Steve Martin Movies, Ranked

A banjo player who kept getting cast as a leading man, in order.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A supermarket aisle with a ripped-open bag of hot dog buns on the floor, a shopping cart and a wedding cake topper.

    10. Father of the Bride

    Charles Shyer · 1991

    A remake of the Spencer Tracy film, with Martin as a father who cannot cope with his daughter's wedding or its budget. He gets arrested in a supermarket over hot dogs and buns sold in mismatched pack sizes. Every father since has had the same thought.

  2. A freeway message board at night lit by a lone sedan's headlights, palm trees and a pair of roller skates on the shoulder.

    09. L.A. Story

    Mick Jackson · 1991

    Martin wrote this one as a valentine to Los Angeles, playing a TV weatherman who prerecords his forecasts because it will be sunny, and takes romantic advice from a freeway sign. Rollerskating in a museum is the closest thing the city has to a civic ritual.

  3. A 1940s detective office with venetian blind shadows, a fedora on the desk and a plaid jacket on the coat rack.

    08. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

    Carl Reiner · 1982

    Martin's detective trades lines with Bogart, Bergman, Cagney and Grant, spliced in from 18 old noirs. Cinematographer Michael Chapman researched 1940s lighting for six months to match. Last film for both Edith Head and composer Miklós Rózsa. A collage with jokes.

  4. A low-budget film set on a busy Los Angeles street, a camera on a shopping cart and a hand-painted slate.

    07. Bowfinger

    Frank Oz · 1999

    Martin wrote and stars as a broke producer shooting a movie around an action star who doesn't know he's in it, with Eddie Murphy as the star and his lookalike brother Jiff. Features a self-help cult called MindHead that resembles nothing in particular.

  5. Three sequined sombreros on fence posts in a dusty Mexican village square, a desert bush in the distance.

    06. Three Amigos!

    John Landis · 1986

    Three silent-film cowboys get hired by a Mexican village that thinks they are real heroes. Martin wrote it with Lorne Michaels and Randy Newman, who also wrote the songs and voiced the singing bush. Mixed reviews, then a cult following. The bush holds up.

  6. A men's suit hanging on a stand split down the middle, one half neat and one half crumpled, a brass bowl on a table.

    05. All of Me

    Carl Reiner · 1984

    A dying heiress's soul lands in Martin's body, so Lily Tomlin controls his right side and he keeps the left. He does it with almost no effects, just his body arguing with itself. Won him Best Actor from both the New York and national film critics. Deserved both halves.

  7. A Riviera villa terrace overlooking the sea, a cocktail glass and a wooden spoon resting on a dinner plate.

    04. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

    Frank Oz · 1988

    Martin and Michael Caine as rival con men working rich women on the French Riviera, a remake of the 1964 Brando-Niven film Bedtime Story. Martin's turn as the deranged brother Ruprecht is the peak of the form. It later became a Broadway musical. Ruprecht did not.

  8. A small-town fire station with a ladder truck out front on a mountain lake shore, a fake long nose on a hook by the door.

    03. Roxanne

    Fred Schepisi · 1987

    Martin updated Cyrano de Bergerac into a small-town fire chief with a very long nose, shot in Nelson, British Columbia, and won the Writers Guild award for it. The bar scene where he tops a heckler with a run of better nose jokes is the play's best bit, improved.

  9. A burned-out rental car shell on a snowy highway shoulder, a trunk full of shower curtain rings spilling out.

    02. Planes, Trains and Automobiles

    John Hughes · 1987

    An ad man trying to get from New York to Chicago for Thanksgiving is stuck with John Candy's shower-curtain-ring salesman. Improvisation between the two pushed the first cut to three hours and 45 minutes. The rental-car counter scene is the most honest thing in cinema.

  10. A pile of belongings on a sidewalk: a lamp, an ashtray, a paddle game, a remote control and a chair, with a pair of odd eyeglasses on top.

    01. The Jerk

    Carl Reiner · 1979

    Martin's first starring role: Navin Johnson, who invents a handle for eyeglasses, gets rich and loses everything when the device makes millions of users cross-eyed. Made for $4 million, grossed $100 million. Leaves the mansion with only a lamp, an ashtray and a paddle game.

Honorable mentions

  • A dentist's chair beside a giant potted plant with jaws, a nitrous oxide tank and a motorcycle helmet.

    Little Shop of Horrors

    Frank Oz · 1986

    A supporting part as Orin Scrivello, a sadistic dentist on nitrous oxide who sings about his calling and rides a motorcycle through the office. It's a few minutes of screen time that steal the whole film, and the man-eating plant is right there. Bill Murray as his patient helps.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A hamburger on a plate at an airport security checkpoint, a magnifying glass and a trench coat beside it.

    The Pink Panther

    Shawn Levy · 2006

    Martin takes over Clouseau and spends a long scene failing to say hamburger. It grossed $164 million and holds 21 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert said he spent the whole thing aware Peter Sellers was Clouseau. A sequel followed anyway.

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