10 Best Peter Berg Movies, Ranked According To IMDb

With 49 producer credits, 51 acting credits, 8 writing credits, and 31 director credits for TV and film, Peter Berg has done it all. Amongst all that, his oeuvre as a director (and numerous collaborations with Mark Wahlberg) is of particular note.

Peter Berg gets more and more ambitious projects under his belt with each subsequent movie. With such a diverse repertoire of theatrically-released films, IMDb’s ratings can prove quite informative.

10 Battleship – 5.8

An unsurprising first entry, Battleship was sunk before it even hit theatres in 2012. Coming off the success of Transformers (which was on its third installment by this point), it makes sense that Universal would try to emulate Paramount’s success.

It’s a confusing movie, featuring Taylor Kitsch in one of his two major 2012 bombs (with the other being Disney’s John Carter). With a budget of $250 million and Marvel’s The Avengers as a competitor, it didn’t take long for Battleship to lose money.

When alien spacecraft arrive and destroy his brother’s ship, immature Navy officer Alex Hopper has to gain the responsibility to take hold of his own life and defeat the aliens.

9 Mile 22 – 6.1

Berg’s 2018 thriller Mile 22 is one of his most poorly constructed film. This thing is unpleasant, with unlikeable characters (save for Lauren Cohan’s), and an obsession with violence.

Despite this being Berg’s fourth collaboration with Mark Wahlberg, he does not really fit well in the movie.

When an elite CIA task force is tasked with escorting a high-priority asset 22 miles to the extraction point, plans fall apart and lives are lost. With multiple governments working against them, the team has no idea whom to trust.

8 Very Bad Things – 6.3

The first film Berg directed, Very Bad Things is an acquired taste. An extremely dark comedy that doesn’t always hit the mark on laughs, the film’s handling of the ramifications of murder will not be for everyone.

However, there’s merit here. The film is intermittently fun, Jon Favreau makes a fine co-lead, and it has one of the last perfectly cast Christian Slater roles before doing direct-to-video.

The plot follows Kyle Fisher (Favreau) as he and some friends go to Vegas for a bachelor party before he’s married off to the controlling Laura (Cameron Diaz). When one of Kyle’s friends accidentally murders a stripper, the men’s collective relationship devolves into chaos.

7 Hancock – 6.4

Hancock had a lot of potential, but it also had some big shoes to live up to in the summer of 2008. Iron Man had been the perfect crossover hit to kick off the summer. Furthermore, The Dark Knight was released only two weeks later.

Essentially, Hancock needed something to stand out and it does not live up to the hype. In fact, there’s nothing about the film that’s particularly memorable, save for the third-act twist.

Will Smith stars as perpetually inebriated superhero Hancock. Pressured by the media to clean up his act, he receives the help of public relations specialist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) as well as Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron).

6 The Rundown – 6.7

Berg’s second film was not a box office success upon its release. While it pulled in a fine $80 million, The Rundown had a staggering budget of $85 million.

But this is Indiana Jones meets The Rock and it’s Peter Berg’s most fun film. A lot of this is due to Johnson’s charm, as well as his interplay with Sean William Scott.

The plot follows Johnson as a bounty hunter traveling to Brazil to retrieve his boss’s son (Scott). Before they return home, however, they have to get out of the sights of Cornelius Hatcher (Christopher Walken) and his slave labor mining operation.

5 The Kingdom – 7.0

While critics were fairly split on the film at the time, audiences have grown fond of this detailed film since its 2007 release. Its depiction of Arabs as strictly villainous was also criticized for perpetuating racial stereotypes.

While the script itself is a little too dense, its action scenes alone make it understandable why IMDb users would rate it so highly.

The Kingdom takes place in Saudi Arabia during the terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers. An FBI investigator (Jamie Foxx) must lead his team of agents on a mission to find the men responsible for the horrid bombing.

4 Deepwater Horizon – 7.1

An unfortunate flop upon its release, this was the second collaboration between Berg and Wahlberg (and one of two released in 2016 alone). Rivaling Patriots Day for best cast, the supporting actors include Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, and Gina Rodriguez.

Furthermore, the film is downright gorgeous, as if it were tailor-made for 4K. This makes sense, considering the budget stood at a whopping $156 million (far more than the typical realism-oriented disaster film).

A meticulous retelling of the disastrous 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the film follows Mike Williams (Wahlberg) and Jimmy Harrell (Russell), two employees above the rig who attempt to mitigate the effects of the explosion.

3 Friday Night Lights – 7.2

Friday Night Lights is certainly one of Berg’s most beloved films. It’s also the only one of his films to spawn a franchise. Working as a high school drama, a football movie, and a domestic drama, the film hits its mark most of the way through.

Audiences wanted more, and they got it in the form of an equally well-received NBC series starring the always-terrific Kyle Chandler.

Based on the eponymous book, Friday Night Lights tells the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers as they give all they can to obtain the state championship.

2 Patriots Day – 7.4

The third collaboration between Berg and Wahlberg, Patriots Day is also their third retelling of historical events. There’s a lot of love in Patriots Day. Between characters supporting one another (contrasting the beautiful capabilities of humanity with the horrible) to an empathetic look at Boston’s residents and their grieving over the tragedy.

Patriots Day underperformed at the box office. However, as the score indicates, Patriots Day has quickly gained its audience through home media platforms such as Netflix.

Focusing on the people of Boston as much as Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Wahlberg), Patriots Day recaptures the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings as well as the nail-biting manhunt that followed immediately after.

1 Lone Survivor – 7.5

Widely released in January of 2014), Lone Survivor was a big hit. While it didn’t meet the jaw-droppingly high bar set by American Sniper from the year prior, the film still quadrupled its budget.

It plays like Hollywood fare, and while it wasn’t deemed particularly accurate to real-world events, audiences found themselves moved. It was also considered technically impressive, scoring two Oscar nominations for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

Lone Survivor follows Hospital corpsman First Class Marcus Luttrell (Wahlberg) and his team of SEALs. When their four-man team is bestowed with the task of finding Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, the mission quickly unravels into a mix of courage and carnage.

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Ben Hathaway
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Ben Hathaway is a Senior Writer (Lists) for Screen Rant. A former Therapeutic Day Treatment counselor, Ben is now a career writer. When not working, he is writing and self-publishing (on Amazon) novels under the name Scott Gray. In his spare time, he’s reading on the porch or watching every film under the sun. Ben can be contacted at [email protected].

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