Ben Foster has been quietly plugging away in the acting world, starring in some of the most underrated movies of the past 15 years or so. At the young age of 16, Foster took the lead role of Tucker James in the Disney Channel original series Flash Forward, and was nominated for a Gemini Award as a result. He found small roles in some films and television before really breaking out with a 22-episode stint in one of the best American TV shows of the century so far, Six Feet Under.
Hollywood recognized his talent on that original HBO show, and soon Foster found himself bringing stand-out intensity and power to a series of high profile projects beginning with X-Men: The Last Stand. Soon, he was headlining films alongside the likes of Woody Harrelson, Russel Crowe, Christian Bale, Sigourney Weaver, and a whole bevy of Hollywood's elite.
Though he always stands out for his raw emotion, he tends to be a part of large ensemble casts where he elevates the performances of his surrounding actors with his presence. However, he's found himself drawn to the forefront of several large projects recently, including as a boxer fighting for his life during the Holocaust in The Survivor, Chris Pine's best friend in the action thriller The Contractor, and the Antoine Fuqua movie Emancipation with Will Smith. These are the best Ben Foster movies.
9 Galveston
Written by Nic Pizzolatto, the bleak Thomas Ligotti-inspired mastermind behind True Detective, this film doesn't give Ben Foster as juicy a role as Matthew McConnaughey's in that show, but it is a great one nonetheless. Foster plays dying hitman Roy Cady in Galveston, and even though he has terminal lung cancer, his boss double-crosses him and sends assassins after him. Finding one last reason to live before death, Roy goes to his hometown of Galveston, Texas with a hostage (Elle Fanning) he saves in order to plot his revenge. It's a suitably dark movie from Pizzolatto, and the actress Melanie Laurent gives some good direction in her English-language debut film. Foster taps into mealncholy as well as he always does.
8 Rampart
Reuniting with Woody Harrelson and writer/director Oren Moverman (from The Messenger), Rampart finds Foster in excellent form as part of a Los Angeles ensemble. Set during the aftermath of the 'Rampart' police corruption scandals in the LAPD, Foster plays a person in a wheelchair who is homeless nicknamed 'General,' who witnesses some police brutality and is pushed to not testify against some violent and morally compromised cops. Moverman creates a dark vision of L.A. that's almost dystopian, and Foster is incredible.
7 Kill Your Darlings
Foster plays the legendary and infamous Beat writer William Burroughs in Kill Your Darlings, John Krokidas' film that's a blast for anyone who's familiar with or interested in the beginnings of the Beat generation at the end of the 1940s. Following Allen Ginsberg (played by Daniel Radcliffe in a weird but mesmerizing performance) as he encounters Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and others while studying at Columbia University, the movie is centered around a stabbing which took place and changed their lives. Foster is delightful as the experimental, subtance-using Burroughs, capturing his strange menace, intensity, and absurdity.
6 Ain't Them Bodies Saints
David Lowery's breakthrough film Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a nice indication of what the writer/director's career would be filled with: beautiful, haunting films with emotionally raw performances and a great deal of ambiguity and mystery. Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara are perfectly paired here (as they would be in Lowery's later masterpiece, A Ghost Story) as a criminal couple, and Foster is quietly excellent as the policeman who disrupts their lives in this stunningly original, brilliant movie.
5 3:10 to Yuma
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
James Mangold knows how to direct stirring crowd-pleasers (such as Walk the Line and Logan), and his remake of 3:10 to Yuma is no different. One of the first films to piggyback off the best Western movies of all time and kickstart a new craze in Western cinema, the film finds the outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) being escorted by Dan Evans (Christian Bale) to his transportation as a prisoner, with an excellent supporting cast in between their conflict. Foster is absolutely amazing in a bit of a smaller part as Wade's right-hand man, a ruthlessly violent and cruel criminal brought to life by Foster's powerful rage.
4 The Program
Foster does an excellent job in a largely quieter role, embodying Lance Armstrong in this basic movie biopic from the great Stephen Frears. The Program follows Armstrong as he participates in and helps secretly orchestrate the performance-enhancing drug scandal that rocked the world of cycling and sports in general. Jesse Plemons, Dustin Hoffman, and Chris O'Dowd are all wonderful here, but it's Foster who carries the film. The movie itself doesn't transcend its 'ripped from the headlines' source material in the news, but the performances and Foster in particular creates something riveting and magnetic. As critic Matt Zoller Seitz has said, Fost is "one of those actors who makes even a bad film worth seeing. Sometimes he suggests the film you'd rather be watching."
3 Hell or High Water
CBS Films
Ben Foster teamed up with Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges for this modern Western masterpiece written by Yellowstone Western-mastermind Taylor Sheridan. Hell or High Water follows the Howard brothers (Pine and Foster), bank robbers who are pursued by Texas Rangers (including Bridges) in West Texas. The film itself was a surprising success, making three times its budget at the box office, earning four Academy Award nominations, and garnering Foster an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, along with a slew of other awards for his memorable performance.
2 The Messenger
The Messenger, one of the best debuts from a first-time filmmaker, uses Oren Moverman's Oscar-nominated script to explore the psychological complexities of two military men who are tasked with informing various soldiers' next of kin that their loved ones have died in combat. Foster plays a younger staff sergeant, enduring his own emotional turmoil and relationship problems, who has to accompany Woody Harrelson's older and wiser (but much more melancholic) soldier on this emotionally devastating mission. It's a quiet, powerful film which says as much about war as any other movie, without ever going to the battlefield.
1 Leave No Trace
It's weird to say that a film is underrated when it holds the title of being the most reviewed film to hold an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and yet Leave No Trace seems to fit the bill. Landing on the top ten lists of dozens of critics for 2018, the film follows Foster in his most powerful, painful performance yet as a military veteran with PTSD who tries to raise his daughter (a great Thomasin Mackenzie) in the forest to the dismay of many. The less said about this masterpiece, the better; it not only remains the best Ben Foster movie, but one of the best films of the past decade.