The 10 Best George Clooney Roles, Ranked

Bet you can't watch just one

by Lisa Kennedy, AARP, February 1, 2021

Josh Telles/August

En español | George Clooney, 60, the director/producer/star of Netflix's The Midnight Sky and AARP's 2020 Movies for Grownups Career Achievement Award winner, is an ambitious, serious-minded jokester with a knowing twinkle in his eye and looks that just seem to be improving with age. As an actor, he's gone supernova from an early, eye-catching role on a network hit show in the 1990s to some of the biggest films of the decades following.

But what have been his 10 best roles (so far)? Count them down, from Doug Ross to Michael Clayton, and let us know your number one Clooney role in the comments, below!

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PHOTO BY: NBCUniversal via Getty Images

10. ER (1994)

A guy's gotta start somewhere. Like icon Denzel Washington, Clooney gained fan traction playing a doc in the medical drama — as the easy-to-forgive serial dater pediatrician Dr. Doug Ross. Long before streaming became a thing, when network TV was rarely “must-see,” Clooney helped make this ER a destination — in a good way.

Watch it here: ER, on Hulu
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PHOTO BY: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

9. Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen (2001-2007)

Has a cast ever seemed to dig each other and their ridiculous good fortune so much as Clooney & Co. (Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Don Cheadle and more)? The stars play — “play” being the operative word — master thief Danny Ocean and his band of merry thieves and lovely ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts).

Watch them here: Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen on HBO Max, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Netflix
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PHOTO BY: Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

8. Burn After Reading (2008)

Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have tapped Clooney for four romps: O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, Hail, Caesar! and this spy spoof in which he portrays a paranoid, philandering U.S. marshal. Clooney says he and the Coens are stylistically in sync: “There's a specific pattern to the way they write and their rhythm to it. They are great writers. They are incredibly imaginative directors, and on top of everything else, they are the most fun to work with.”

Watch it here: Burn After Reading, on Peacock, Vudu
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PHOTO BY: Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

7. Gravity (2013)

It was easy to be over the moon about this astronauts-in-trouble tale starring Sandra Bullock and Clooney: the film's craft becomes jaw-dropping once their shuttle gets pummeled by satellite debris. As Lt. Matt Kowalski, Clooney embodies the kind of dude you'd trust to save your skin, crack wise and calm you while doing so. When Kowalski comes back from the dead and knocks on the glass of Bullock's capsule to snap her back to life — it's a crucial scene Clooney helped write — we take as much comfort as she does in the impossible, rending sight of him.

Watch it here: Gravity, on YouTube, Amazon Prime
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PHOTO BY: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

6. Three Kings (1999)

As Maj. Archie Gates in this Gulf War-meets-gold-bar-heist flick, Clooney plays the adult in the room (or desert). He also nabs many of the most golden lines. After a soldier admits to being scared to death, the good major explains, “The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage after you do it, not before you do it.” At the time, Clooney's riff felt like an insight for the ages. It still does.

Watch it here: Three Kings, on YouTube, Amazon Prime
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PHOTO BY: Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection

5. The Descendants (2011)

Clooney brings beautiful haplessness and heart to the character of Matt King in this indie dramedy. The father of two daughters learns, while his wife lies in a coma, that she had been having an affair. One of the great strengths of this performance is that Clooney created room in scenes for others to shine. This marked Shailene Woodley's breakout as Matt's teen daughter, Alexandra. And his late-night conversation with Alexandra's puppy of a boyfriend (Nick Krause) made for melancholy magic.

Watch it here: The Descendants, on YouTube, HBO
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PHOTO BY: DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection

4. Up in the Air (2009)

With the Great Recession unfurling, Jason Reitman's bittersweet comedy about job insecurity and corporate failings landed right on time. Clooney makes his character, so easily unlikable, anything but. Ryan Bingham is the consultant that a corporate HR department, when faint of courage, relies on for “downsizing.” He's good — very — at letting folks know they're being “let go.” Then two women come into his life and test his skills as well as reveal his decency. One is an ace he must show the ropes, the other a woman who, like Ryan, loves the untethered life of a frequent flier.

Watch it here: Up in the Air, on Vudu, YouTube, Amazon Prime
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PHOTO BY: United Archives GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

3. Out of Sight (1998)

Steven Soderbergh's deft directing helped the TV hunk break through to become a bona fide film actor. Sure, he'd been cast opposite quasar Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day a couple of years earlier. But he found his groove as a semi-smooth operator and his match in Jennifer Lopez's federal marshal Karen Sisco. An Elmore Leonard invention through and through, Jack Foley's the kind of criminal bank tellers wish a good day to as they hand over the cash.

Watch it here: Out of Sight, on Hulu, Starz, Amazon Prime
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PHOTO BY: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

2. Syriana (2005)

Clooney went burly and bearded for this multiple-storylined geopolitical thriller based on former CIA operative Robert Baer’s memoir, See No Evil. The transformation netted Clooney an Oscar for best supporting actor for his turn as CIA man Robert Barnes, pulled into a plot to assassinate a Middle Eastern prince. But Clooney paid a price for the role: A torture scene gave him a seriously agonizing real-life spinal injury.

Watch it here: Syriana, on YouTube, Amazon Prime
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PHOTO BY: Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

1. Michael Clayton (2007)

Acting is reacting, so the adage goes. In one of the best films in a mighty fine year, Clooney delivers — with a little help from his friends — an Oscar-nominated performance and two absolutely indelible scenes. One finds the title character, a corporate lawyer and “fixer,” on a city street trying to talk sense to his friend and law firm honcho Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), who’s got bipolar disease and a tormenting conscience. The other famously pits Clayton against Tilda Swinton’s savvy but trapped corporate attorney. Consider this the class action suit version of “You can’t handle the truth”: “I’m not the guy you kill," he says to her. “I’m the guy you buy.” And the scene just gets better and better, darker and darker from there.

Watch it here: Michael Clayton, on Amazon Prime