You wouldn't be wrong in not realizing that actor John Christopher Reilly has been making movies since the late '80s. As a self-confessed "Shrek," Reilly calls himself a frumpy and out-of-shape actor, and one who blends into scenes and is more than content to be part of a fantastic cast, propping them up through his workmanlike everyday qualities. Take this list, no less, and there is only one movie where he is the out-and-out main star of the picture; ironically, even when he was the sole leading man (in the wonderfully weird Check it Out! With Dr. Steve Brule), he denied ever playing the part.
As both a talented dramatic and comic actor, and with the ability to sing too, John C. Reilly has been crafting functional and hard-working roles in solid to classic films forever, morphing into their universes easily and making up their infrastructures. His lightning in a bottle team up with Will Ferrell would introduce the talented performer to a brand-new audience that would delight in his brash and obnoxious approach to humor, and his inclusions in bona fide important movies like Boogie Nights and We Need to Talk About Kevin guarantees that his name will be included in film for many years to come. He is making the most out of taking center stage in the new HBO series Winning Time, but let's look at his long career prior to see the best John C. Reilly movies.
9 Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (2006)
As the first of the three major Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly collaborations, Talladega Nights really highlighted the chemistry on screen between the two actors. Both of them shine as lughead Nascar drivers in this very stupid but funny, wholeheartedly American comedy. Atand out scene remains Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby, certain that he is paralyzed from the waist down, stabbing a knife in his leg to prove it... so Reilly and co-star Michael Clarke Duncan attempt to cut the blade out of his leg using another knife.
8 The Promotion (2008)
As one of the lesser known pictures on this list, we would only recommend checking it out. The Promotion is a wonderful example of low stakes problems being whole universes for little characters, as two assistant managers vie for the big promotion of a brand-new store. Reilly and co-star Seann William Scott get really snide and backhanded here in this American workplace comedy that parodies mundane retail jobs and critiques the capitalism that makes them exist in the first place. Think Clerks meets Election, and you've kind of got it. Best of all, this post-Amercian Pie and pre-Goon film would showcase Sean William Scott as the talented comedic actor that he really is.
7 Cyrus (2010)
Goofy big budget US comedy ideals and actors meet indie darling here in Cyrus. One of the major and more popular examples of the mumblecore trend of the late '00s, Cyrus is directed by the subgenre's most notable stalwarts, brothers Jay and Mark Duplass. The film is a fun if inconsequential movie about a middle-aged couple trying to make it work, and their grown-up live-in son who gets in the way, played brilliantly by Jonah Hill. If you can't gel with the breezy back and forth dialogue then this just isn't for you, but sit with it and there is a really neat, authentic-feeling rom-com here. Craving more? Double-bill this with the fellow Duplass' excellent 2008 movie, Baghead.
6 Step Brothers (2008)
The second in director Adam McKay's features with Reilly (a brief appearance in Anchorman 2 would follow) is a bizarre modern day comedy classic. Step Brothers is a strange anomaly of a movie that doesn't seem to follow any sort of structure or recognized story practices, but really just works as what a dumb comedy should be. As two infantile man children forced to live with one another, Will Ferrell and Reilly's chemistry is excellent, and would make audiences everywhere believe that they could be related. Included in producer Judd Apatow's complete domination of Hollywood at the time, Step Brothers would legitimize "boats n hoes" and DIY bunk beds for years to come.
5 Boogie Nights (1997)
As one of the greatest movies of the 1990s, there's not much more that we can say about Boogie Nights that hasn't already been said. With its adventurous camera work, risqué subject matter, and extremely talented collaborative cast, John C. Reilly slots in here as a more than functional piece in a very impressive puzzle. Reilly earns his paycheck here first as a warped mirror image of Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler, all parts needy and cloying, a jealous, stumpy pug-like reflection on meeting their new star, before quickly becoming best of friends in a dingy and coke-fueled lifestyle. Boogie Nights is fantastic and made so by its character work, with slick filmmaking qualities all across the board.
4 We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
With a tour-de-force performance from a beaten and ethereal as ever Tilda Swinton (and based on an intensely hatred-filled book by Lionel Shriver) the titular "...Kevin" is the troubled youth of the movie. Spawned before the boom in "Elevated Horror," it's a film that isn't a horror movie per-se, but feels so spine-chilling and cold that it might as well be. Making Tilda Swinton's character feel all the more helpless in the face of her disobedient and uproarious child, is her hands-off and too calm for his own good husband, played here by John C. Reilly. In a time of school shootings and gaslighting more prominent (and as a result more covered in the media than ever), We Need to Talk About Kevin is a chillingly necessary watch.
3 Kong: Skull Island (2017)
In an entirely riotous movie that is so much fun from start to finish, Reilly plays a stranded WW2 pilot, lost for so long and removed from civilization that he now acts as the only knowledgeable person on a nonsensical island. In Kong: Skull Island's really great cast, Reilly stands out as wonderfully unhinged and right at home with a giant destructive monkey. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts is currently working on a film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid with Oscar Isaac, which (if Kong is anything to go to by) is very exciting.
2 Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Another example of Judd Apatow's industry sway at the time, Walk Hard is a feature-long experiment that somehow gloriously exists. As the only example of John C. Reilly as leading man here, the actor really gives his all in a very silly and impressive spoof that brings to mind the Naked Gun films which had come before it. Lampooning the musical biopic and their forever predictable structures, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story pitches Reilly as a fictional country singer for the ages, with two albums worth of original music that both appreciates and mocks the genres through the decades. In an oral history for The Ringer, writer and producer, Judd Apatow said of the star:
I had just worked with him on Talladega Nights. So he was someone I was astounded by on a daily basis. I knew he was a fantastic singer, so we never considered anybody else.
1 Carnage (2011)
Set in one location, two couples sit down to attempt to resolve their children's ongoing feud at school, quickly realizing that their own adult bickering is no different. Carnage is superb. It's no wonder that it was based on a play (Le Dieu du Carnage, or The God of Carnage, by Yasmina Reza), considering its single location and start-to-finish dialogue. With a cast (Christoph Waltz! Jodie Foster! Kate Winslet!) and a script as brilliant as it is, this was always going to be biting, snarky, necessary, and very special. John C. Reilly combines his best comedic timing with his dramatic chops perfectly here.