He might appear in a lot of movies, but it could still be argued that John C. Reilly is one of the most underrated actors working today. It’s tough to pin him down to a certain genre, because he’s been in all kinds of movies, but he’s never felt out of place, which is a testament to this guy’s talent and range. There are few actors, if any, who could hold their own in both a wacky Will Ferrell comedy and a sobering Paul Thomas Anderson drama.

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So, out of an impressive filmography, here are John C. Reilly’s 10 best characters, ranked.

10 Reed Rothchild in Boogie Nights

Paul Thomas Anderson and John C. Reilly are one of the most underrated actor/director pairings in the film industry. Anderson always gives Reilly roles in his films that challenge him as an actor, and he always turns out something we’ve never seen before. In Anderson’s Boogie Nights, an epic drama with a huge ensemble cast set in the adult film industry that is arguably the director’s definitive work, Reilly plays a porn star named Reed Rothchild. Reed helps Mark Wahlberg’s lead character to advance his career as they star alongside each other in a successful series of action-packed porno movies.

9 Michael in Carnage

The setup of Carnage is deceptively simple. There was a violent altercation between two boys on a playground and the boys’ parents – played by Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, and Christoph Waltz – all get together to discuss it. Due to this simplistic, dialogue-driven narrative confined to one location, the success of the movie was resting solely on the actors. As expected, all of the A-listers in that line-up did a terrific job of playing their roles from the perspective they were coming from and the tension in the room escalated slowly and subtly throughout the movie, all thanks to the performances.

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8 Cal Naughton, Jr. In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

“Shake and bake!” Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s follow-up to Anchorman suitably raised the stakes and the scale of the production without sacrificing any of the funny. In fact, it’s entirely possible that their sophomore outing is even funnier than their debut. John C. Reilly’s scene-stealing character is Cal Naughton, Jr., Ricky Bobby’s best friend who steals his wife, kids, house, and career. Whether he’s trying to convince Ricky his disability is all in his head or asking the guy whose family he stole how to operate his hot tub, Reilly plays every scene hysterically straight, as sincere as he would play a dramatic scene, which only makes the movie funnier.

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7 Wreck-It Ralph In Wreck-It Ralph

Last year’s Wreck-It Ralph sequel expanded on the franchise so much that it became a giant mesh of postmodernism, but the original had a lot of humanity, which was mostly down to John C. Reilly’s vocal performance in the lead role.

The premise of the movie is that a villain from an arcade game decides he doesn’t want to be a villain anymore, so if the voice actor didn’t bring any gravitas to the character, it would’ve flopped. Fortunately for the Wreck-It Ralph production team, they managed to get Reilly for the part and the movie was a tremendous success.

6 Dewey Cox In Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a hysterical parody of music biopics like Walk the Line, which place an emphasis on their subjects’ struggles with addiction and ultimately deify them. It was a fantastic comedy that the critics adored, but its unusual style made it a tough sell for audiences and it ended up bombing at the box office. John C. Reilly does a terrific job of playing an absurd spoof of country rock stars like Johnny Cash. He plays scenes like the one where he loses his sense of smell hilariously straight, selling the unique comic tone of the film.

5 Franklin In We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lynne Ramsay might be the finest director working today, but she also makes some terribly dark films. Her 2011 feature We Need to Talk About Kevin, for example, is a tough one to get through. John C. Reilly’s character isn’t the lead, as the focus is more on the relationship between disturbed child Ezra Miller and driven-to-breaking-point mother Tilda Swinton. But Reilly does an admirable job as the calm voice of reason caught in the middle of these two contentious characters. He meets a shocking end towards the movie’s climax, and his lame-dad persona up to that point helps to sell the tragedy.

4 Noah Dietrich In The Aviator

Moviegoers left The Aviator with little more on their minds than the impeccable lead performance they just witnessed from Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of troubled magnate Howard Hughes. But what was lost on a lot of them, and has only come back into the public conscious in the years since, thanks to various rewatches, is that DiCaprio is surrounded by an astounding supporting cast who all play their roles to advance the life story of Hughes. John C. Reilly had a very significant role in the film as Noah Dietrich, the CEO of Hughes’ empire, and he nailed every scene opposite DiCaprio.

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3 Oliver Hardy In Stan & Ollie

Last year’s critically acclaimed biopic Stan & Ollie told the story of the iconic comedy duo Laurel and Hardy’s final tour together. They left the bureaucracy of Hollywood behind and toured the UK, discovering just how much their fans still cared about them.

This fun, heartfelt dramedy is anchored by an incredible pair of lead performances by Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly. They humanize Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, giving us a peek behind the curtain at the men behind the classic gags, and develop brilliant on-screen chemistry with one another to deliver a movie that’s full of heart.

2 Jim Kurring In Magnolia

Paul Thomas Anderson and John C. Reilly created the character of Jim Kurring long before the former put pen to paper on his script for Magnolia. Years earlier, Reilly had grown out a mustache and donned a police uniform to act out some improvised parodies of COPS, with Anderson following him around with a video camera. So, Reilly fit pretty seamlessly into the role in the large ensemble of the finished film. In a three-hour movie with such stars as Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, it can be tough to make a lasting impact on the audience, but Reilly manages it.

1 Dale Doback In Step Brothers

John C. Reilly has appeared in a lot of dramas, and has even been nominated for an Oscar for one of his dramatic roles, but his greatest role is arguably in a comedy: Adam McKay’s Step Brothers. Reilly delivers every one of his lines as Dale Doback with comic perfection, while his long-established on-screen chemistry with Will Ferrell is at its peak here. Step Brothers is a heck of a weird movie, with characters who are so over-the-top ridiculous that without the right actors in the parts, the whole thing would crumble. Reilly and Ferrell hold up the tone of the film with their acting alone.

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Ben Sherlock
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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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