown (Billy Connolly), to help her recover from her grief. Brown’s unorthodox ways and disdain for protocol draw the queen out of her shell, and the brash Scot becomes her sole confidant. However, their growing closeness causes a stir, as scandalous rumors begin circulating about the exact nature of their relationship.

(TIE) 1. Coriolanus (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%

In a contemporary spin on Shakespeare’s work, a warrior (Ralph Fiennes) whose honesty sees him banished from Rome makes a pact with a sworn enemy, Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), and charges on the Eternal City.