20 Best Kevin Costner Movies, Ranked

Kevin Costner is something of an American treasure and one of the most popular Hollywood actors of the past few decades of cinema. Since rising to prominence in the 1980s, he’s steadily worked as an actor — and occasional director — starring in multiple high-profile movies and also finding great success in the world of television. Recently, he’s received acclaim for playing John Dutton III on the ever-popularYellowstone, which, after a public falling out with creator Taylor Sheridan, he’s hoping to return to for its next season.

That being said, Costner’s has been a career with its fair share of bumps and not-so-great movies along the way, as there’s even a section on his Wikipedia page dedicated to “Career fluctuations.” Still, Costner’s always found a way to bounce back and continually stay relevant and popular as an actor, with his directorial career set to continue in June 2024 with Horizon: An American Saga. As such, there are plenty of notable Kevin Costner movies worth highlighting, with some of his very best being ranked below.

20 ‘Man of Steel’ (2013)

Directed by Zack Snyder

In the pantheon of Zack Snyder movies, Man of Steel might not be the very best, but neither could it be called the worst. It’s a film that attempted to update Superman for the 21st century, to some success. It’s impressively grounded for a movie about a famously powerful superhero, but parts of it can feel a little shallow and perhaps even comically dour; it does as many things right as it arguably also does wrong.

One of its high points is Kevin Costner, though, who appears briefly throughout the film’s early scenes as Jonathan Kent, a father figure for a young Clark Kent during his pre-Superman years. He brings some genuine heart and emotion to Man of Steel, even with just a few scenes, even if the way he exits the film has turned into something of a meme in the years since its release.

19 ‘For Love of the Game’ (1999)

Directed by Sam Raimi

Though Sam Raimi is best known for being behind the first three (and the best three) Evil Dead movies, his directorial career is an overall eclectic one. He branched out from horror by making three Spider-Man movies as well as underrated films like A Simple Plan and The Quick and the Dead, though his sports drama, For Love of the Game, tends to get overlooked.

Perhaps that’s understandable, to some extent, because it’s overall not fantastic. For Love of the Game follows a baseball player, played by Kevin Costner, as he nears the end of his career and finds himself wanting to go out on a high and in a manner that proves his worth as a sportsman. It’s fairly aggressive in its use of clichés and sports movie tropes, but those things might also make it endearing for viewers who want to see a sports movie that’s unafraid to get sentimental and broad.

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18 ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992)

Directed by Mick Jackson

The Bodyguard is a movie that might be most well-known nowadays for its soundtrack, which was the best-selling soundtrack of all time, and the best-selling album of the 1990s. This was because the soundtrack contained numerous songs by famed singer Whitney Houston, who also starred in the movie alongside Kevin Costner. The former played a pop idol, and the latter played a former Secret Service agent tasked with protecting her.

It’s one of those movies that was a product of its time and isn’t as popular nowadays, but it was huge in the early 1990s, and one of the highest-grossing movies of 1992. As such, The Bodyguard remains a notable part of the careers of both its stars. The movie itself is far fromthe highest quality Costner ever starred in (but again, when judged by its gross, it was a significant one).

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17 ‘Mr. Brooks’ (2007)

Directed by Bruce A. Evans

Though it’s not an all-time great thriller by any means, Mr. Brooks does represent something a little out of the ordinary within the filmography of Kevin Costner. It’s a movie where he plays a businessman who also leads a double life as a serial killer… perhaps a little like Dexter, which was on the air at the same time Mr. Brooks came out, and sort of scratches a similar itch.

As a psychological thriller about a serial killer, it’s overall serviceable stuff, even though it doesn’t rewrite anything genre-wise and isn’t super exciting for those who’ve seen anything comparable before. All that being said, the fact that Mr. Brooks allows Costner to play one of the most twisted and villainous characters of his career gives it some value.

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16 ‘Wyatt Earp’ (1994)

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

The first thing that jumps out about Wyatt Earp is its gargantuan runtime. It is easily one of the longest Western movies of all time, and stands out even among the other long movies Kevin Costner’s starred in. It runs for a total of 191 minutes while providing an epic look at the life and times of its titular character, particularly regarding his time in Tombstone and the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

It was released just one year after Tombstone, which unsurprisingly had a similar story and was an overall better movie (not to mention a little more direct, with its runtime being an hour less than Wyatt Earp‘s.) Still, Wyatt Earp has some admirable qualities and can be appreciated for its ambition, as well as the fact that it has a solid Kevin Costner performance at its center.

15 ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ (1991)

Directed by Kevin Reynolds

For all its flaws, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves has its memorable moments and, overall, it isn’t nearly as bad or boring as Ridley Scott’s largely forgotten live-action Robin Hood movie. Costner, at the arguable height of his popularity as an actor, plays the titular hero and is relatively solid overall as a man out for vengeance and justice, willing to bring together a small gang of fellow social outcasts for assistance.

It’s a movie that largely shines because Alan Rickman gets to play the villain, and Rickman was always excellent as an antagonist (arguably for his voice alone). There are also solid action scenes, a surprise Sean Connery cameo, and — for better or worse — a very memorable song that might be even more well-known than the movie: “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams​​​​.

14 ‘Amazing Stories’ – “The Mission” (1985)

Created by Steven Spielberg

Amazing Stories is essentially an anthology movie made up of three episodes from the TV series of the same name. The series itself was essentially made up of one-off episodes that sometimes featured well-known stars and notable directors, with episodes all covering a variety of tones and genres throughout, leading to an unpredictable show that ended up running for two seasons.

It was a project by Steven Spielberg, who also directed “The Mission,” one of the three episodes compiled in this movie version of Amazing Stories (another, “Go to the Head of the Class,” was directed by Robert Zemeckis). Costner stars in “The Mission” alongside Kiefer Sutherland, with the premise centering on a cartoonist having to use his cunning and imagination to get out of a tense situation during World War II. It’s a comparatively minor film within Costner’s broader body of work, but still feels worth mentioning as one of the best segments in Amazing Stories, and also one worthy of being included in this re-edited film version.

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13 ‘McFarland, USA’ (2015)

Directed by Niki Caro

Though it plays into sports movie clichés wholeheartedly and unabashedly, McFarland, USA still does so in a way that kind of works. Despite its relatively recent release, it does feel like an old-fashioned Disney family/sports/drama movie, and centers on — you guessed it — one coach changing everything for a team of athletes in a small town, inspiring them to greatness throughout the movie.

Kevin Costner is right at home playing the coach here and brings a fitting amount of warmth and charisma to a movie that’s warm and formulaic in equal measure (warm-ulaic?). McFarland, USA gets the job done and is certainly heartfelt, and those who need something that’ll hit the spot and feel comforting and easy-going might well find a good deal to like here.

12 ‘Fandango’ (1985)

Directed by Kevin Reynolds

It’s well-known that one of Kevin Costner’s earliest roles was in 1983’s The Big Chill (though his scenes were largely cut), though Fandango, in contrast, was a key early starring role for the actor. It’s fitting that such an early movie (released when Costner himself was only 30) tells a coming-of-age story about a group of college students in 1971 who want to go on a road trip together before going their separate ways.

It’s easy to compare Fandango to something like American Graffiti, the acclaimed pre-Star WarsGeorge Lucas movie that was released in 1973 and set just over a decade earlier. Fandango sets its action a bit over a decade before its release, proving somewhat nostalgic but not too drastic in how far back into the past it looks. It balances comedy and drama well and functions as an early showcase for Costner’s potential as an actor.

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11 ‘No Way Out’ (1987)

Directed by Roger Donaldson

Anyone appearing in a movie with Gene Hackman is likely to get overshadowed by him to some extent; Hackman’s just that good on-screen. As such, it’s hard to blame Kevin Costner for No Way Out feeling a bit like a Gene Hackman movie instead of a Kevin Costner movie, even if Costner is supposed to be the main character, with Hackman playing the lead antagonist.

No Way Out is a briskly paced and engaging thriller, and has a story that follows two men within the U.S. military who are both romantically involved with the same woman, with this leading to various complications. It’s a very full-on and sometimes excessive thriller, feeling very ’80s for its genre in that way. But ultimately, when approached on its own terms, No Way Out works and provides more than enough entertainment value to mostly hold up well.

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10 ‘Silverado’ (1985)

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

As shown in Yellowstone and at least one other 21st-century Western, Kevin Costner is someone who fits right in with the Western genre. The first time this became apparent was in 1985’s Silverado, which features a young Costner in a supporting role. He’s one part of an impressive cast that also includes the likes of Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, Rosanna Arquette, and Jeff Goldblum.

Silverado is notable for coming out in a decade when Westerns felt relatively scarce, and it has an action-packed narrative that follows several people forming a band of heroes and dispensing justice in and around the titular town. After a decade of mostly subversive and deconstructive Westerns in the 1970s, Silverado feels like a fun and good-hearted throwback to Westerns of old, making it an all-around entertaining watch.

9 ‘Molly’s Game’ (2017)

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Standing as the feature film directorial debut ofAaron Sorkin — best known for creating acclaimed TV shows like The West Wing — Molly’s Game is a crime/drama film based on a true story. That story involves Molly Bloom, who went from being a professional skier to running a sizable underground poker empire, with this latter activity making her a target of a large-scale FBI investigation.

You do get a sense that Sorkin is a better writer than a director with Molly’s Game because it doesn’t quite pop visually or feel perhaps as snappy as it should editing-wise. Yet the screenplay is strong, the story is interesting, and the performances are good across the board, including Jessica Chastain in the lead role and Kevin Costner in a supporting one, playing Molly Bloom’s father, Larry.

8 ‘Open Range’ (2003)

Directed by Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner really is much more prolific as an actor than a director, because Open Range was only his third movie, and will remain his most recent until the release of the aforementioned 2024 film, Horizon: An American Saga. More on what his best directorial effort is in a bit, but it’s easy to call Open Range his second-best directed movie so far, with it being a sweeping and technically impressive movie about a crew of cattle herders standing up to a corrupt lawman.

Costner plays Open Range’s protagonist but is perhaps outshone by supporting cast members like Robert Duvall and Michael Gambon, the latter of whom always knew how to play a villain well. It’s not a revolutionary Western or out-of-this-world when it comes to telling an unpredictable storyline or delivering things people have never seen before, but it’s well-made from start to finish and should prove very enjoyable for fans of the genre.

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7 ‘Hidden Figures’ (2016)

Directed by Theodore Melfi

Functioning as both a historical drama and a moving biopic, Hidden Figurestells a fascinating true story about certain scientific accomplishments during the Space Race that went largely untold for many years. The central characters are three African-American women who worked at NASA during the early 1960s, and the ways they helped make sending an American astronaut into space a reality.

Given the time in which the movie is set, Hidden Figures also deals with the racism and sexism the three women experienced while working at an organization that’s often thought of as being dominated by white men, especially at the time. Kevin Costner has a supporting role as Al Harrison, the Space Task Group’s director who, interestingly, is a composite character, not a specific person. This is perhaps done so the narrative could better focus on the three women at the story’s center: Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).

6 ‘Field of Dreams’ (1989)

Directed by Phil Alden Robinson

Sports movies don’t tend to be more iconic or beloved than Field of Dreams, an essential Kevin Costner film that allowed the actor to conclude the 1980s with a bang. Costner plays a father who’s told, via a mysterious voice, to form a baseball diamond in his cornfield, at which point he continues to experience something speaking to him, and from there, the fantastical elements only get more pronounced.

It’s a unique and potentially strange-sounding premise for a movie, but the execution in Field of Dreams ensures it all really works. It’s an overall heartwarming and endearing movie, featuring one of the best lead performances Costner’s ever given… and at one point, it was almost turned into a TV show, too.

5 ‘A Perfect World’ (1993)

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Like Field of Dreams, A Perfect World has the kind of premise that could have gone very wrong if it was placed in the wrong hands. Thankfully, it was placed in the hands of Clint Eastwood, who was on a roll in 1993, given that Unforgiven had come out and blown minds the year before. Eastwood co-stars in this film and directs it very well, with its narrative centering on the unlikely bond that forms between an escaped convict and a young boy he (initially) kidnaps.

Costner plays the convict, Eastwood’s a U.S. Marshal on his tail, and other solid supporting performances are given by the likes of Laura Dern and Bradley Whitford, among others. A Perfect World is a movie that’s overall patiently paced and generally engaging, and largely shines because of its performances and the overall sensitive approach to the story at hand.

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4 ‘Bull Durham’ (1988)

Directed by Ron Shelton

As has probably been demonstrated by now, Kevin Costner tends to shine in movies that may feature some romance elements, without themselves being full-blooded romantic movies. Bull Durham therefore stands out, and isn’t just the best romance movie (specifically, a rom-com) Costner ever appeared in, but also one of his best and most popular movies overall.

Bull Durham is also a sports movie, for good measure, centering on Costner’s character, Crash Davis, taking on the job of coaching a minor league baseball team and getting wrapped up in a love triangle in the process. It features what some would argue is Costner’s best-ever performance, and is a breezy, enjoyable ’80s romantic comedy that still holds up today.

3 ‘JFK’ (1991)

Directed by Oliver Stone

Watching JFK is an overwhelming experience in the best way possible. First and foremost, it’s exhausting trying to keep up with how many iconic actors keep showing up, from Donald Sutherland to Tommy Lee Jones to Gary Oldman to Sissy Spacek to Joe Pesci to Kevin Bacon… and, of course, Kevin Costner, in the lead role as New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison.

JFK’s also exhausting because Oliver Stone dials his unique style up to 11, throwing viewers into a paranoia-inducing narrative about Garrison’s attempts to uncover a potential conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To have an overwhelming experience like this play out over the course of 3+ hours is certainly a lot, but the results are undeniably mesmerizing, with Costner doing a great job at helping to ground and provide focus for such an ambitious and large-scale film.

2 ‘Dances with Wolves’ (1990)

13 years before Open Range, and seven years before the infamous The Postman, Kevin Costner directed his first and perhaps most successful feature film to date, Dances with Wolves. Few directorial debuts have felt quite as huge and sweeping as Dances with Wolves because this one runs for about three hours and tells a grand story about a Civil War soldier unexpectedly bonding with a Sioux tribe during 1863.

Costner found remarkable success as a director here (it’s also worth noting he starred, of course), because of the seven Academy Awards Dances with Wolves won, one was Best Picture, and the other was Best Director. The success of this film can’t really be understated, with it being one of the most popular Westerns of all time and perhaps the most famous American historical epic not released during Hollywood’s Golden Age.

1 ‘The Untouchables’ (1987)

Directed by Brian De Palma

So, what could possibly top a film like Dances with Wolves? Arguably, The Untouchables. Kevin Costner’s leading man potential had been hinted at before 1987, but The Untouchables might well have been the film that solidified his ability to carry a movie in a leading role. It’s a thrilling and exciting crime movie set during the Prohibition era, with Costner’s character, AgentEliot Ness, forming a crime-fighting team to combat Al Capone and his criminal empire.

The Untouchables is not a nuanced movie by any means, but it’s a constantly rousing and hard-to-resist one, especially when it also includes great supporting performances from the likes of Robert De Niro (as Capone himself) and Sean Connery (whose performance won him an Oscar). It’s up there with the best crime movies of all time, and for holding up as well as it does — with much praise deserving to be directed at director Brian De Palma, too — it stands to date as perhaps the best and most iconic Kevin Costner movie.

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NEXT: The Best Robert De Niro Movies of All Time, Ranked