Henry O'Brien
Ahead of the premiere of Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson unsurprisingly opened up. In the film that has been positioned as Johnson’s major pivot into a serious drama, distributed by indie studio darling A24, critics and fans alike were all wondering what went into this decision that you could cynically say is an attempt at an Oscar. Johnson, who has been one of the most profitable movie stars in the world (his films have grossed a total of $13.7 billion), discussed not being confined by an obsession with box office numbers and his desire to achieve something more meaningful in his career.
In a write-up of the press conference from The Hollywood Reporter, Johnson stated, “I had been very fortunate to have the career that I’ve had over the years and to make the films that I’ve made, but there was just a voice inside of me, a little voice that said, ‘Well, what if I could do more—I want to do more and what does that look like?’”
This is essentially going to be his campaign slogan for the Oscars—he’s trying to do something different. And Johnson is already pulling out the stops ahead of The Smashing Machine’s Oct. 3 theatrical release. He did a lengthy interview with The New York Times Magazine last week, where he described, among other things, his contentious relationship with his father. He’s looking to be open and reveal his pain, something that one wouldn’t think to find in his filmography, which is typically associated with mediocrity as exemplified by his recent stretch of films: Moana 2, Red One and Black Adam.
But Johnson’s claim that he hasn’t done more is not giving himself enough credit. Most cinephiles would point to Pain & Gain and Southland Tales as times when Johnson worked with a distinct auteur and gave a genuinely weird/individual performance. And while I’ll have plenty to say about those, some of the most interesting films to write about were from the ones that seemed like the most formulaic. He can be a meathead straight out of the WWE, and he can be the damaged soul that he purports to show for the first time in The Smashing Machine.
I won’t kid you, plenty of The Rock’s movies are quite poor, and even he would probably admit as much. But even the duds offer a level of weirdness and distinct badness that never really answer the question of whether or not he can actually act. It makes him compelling in that sense, even as his movies can be the equivalent of jumping into a dumpster fire.
This will be a ranking of Johnson’s 39 non-cameo feature films, including The Smashing Machine. If it seems like I’m grasping at straws at times for something interesting to say about The Rock and his performance, I am.
#39 Black Adam: Ah, yes. Black Adam. The movie that inevitably changed the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe. About a month and a half after this movie failed to break even, new DC Studios head James Gunn called for a reboot of Superman, effectively ending the DCEU. But this embarrassment to the superhero genre was the first misstep for The Rock in the 2020s. Playing a villain who is not above killing people to achieve his goals, Johnson never really meshes with the character, considering he prefers to play a hero more times than not. For a role that he had been in discussion to play since 2007, The Rock feels miscast from the jump. On the plus side, this critical and box office bomb freed director Jaume Collet-Serra to make more films in his wheelhouse, like Carry-On and The Woman in the Yard. For the Rock, well, it’s a different story.
#38 Red One: You have to give Johnson credit in one sense: he has been trained in the WWE school of promotion. He displayed his prowess in this field when he told the story in an interview with IMAX of how he watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the widescreen format and thought, “Holy shit. Red One on this screen and with this technology could be game over.” As you would’ve guessed, the Christmas blockbuster did not match the 2023 Best Picture winner in any sense. The Rock, playing Santa’s bodyguard, felt deeply constrained being a tough guy who believes in an extra level of North Pole lore brought to Red One.
#37 Doom: The worst kind of Johnson performance. His heel turn as a possessed demon soldier is as forgettable as the rest of this cast (Rosamund Pike is in this crap!). He doesn’t even register as a compelling leader or villain. And for being a movie that’s so content in being a bad video adaptation, the true crime is that The Rock isn’t even terrible like he is in Black Adam. Just a true nothingburger.
#36 Race to Witch Mountain: The movie equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, the Race to Witch Mountain remake is an abysmal rendition of E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Rock doesn’t help matters, as he doesn’t seem like enough of a loser or a tough guy or a Las Vegas taxi driver, for that matter. This was one of the last films I watched for this ranking because of how grating and boring it was to get through.
#35 Tooth Fairy: Having The Rock as a bruiser hockey player is cool, but they really only show him off for one scene as some tough guy. Otherwise, this bland fantasy family film taps into Johnson’s worst instincts: namely, “fun-for-the-family” movies with a stupid twist on a classic childhood story. The one interesting aspect of this period of Johnson’s film career is that there is a focus on how he’s an athlete who’s a little past his prime. There’s more of this trend to come.
#34 The Mummy Returns: His first-ever film appearance is barely even one. You have the opening sequence as the powerful warrior, the Scorpion King. But then you finally see him as a literal Scorpion King and become infamous for the character’s special effects. Just take a look for yourself.
The CGI is still truly nightmare-inducing.
#33 Jungle Cruise: In his first collaboration with Collet-Serra, The Rock was outshined by the far more talented stars around him like Emily Blunt, Paul Giamatti and (German?) Jesse Plemons in this Disney ride adaptation. He’s supposed to be this immortal scoundrel, but that once again goes against the family-friendly movie star persona that Johnson has set out for himself.
#32 Red Notice: Red Notice, an even poorer Indiana Jones knockoff than Jungle Cruise, actually gives Johnson the chance to outshine his co-stars. It helps when you’re billed next to the painfully unfunny Ryan Reynolds and the anti-performer known as Gal Gadot. The film really is a study in how uncharming a movie can be, but The Rock genuinely has to keep the audience on their toes for the lame twist at the end. I’m willing to give him points for that, even as he looks genuinely exhausted in this film.
#31 Faster: Similar to Doom, Johnson doesn’t have an ounce of intrigue in this role. He just plays a dude looking for revenge and nothing more. Look, plenty of movie stars have done films like that. The problem is that he phones it in so much that he doesn’t make the role his own. Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the corrupt cop, brings enough of his distinct personality and acting style to make the film watchable.
#30 Walking Tall: This 2004 remake of the 1973 vigilante thriller tries to show that The Rock has some edge to him as a movie star and as an action star. But the failure of the updated Walking Tall is that Johnson has no edge or grit to him. He’s too clean-cut, and that’s a recurring issue when The Rock tries to play something different from the family-friendly persona he typically shows.
#29 Get Smart: It’s hard to describe this as a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson movie, considering he’s barely in it. Mind you, he is the surprise antagonist, Agent 23 and does have a big ole’ chase he does with Steve Carell. Otherwise, he barely has enough charm to make this a passable performance.
#28 Snitch: A trashy action movie from one of the masters of that subgenre, Ric Roman Waugh, Snitch does a piss-poor job of making The Rock seem like a loving family man who will do whatever it takes to protect his son. He just doesn’t seem that desperate enough, a feat that he is capable of, as shown in his best acting works.
#27 Skyscraper: In his most naked attempt to appeal to the international and Chinese markets (the movie does take place on a skyscraper in Hong Kong, after all), this film is The Rock’s Die Hard. But since this is The Rock, and most of his movies are mediocre slop, it should come as no surprise that Skyscraper falls laughably short of the film it steals its premise from. Johnson’s performance is no exception. Let it be known: The Rock is no John McClane.
#26 Moana 2: While The Rock still has the magic stuff that made him so excellent in the first film (more on that later), his follow-up can be judged on one thing and one thing only: his solo song, “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” And unlike “You’re Welcome” (again, more on that later), this new tune has none of the same pazzazz and fun. The same could be said about the rest of the movie, which has no memorable hit songs for anyone besides young children who will forget them when they turn 10.
#25 San Andreas: I don’t know how else to describe it, but there’s something genuinely entrancing about watching The Rock fly a helicopter. As a disaster movie, San Andreas isn’t very good. But if there was an actor who didn’t have a pilot’s license I would have to trust to fly a helicopter, I would trust Johnson. That has to count for something, right?
#24 Planet 51: Being a fearless astronaut would seem like a match made in heaven for Johnson. But his first animated voice performance remains mostly unremarkable, even with some off-beat, Shrek-style humor that still holds up in my mind.
#23 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island: The Rock is the only reason this CGI-heavy mess is worth watching. The ultimate frustration of Johnson’s movie career is that this is somehow not one of his 10 worst performances. He just has so many more phoned-in pieces of crap that one can somehow find value in The Rock doing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AUVSMU1hHg
I don’t care if this has some of the ugliest-looking visual effects ever to grace a screen. The Rock makes this compelling, dammit!
#22 Rampage: Once again, Rampage should be near the bottom of The Rock’s filmography, but it isn’t because he’s made so much crap. To his credit, he pulls the same trainer moves that Chris Pratt does in his three Jurassic World pictures, and I can safely say Johnson is a much better thespian in this regard.
#21 Hercules: I initially was worried that this would go down as The Rock’s worst performance in the same vein as Black Adam, where he tries and fails miserably to be somebody he is not. But Johnson proves himself to be a competent enough Hercules in this B-movie version of the legendary hero. He’s heroic enough in battle, so it’ll be enough to get this role into the middle.
#20 The Scorpion King: This should be The Rock’s official first role because of how little he is in The Mummy Returns. With his experience from wrestling, Johnson knows how to look and act like a warrior, with the scene in the caves, where he really does feel like a scorpion, generating some excitement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llzXzUe2KAk
Sadly, the rest of the film fails to match that scene’s quality, and The Rock doesn’t do anything unique in this standard swords-and-sandals film.
#19 Gridiron Gang: The Rock and his fellow collaborators wouldn’t have known what ChatGPT was in 2006. But if they did, Gridiron Gang, which follows Johnson coaching a football team of kids from a juvenile detention center, seems like an easy prompt for the AI model to write a basic sports drama where kids overcome hard social circumstances. Johnson is fine, but he does nothing to make himself really stand out.
#18 Baywatch: This is a bad movie in almost any regard, with some horrible work from a roided-out Zac Efron. But against all the odds, Baywatch benefits from having Johnson in it. He’s genuinely funny, delivering lines like this: “I was born of the sea. I eat fire coral, and I piss salt water. I scratch my back with a whale’s dick, and I loofah my chest with his ballsack.” I fully believe that this beautiful bald man is just a total loner who takes lifeguarding way too seriously. With his more successful performances, The Rock can be at his best when he’s a beefed-up, confident weirdo.
#17 The Game Plan: The film that started the trend Tooth Fairy picked up on, The Game Plan again touches on The Rock’s infallibility as an incredible athlete. But this film goes even further as Johnson’s character is a single bachelor and has somewhat of a people problem. More succinctly, he can’t develop a deep, meaningful relationship with those around them. To that, Johnson actually does a good job of showing his character’s growth from point A to point B. So that’s something, I guess.
#16 G.I. Joe: Retaliation: After all of the bizarre recastings for this sequel, it was a little surprising that The Rock worked as adequately as he did. He’s the perfect level of meathead and team leader to make a casting decision like his work for a franchise like G.I. Joe. Now, is he all that memorable? No. But I would still say this is a better performance for him compared to the level of uninspired nonsense that was on the way.
#15 The Rundown: Peter Berg’s The Rundown feels like Johnson’s attempt to cash in on the trend of Guy Ritchie/Quentin Tarantino crime comedies of the era, with a predictably weaker quality and tone. But the film that it reminds me most of is William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. More specifically, The Rock undoubtedly tries to be Roy Scheider from that film; both are men who have to go to South America in order to have any kind of future. In The Rundown, The Rock’s character is an aspiring chef who needs to pay back a loan shark. He works in the film because of how lost he seems initially. His performance starts to slightly suffer when the movie morphs into a Midnight Run dynamic, but he still does enough for this to be one of his more successful acting jobs.
#14 Jumanji: The Next Level: The Rock trying to be Danny DeVito for over an hour, surprisingly has its charms, even if the performance itself doesn’t totally work. A follow-up to the charming Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Jumanji: The Next Level has all the symptoms of sequelitis, with lame callbacks and a rehashed plot, except this time, there are old folks who are playing the game, too. Johnson has to convince us that he can be The Rock pretending to be DeVito with a weird voice and a general sense of confusion. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching too many of his movies, but I think he actually lands the plane, seemingly like a crotchety old guy.
#13 DC League of Super-Pets: Johnson was never meant to be Black Adam. He was meant to be Superman, and this so-so animated film about Krypto the Superdog is probably the closest thing we’re going to get on that front. With the experience of Maui under his belt, Johnson brings the requisite pugnacious energy required to play Superman’s best friend. Even as James Gunn has the most memorable and iconic version of Krypto on the silver screen, Johnson’s performance shouldn’t be totally forgotten.
#12 Fast & Furious 6: We move into what I would like to think is essentially a tiered part of the list, where The Rock’s multiple performances as former Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs all start to blend together. As I will describe in the Fast Five blurb, Johnson was a welcome addition to the Fast and Furious franchise. But his second go at the character is his weakest, with Hobbs being obligated to team up with Dominic Toretto and his family. He’s just not given much to do, even as he still has fun being a meathead agent who helps car thieves.
#11 Furious 7: Furious 7 will forever be remembered for its emotional conclusion scene between Dom and Brian O’Conner (RIP Paul Walker), but The Rock balances out the warmth with ridiculous action movie shenanigans that only he and Vin Diesel could pull off. Namely, when he’s stuck in a hospital bed with a cast on, he realizes he needs to get back into the field and help the family stop Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmARn-HXgo
Only a former employee of Vince McMahon could pull off ripping a big-ass cast off with his muscles and then saying a line like, “Daddy’s gotta go to work.” That’s what makes The Rock so special: he’s a wrestler at heart, but he still can be a compelling, goofy action star when he has to be. He had a few lemons in this scene, and he started a whole damn lemonade company.
#10 Be Cool: My jaw dropped in the opening minutes of this picture when Johnson, playing a gay Samoan bodyguard/aspiring actor named Elliot, does The People’s Eyebrow. He never really does it so explicitly in the rest of his films, so I came away stunned that he did it in the terrible sequel to Get Shorty (Now I know I’ve watched too many of his movies if this stuff gets a rise out of me). But Be Cool is notable in another sense. For anyone who thinks Johnson isn’t a good actor, I would give them the scene where he delivers a god awful monologue in an attempt to impress Chili Palmer (John Travolta). He’s a distinct acting presence, and most of his filmography is distinctly bland. But his performance here essentially acts like a shining light or a figurative diamond in the rough.
#9 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw: The dynamic between Johnson and Statham in this 2019 spin-off feels far less fresh and fun. In fact, the whole dynamic between the two actors trying to one-up each other in the alpha male department runs quite thin, basically by the time the two are on the airplane together. The one wrinkle in the otherwise run-of-the-mill spinoff was that The Rock got to Samoa, which he genuinely did not do in any of his previous films. He’s adequate enough as Hobbs, so that’s enough to warrant this performance’s spot on the list.
#8 The Fate of the Furious: While the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff has an unmistakable quality of repetitiveness, the initial dynamic between Johnson and Statham in the prison sequence here makes everyone realize why Universal thought of a spinoff in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBU3zJemX8A
The Rock finally gets to being nearly as sweaty as he was in Fast Five, a key point that I will touch on. There’s no better example of a WWE star having his manhood challenged than this scene. It’s a miracle that we’re still even able to get performances like this out of Johnson now that he’s fully a family-friendly superstar.
#7 Central Intelligence: The thing I feel that is always underutilized when it comes to The Rock is that his best-of-the-best performances take advantage of one thing: Johnson is really good at playing an emotionally damaged psychopath. Now, will he ever be in some crappy American Psycho remake (paging Luca Guadagnino)? Probably not. But the films that understand the insanity that lies underneath The Rock’s tough guy veneer will always get me interested.
Enter Rawson Marshall Thurber’s stupid spy/high school reunion thriller Central Intelligence. In the picture, we first see a bizarre CGI version of a heavier Johnson, whose name is Robbie Weirdicht, getting bullied in high school, with Kevin Hart’s character, Calvin, being the only one to actually have any sympathy for him. Fast forward two decades, and Calvin is a loser accountant while Robbie has turned into The Rock. Except in this movie, The Rock is a superspy who still doesn’t really know how to be cool or friends with anyone because of his traumatic experiences with bullying.
This leads to Robbie and Calvin having a fun time catching up, but also to the former making more and more inane and bizarre requests for the latter. Every time Robbie excitedly talks about alcohol, drugs or women, I’m fully convinced that Johnson himself doesn’t know how to talk about this stuff without seeming like an alien. It’s as if Johnson is revealing his own deep insecurities about his career that he’s just now talking about with The Smashing Machine. Trust me, Dwayne (I think I can call him that), we all know the most personal and revealing moment in your entire film career was this singular frame.
I truly don’t think there’s any better encapsulation of The Rock’s career and the well of emotion that resides underneath all the CGI. An inspired performance.
#6 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle: Continuing the trend of Johnson doing well in the role of the weirdo comes his first Jumanji film, which surprisingly is light and on its feet and has enough of its own flair that it doesn’t totally fall into the trap of being some boring remake with celebrities. Johnson himself is the avatar form of the Jumanji video game character, Dr. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone, who is a strong and confident archaeologist. In short, he’s The Rock. But the avatar only tells half the story as Johnson has to act like the dorky and neurotic teenager Spencer (Alex Wolff). He again has to seem genuinely unsure of himself, which surprisingly translates.
Like in Be Cool, where he understands how to be a bad actor, Johnson knows how to be bad at socializing. He’s lived such a unique life as a college football player, a WWE megastar and one of the highest-grossing actors of our time; it could potentially be difficult for him to relate to humans well. So it’s genuinely exciting to watch him act as he does in Jumanji.
#5 The Smashing Machine: Will this get an Oscar for The Rock? My guess would be no because of the other fantastic performances from our best thespians, including Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another. No matter how much Johnson would try for the golden trophy, however, it’s a true testament to his ability to consciously bathe in darkness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRpnP3LZ99g
The most unsettling part of Johnson’s performance as early UFC pioneer Mark Kerr is not that he can go warrior mode; it’s how confidently he lies about having a crippling addiction to painkillers. He does something with his voice that makes him sound heavily drugged, but effortlessly makes it seem like nothing is wrong. In talking to Emily Blunt’s character, who plays Kerr’s unstable wife, I had chills down my spine when he insists he doesn’t have a problem. The Smashing Machine undoubtedly offers The Rock something different, and it’s what he does in this sports drama is truly astounding.
#4 Moana: Many cinephiles bemoan the fact that Johnson is so insistent on making family-friendly films. And while most of these choices have led to mediocre slop, Moana, in the hands of the legendary Musker-Clements animation duo, serves as a reason why The Rock wasn’t totally off-base on his creative decisions. Moana 2 doesn’t work as well because Johnson’s song isn’t as strong. But “You’re Welcome,” The Rock’s solo song, should stand in the pantheon of great Disney songs. Johnson’s impish confidence is incredibly charming, and he genuinely has a wonderful singing voice. Maui’s turn from bad boy to best friend to the titular character is predictable, but it doesn’t matter because of how well Johnson can follow the Disney formula. And when the formula is done well, you have to throw him your flowers.
#3 Fast Five: Michael Bay hopefully saw Fast Five before he made Pain & Gain. Why do I say this? One word: sweat. His initial performance as Luke Hobbs puts Johnson in a very comfortable spot; Hobbs is less an agent for the Diplomatic Security Service and more of a roided-out athlete who sees an alpha male in Dom Toretto that he has to overcome.
The fifth Fast & Furious picture, unquestionably the franchise’s best in terms of story, performance and action sequences, lets The Rock be The Rock from his WWE days. He does cool stunts and always finds a way to be as aggro as possible. I wish Johnson would tap into this side of himself more, because he’s just so experienced and comfortable playing this type of role. But, judging how Black Adam seemed like Johnson’s best chance to return to this kind of antagonism, it feels safe to say we may not get this kind of Johnson for the rest of his career.
#2 Southland Tales: There is no line that The Rock pulls off better than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7YXONuF3dk&rco=1
The clip represents the true zaniness of not just Richard Kelly’s slept-on follow-up to Donnie Darko, but Johnson as well, in terms of cutting loose. His performance and the film itself remind me of Adam Driver in the lead role of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. Johnson captures the pure adulterated madness that Southland Tales, a film that seemingly knew exactly what 2025 would be, requires.
Johnson plays Boxer Santaros, an amnesiac movie star who has familial ties to the fascist Republican administration through his wife. He holds a freneticism that’s best exemplified by his shaky hand movements and darting eyes. Aside from being so distinct from the entirety of his other roles, Johnson uses an insecurity that he so often doesn’t employ. It makes his transfer to the pseudo-hero of the film actually feel genuine, even as the whole experience feels so surreal. It’s the reason cineastes want Johnson to work with auteurs: he’s capable of something truly bizarre and distinct.
#1 Pain & Gain: I’ve talked about the various wrinkles of what makes Dwayne Johnson who he is as an actor. There’s the insecurity, the ability to be a meathead and the psycho that lives right underneath the surface. All of these qualities are wrapped into one coked-out performance in Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, the action auteur’s definitive masterpiece.
Bay relies on contradictions when it comes to portraying America on screen. He has a deep love for the military and big explosions to stop the bad guys, but he also understands the rigged nature of capitalism. He knows there’s an insecurity that lies under American masculinity, but also detests weak-minded men. It’s only fitting that Johnson becomes the perfect avatar for Bay’s fascinations and interests.
The Rock plays Paul Doyle, one of the gym bro ex-convicts who are convicted of kidnapping, extortion, torture and murder in Miami in the 1990s. Along with being an ex-con, Doyle is a born-again Christian and a recovering drug addict. Even this story becomes artifice when Doyle violently attacks the priest who helped him after he made homosexual advances on him. Johnson uses this artifice as a means to shield his insecurity.
The performance becomes Johnson’s most layered and textured, allowing him to explore every aspect of his acting style. The quotes Johnson is giving to the press about trying something more honestly feel more fitting for Pain & Gain than The Smashing Machine.
