Michael Bay Movies, Ranked

Fifteen films, one sunset, several thousand explosions.

Entries
14
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A medieval knight's helmet made of car parts sitting on a round table in a stone castle hall.

    14. Transformers: The Last Knight

    Michael Bay · 2017

    Shot in at least four aspect ratios, so the frame changes shape mid-scene like it's also confused. Anthony Hopkins explains robot history. Ten Razzie nominations and zero wins, a record. Even the Razzies gave up.

  2. A giant metallic dinosaur skeleton stomping through a dusty Texas barn, a pickup truck in the foreground.

    13. Transformers: Age of Extinction

    Michael Bay · 2014

    Dinobots! Also Mark Wahlberg as an inventor named Cade Yeager, 165 minutes, $1.1 billion, and a Razzie for Worst Director. It was the biggest movie of 2014 worldwide, which tells you everything and nothing.

  3. Chicago skyscrapers tilting and cracking against a smoky sky, a giant mechanical tentacle wrapped around one tower.

    12. Transformers: Dark of the Moon

    Michael Bay · 2011

    The battle of Chicago is the best stretch of robot destruction in the series, and this was Bay's first film past $1 billion. The other hour and a half is also there, unfortunately.

  4. A neon-green sports car skidding through a narrow Renaissance street, a terracotta dome rising behind it.

    11. 6 Underground

    Michael Bay · 2019

    Netflix handed Bay $150 million and he spent a chunk of it chasing a neon-green Alfa Romeo through Florence. Ryan Reynolds plays a billionaire named One. The opening chase is a blast; the rest is a screensaver set to explosions.

  5. Vintage propeller planes flying low over a harbor of battleships at dawn, a single dropped love letter on a dock in the foreground.

    10. Pearl Harbor

    Michael Bay · 2001

    Three hours, a love triangle, and an attack sequence that is technically staggering. It won the Oscar for sound editing and got six Razzie nominations, which is the most Michael Bay ratio imaginable.

  6. A sterile white corridor of identical white tracksuits on hangers, with one door at the end opening onto a blue ocean.

    09. The Island

    Michael Bay · 2005

    A smart clone-escape thriller hiding inside a dumb chase movie, with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. It made $35.8 million in the U.S., and the makers of a 1979 film called Parts: The Clonus Horror got a settlement. Better than its reputation.

  7. A walled compound at night lit by flares, its gate silhouetted against a smoky orange sky.

    08. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

    Michael Bay · 2016

    Bay's most restrained film, which still means a lot of gunfire. John Krasinski bulks up from Jim Halpert into a security contractor, and the siege sequences are genuinely tense. Oscar-nominated for sound mixing.

  8. Two pairs of aviator sunglasses on the hood of a silver sports car parked by a Miami beach at golden hour.

    07. Bad Boys

    Michael Bay · 1995

    The debut: roughly $19 million, two sitcom stars, a lot of improvising. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's chemistry is the special effect; Bay mostly just keeps lighting it at golden hour.

  9. A yellow muscle car with black stripes parked at night in a suburban driveway, its headlights casting a giant robot-shaped shadow on the garage.

    06. Transformers

    Michael Bay · 2007

    Spielberg pitched it as a boy and his car. Bay delivered a boy, a car and $709 million. Peter Cullen came back to voice Optimus Prime, which remains the single best decision in the entire franchise.

  10. A chrome barbell on a gym floor in front of a mirrored wall reflecting palm trees and a pink Miami sky.

    05. Pain & Gain

    Michael Bay · 2013

    The true story of Miami bodybuilders who kidnapped and killed for the American dream, told by the director most likely to admire their aesthetic. Made for $26 million. Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson are terrifyingly committed.

  11. A boxy ambulance speeding down a downtown Los Angeles freeway seen from a dizzying drone angle, sirens streaking red and blue.

    04. Ambulance

    Michael Bay · 2022

    Bay on a $40 million budget with a stolen ambulance and racing drones, flown by Drone Racing League pilots, diving down LA skyscrapers. Jake Gyllenhaal is having more fun than anyone in a Bay film ever. Empire called it his most gleeful in a decade.

  12. A car carrier truck on a Miami causeway at sunset with cars tumbling off its back deck.

    03. Bad Boys II

    Michael Bay · 2003

    Two and a half hours, $130 million, and a causeway chase where a car carrier dumps cars on the road like a toy box upended by a toddler. Mean, overlong and loud. Also pure, uncut Bay, the version his other movies are quietly trying to be.

  13. A drilling rig planted on the craggy grey surface of an asteroid, with planet Earth hanging enormous behind it.

    02. Armageddon

    Michael Bay · 1998

    Oil drillers save Earth from an asteroid, which is stupid, and the movie knows exactly how stupid and plays it as opera. Highest-grossing film of 1998, four Oscar nominations, an Aerosmith ballad that will outlive us all. Criterion again.

  14. The silhouette of a lonely island prison in a foggy bay at sunset, a single green glass sphere glowing on a rock in the foreground.

    01. The Rock

    Michael Bay · 1996

    Sean Connery as the only man ever to escape Alcatraz, breaking back in. Nicolas Cage as an FBI chemist with no business in a firefight. Ed Harris making the villain sympathetic. Ebert gave it 3.5 stars and Criterion put it out. Not up for debate.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A crumbling desert pyramid with a tangle of scrap metal piled at its base under a harsh sun.

    Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

    Michael Bay · 2009

    Rushed out after the writers' strike, it won the Razzie for Worst Picture, and Bay himself later called it crap. The robot twins were widely criticized as racist caricatures. It still made $836 million. Nobody learned anything.

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