Highlights
- Jake Gyllenhaal has made significant contributions to Hollywood with memorable roles in films like
Brokeback Mountain
and
End of Watch
. - Despite being a box office disappointment, Gyllenhaal’s performance in
Zodiac
was critically acclaimed by the BBC for its portrayal of the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer. - Gyllenhaal’s most highly-rated film on IMDb,
Prisoners
, showcases his talent in a suspenseful thriller alongside Hugh Jackman, earning him an Oscar nomination.
Jake Gyllenhaal has a career that he can be proud of. Born into an artistic family of father director Stephen Gyllenhaal and mother screenwriter Naomi Foner, his path into Hollywood’s stardom began at a very young age. He had his acting debut back in 1991 in Ron Underwood’s City Slickers where he portrayed Danny Robbins, despite not having too much screen time.
Fast-forward to 2024, Gyllenhaal, now 43 years old, has a plethora of amazing film titles in his portfolio. He’s the face of many iconic roles throughout the years, including Mysterio in Marvel‘s Spider-Man series, a troubled ‘journalist’ in Nightcrawler, and a complex cowboy from the West in Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain.
To sum it up, we’re ranking Gyllenhaal’s best performances according to his IMDb ratings.
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Updated March 2024:Jake Gyllenhaal will be seen in Amazon Prime’s ‘Roadhouse’ in March 2024. The film, which is a remake of the 1989 film of the same name that starred Patrick Swayze, was fraught with behind-the-scenes issues. However, in the end, the film was completed and the cast was happy with the results. Now, it just remains to be seen if audiences will embrace the remake or if they will reject it as all other Swayze remakes have been to date.
10 Source Code (2011)
IMDb Rating: 7.5
- Character: Capt. Colter Stevens
In Source Code, Gyllenhaal plays Capt. Colter Stevens, who can only remember as far back as a mission he did in Afghanistan. This proves to be problematic as he continuously wakes up on a train in the consciousness of another man, whose job it is, is to find the bomber on the train before he detonates a nuclear weapon.
“What we have in the movie is birth and death in a minute-by-minute situation with every interaction we have with every human being,” Gyllenhaal explained. “Whether we choose to listen to them and move and change is, to me, what it’s about, in a very abstract, very large-scale nutshell.”
9 Nocturnal Animals (2016)
IMDb Rating: 7.5
- Character: Edward Scheffield and Tony Hastings
Gyllenhaal plays two separate characters in Nocturnal Animals. One is who is the ex-husband of Amy Adams’ character, who is a writer, and the other is as the main character in Adams’ character’s book. The notion of being able to play two completely different characters and the ride it took him on, was the reason why Gyllenhaal signed on to the movie the same day that director, Tom Ford presented it to him.
“I remember reading it and then I had a phone call with [Ford] a few hours later. I remember sort of being left vibrating from the screenplay. Like shaken,” Gyllenhaal explained. “Shook up by this, particularly the initial scene, that scene in the desert. It was written so brilliantly. And how these storylines intertwined and then how it ended. I think how it ended really put a stamp on the whole story for me.’
Gyllenhaal went on to say, “In six hours I had decided to do a movie with little thought.”
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8 The Covenant (2023)
IMDb Rating: 7.5
- Character: Master Sergeant John Kinley
In The Covenant, Gyllenhaal plays Master Sergeant John Kinley who is on a mission in Afghanistan to find extremist forces. Based on a true story, the film follows Gyllenhaal and his co-star, Dar Salim, who plays Kinley’s interpreter, Ahmed.
As a result of trying to find extremists, Kinley is shot and Ahmed makes the decision to try and save Kinley, despite the fact it puts his life in peril by doing so.
“It’s a parable about what a human being is owed and their reluctant, begrudging kind of commitment to someone else. It’s not a cliché that you are a good person,” Gyllenhaal explained. “This film shows we can be complex individuals who do good – even against our desires to do it … It’s a parable – a simple story about many, many complex things.”
7 End Of Watch (2012)
IMDb Rating: 7.6
Gyllenhaal plays a police officer in the film, End of Watch. The film, which also stars Michael Pena, shows what life was like for police officers patrolling in the 1990s in Los Angeles.
Gyllenhaal and Pena’s characters are not only partners but they are friends as well. The two go through the normal rigmarole of pulling cars over and responding to calls. But it is when a cartel puts a hit out on the officers that things start to get intense.
The film required the actors to go on ride along with several Los Angeles police agencies before shooting. It was during this time that Gyllenhaal truly experienced all that officers see and said that doing the film “changed his life.”
“It’s about putting on an act,” Gyllenhaal explained. “Whatever your sex. Cops go into a black neighborhood and respond differently than if they’re in a Hispanic neighborhood. They adapt in a way I’ve rarely seen in any other profession besides acting. That’s maybe the only similarity between our jobs – the ability to observe human behavior and imitate it. Theirs is for survival and ours is absurd in comparison. But maybe ‘brotherhood’ is misleading. It’s a big family. I know that does sound cliched but when you get to its authenticity, it’s anything but.”
Gyllenhaal went on to say, “The film changed my life. I have three really close friends from the production process. The movie to me almost feels like an afterthought.”
6 Brokeback Mountain (2005)
IMDb Rating: 7.7
For Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain was a critical cornerstone of his career. Based on the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, the 2005 neo-Western chronicles two cowboys and their perplexing romantic journey in the American West in the 1960s. He starred alongside the great late Heath Ledger, who later cemented his legendary status as The Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight.
“Part of the medicine of storytelling is that we were two straight guys playing these parts,” he told The Sunday Times via Insider. “There was a stigma about playing a part like that, you know, why would you do that? And I think it was very important to both of us to break that stigma.”
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5 Zodiac (2007)
IMDb Rating: 7.7
- Character: Robert Graysmith
Zodiac sees Jake Gyllenhaal teaming up with his future Marvel friends Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo. The 2007 film, which was based on Robert Graysmith’s Zodiac non-fiction book series, centers around the manhunt of the infamous Zodiac Killer during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The actor portrays the true-crime cartoonist, alongside the likes of Anthony Edwards, Zach Grenier, John Caroll Lynch, and more.
Despite being named as one of the greatest films of the 21st century by the BBC, Zodiac was strangely a box office disappointment, having “only” amassed $84.7 million out of its $65 million budget.
4 October Sky (1999)
IMDb Rating: 7.8
October Sky is a biographical film that takes its audiences to the life of a former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who grew up in a coal-mining town and was eager to become a rocket scientist against his father’s will. Gyllenhaal was only 17 at the time, and matter of fact, he was still in school and taking advanced classes on the set.
Despite his young age, young Gyllenhaal proved that he would become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors, putting this film among the top 5 of his performances.
3 Nightcrawler (2014)
IMDb Rating: 7.9
Nightcrawler is the story of the crime-ridden streets of Los Angeles where Jake Gyllenhaal’s stringer character, Lou Bloom, pulls his camera out to record some of the most violent events of the night and sells the tapes to a local TV station. Serving as an anti-hero throughout the 117 minutes runtime, Gyllenhaal’s performance was outstanding.
The film itself ended up becoming one of the most celebrated films of the year, amassing an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role from the Screen Actors Guild Award.
2 Donnie Darko (2001)
IMDb Rating: 8.0
Donnie Darko is another case of a box office flop that turns into a cult classic. The 2001 film only managed to make $7.5 million out of its $4.5 million budget due to its tone-deaf marketing campaign featuring a crashing plane in the wake of the September 11 attack. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays a troublesome teenager who commits villainous crimes after being tempted by his own ‘visions.’ It was a critical success to the point where a sequel, S. Darko, was released in 2009. The film’s director Richard Kelly has also hinted at the possibility of another sequel back in 2021, so we’ll see where it leads us into.
“It beautifully captured the experience of moving into adulthood: the world that felt so solid becoming moveable and liquid,” he told The Guardian. “I thought, ‘This is what my adolescence felt like,’ although I don’t speak, and have never spoken to, rabbits … The film took a long time to be found. It started in the UK. I’d just finished a play in London and started doing press for Donnie Darko. The response was so different compared with back home.”
1 Prisoners (2013)
IMDb Rating: 8.1
- Character: Detective Loki
In the 2013 film Prisoners, Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars Hugh Jackman in a thrilling two-hour ride of a detective, played by Gyllenhaal, as he seeks the truth about the abduction of two young girls. The father of one of the two, played by Jackman, then decides to take the matter into his own hands.
Up to this writing, Prisoners is still the highest-rated film in Gyllenhaal’s discography according to IMDb, amassing an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography.
Source: NewsFinale
