The great and talented Tom Hardy is a highly revered actor and producer, having starred in a slew of noteworthy and diverse pictures throughout his career. Since making his film debut in Ridley Scott’s 2001 war drama Black Hawk Down, and breaking out big time with the Nicolas Winding Refn film Bronson, Hardy has steadily been crafting a distinguished acting resume for himself and shows no signs of slowing down. The performer is not afraid to do and try it all, famously portraying heroes, villains, and everything in between during his nearly 20 years in show business.
He has appeared as a moonshine bootlegger in Lawless, London gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray in Legend, and as supervillain Bane in Christopher Nolan’s conclusion of The Dark Knight trilogy. Hardy has also starred as both Eddie Brock and symbiote Venom in the 2018 antihero blockbuster Venom and its lucrative follow-up Venom: Let There Be Carnage, further showcasing his incredible range as an actor. He was even the only actor on-screen in the great film Locke, able to captivate audiences simply by being in a car (the whole movie).
Aside from his work on the big screen, Hardy has had numerous television roles in critically renowned shows like Band of Brothers, Peaky Blinders, and Taboo, and has performed on both British and American stages in productions of In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, Blood, and The Man of Mode. The charming performer will star alongside Forest Whitaker and Timothy Olyphant in the upcoming Netflix action thriller Havoc and is attached to portray Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in a biopic by the creators of the BBC miniseries Taboo. These are the best Tom Hardy movies.
9 The Drop
The 2014 crime drama The Drop centers on barman Bob Saginowski, who finds himself entangled in an investigation after the mafia-run bar where he works is robbed. The picture features additional talent by Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini (in his final film role), and follows Saginowski as he finds his once simple life turned upside down and is forced to face both local mobsters and the authorities investigating them. The Drop debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and was well received by critics, with praise for the performances of its gifted leads; the Boston Globe commended the actor for his portrayal in the film, writing: “Not that it needed demonstrating, but Hardy once again shows what quiet force and phenomenal range he has. He’s like a young Liam Neeson with Michael Fassbender chops.”
8 Legend
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Tom Hardy took on double duty when he portrayed London gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray, notorious organized crime leaders who (along with their gang, the Firm) became involved in murder, arson, assaults, robbery, and protection rackets in the 1960s. Hardy was so determined to portray Reggie Kray in the 2015 biographical crime thriller Legend, that he proposed to director Brian Helgeland that if he awarded him the role of Reggie he would play Ronnie for free.
Taking on two riveting performances is quite a task for any actor, and on the believability of a dual performance Hardy said it is a “technical minefield: can you authentically create two characters within a piece at all? So that the audience can look past that and engage in the film? It is what it is: it’s two characters played by the same actor. But I think we got to a point where people forget that and are genuinely watching the story.” Hardy’s efforts proved fruitful, as Legend was both a critical and commercial success; he won Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards for his portrayal of the Kray twins.
7 Venom
For the 2018 blockbuster superhero flick Venom, Tom Hardy stars as investigative journalist Eddie Brock and the alien symbiote Venom, with the film depicting the struggling Brock as he gains superpowers from the titular alien creature. Director Ruben Fleischer wanted to explore Venom’s origins and the “Jekyll and Hyde” relationship that Brock has with the symbiote, saying that he has “always been drawn to the more antihero superheroes. There’s a dark element to [Venom] and a wit that has always appealed to me.”
Hardy enjoyed the duality of the role, which he had experience with as the Kray twins in Legend, and gave Brock an “aw-shucks American accent” while using a “James Brown lounge lizard”-like voice for Venom. The film went on to earn a staggering $856 million at the box office and, despite criticism for its inconsistent tone and narrative, Hardy garnered praise and appreciation for his engrossing portrayal. A well-received sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, was released in 2021 with a third follow-up film currently in the works.
6 Lawless
John Hillcoat’s 2012 crime drama Lawless features a brilliant turn from the volatile Shia LaBeouf, alongside Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke, and depicts the violent conflict between a trio of bootlegging brothers who are threatened by a ruthless deputy and other corrupt authorities that want a cut of the moonshine profits. The picture is based on Matt Bondurant’s historical novel The Wettest County in the World, which was inspired by the Prohibition-era bootlegging activities of his grandfather Jack Bondurant and his grand-uncles Forrest and Howard.
Hardy portrays Forrest Bondurant, the middle brother who frequently displays childlike sweetness amidst his extreme violence. On his role and these contrasting characteristics, the actor said, “[With Forrest, I was] like, ‘How can somebody be so violent, yet at the same time be such a little boy?’ Someone intrinsically innocent and naive and have such a heart, but then he’d do something on the other side that was so incredibly, horrifically horrible.” Lawless was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, premiering to rave reviews for the powerful performances of its gifted leads.
5 Inception
Creative genius and cinematic visionary Christopher Nolan wrote and directed the big-screen phenomenon and 2010 sci-fi action picture Inception, which follows a professional thief who gathers and steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. With an A-list cast including renowned movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Cillian Murphy, the groundbreaking spectacle took Nolan over eight years to complete. He wondered what would happen if people shared the same dream, saying: “Once you remove the privacy, you’ve created an infinite number of alternative universes in which people can meaningfully interact, with validity, with weight, with dramatic consequences.”
Hardy appears as the sharp-tongued and skilled Eames, an associate of Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) who specializes in forgery and identity theft. His role in the brilliant smash hit earned him the BAFTA Rising Star award, and the New York Daily News heralded Inception, writing: “The ambition on display is so huge, and the filmmaking so intelligent, you’ll emerge feeling as if you’ve just watched an entire season of the greatest sci-fi series never made.”
4 Dunkirk
Tom Hardy teamed up with the renowned Christopher Nolan once again for the gripping 2017 war picture Dunkirk, which depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II through the perspectives of the land, sea, and air. In the ensemble film, Hardy portrays Royal Air Force fighter pilot Farrier, appearing alongside talented actors such as Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, and Cillian Murphy in the epic drama.
Nolan was inspired to create and structure the picture from the point of view of the characters, keeping the visuals at the forefront rather than the dialogue and backstory. On casting the powerful actor as the stoic Farrier, Nolan said, “What he does with single eye acting is far beyond what anyone else can do with their whole body, that is just the unique talent of the man, he’s extraordinary.” Dunkirk garnered universal acclaim upon its release and went on to win three Academy Awards; it earned $526 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing World War II film of all time.
3 The Revenant
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Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning 2015 Western survival drama The Revenant stars Leonardo DiCpario, Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson, and tells the harrowing tale of frontiersman Hugh Glass as he fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by his own hunting team in 1823. DiCaprio portrays the revenge-seeking Glass while Hardy is his adversary John Fitzgerald, who murders Glass’ young son and argues that the group must mercy-kill Glass and keep moving on with the expedition.
For their riveting performances, both DiCaprio and Hardy received praise and appreciation by critics and audiences alike, with both actors earning Academy Award nominations (DiCaprio finally nabbing his first Oscar win). On appearing in the epic picture, Hardy revealed he had less than two weeks to prepare, saying, “I had time to grow a beard, get on a plane and get out there, and listen to Alejandro on what he wanted […] I didn’t feel like I needed to immerse myself in some sort of methodological approach. I led by instincts.”
2 The Dark Knight Rises
Working again with Nolan for the conclusion of his brilliant The Dark Knight trilogy, Tom Hardy took on the part of supervillain Bane in the critically and commercially popular 2012 film. The final installment follows the revolutionary Bane as he forces Bruce Wayne to once again resume his role as Batman and protect Gotham City from nuclear destruction. To portray the physically imposing character, Hardy gained 30 pounds of muscle mass and wanted to create a contradiction between his voice and body.
For Bane’s distinct voice that is muffled by his mask, the actor revealed he was inspired by a renowned classic Hollywood star, explaining: “Bane is somebody who’s in tremendous pain all the time. So he had an older voice. Which is sort of Richard Burton, I suppose, you know. Slightly florid, camp English villain […] in many ways, but just off-center.” The Dark Knight Rises is widely considered to be one of the greatest superhero films of all time and was crowned by Forbes as the best modern comic book superhero adaptation on screen.
1 Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller’s 2015 Australian post-apocalyptic action flick Mad Max: Fury Road features Tom Hardy as the titular character, taking over the role that was previously portrayed by Mel Gibson. It serves as the fourth installment and “revisiting” of the Mad Max franchise, and Miller revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that he felt compelled to cast Hardy as Max, saying, “When he walked into the room, I felt that same vibe I’d felt three decades before, when Mel first walked into the room, that same charisma.”
The actor starred alongside Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult in the epic action picture, with the director describing the theme of Mad Max: Fury Road being survival, with his reason being that survival is “why the American Western was such a staple for the better part of a century in American cinema.” Fury Road was praised for its action sequences, stunning apocalyptic visuals, Miller’s direction, and Hardy and Theron’s commanding performances, with the Seattle Times proclaiming, “Fury’s pace is delirious, the stunts are incredible–such crashes, such explosions, such a lot of flying bodies–Hardy’s performance is a marvel of subdued conviction and Theron brings an impressive gravity to her work as Furiosa.”