Updated 12/11/22
From being accepted at MIT to Grammy-winning teen rap star to network television star to Hollywood A-lister, Will Smith's very life seems like a movie. The Philadelphia native's film career has spanned 30 years and 37 movies (he's produced 21). It's safe to say that Smith has far exceeded any of his rap fans' wildest imaginations as well as his fellow rapper-turned actors' accomplishments in Tinsel town. With that in mind, we here at MTV Is Dead decided that it was high time that we spotlighted the best of the Fresh Prince's cinematic resume.
13. Jersey Girl
12. King Richard
Richard Williams' (portrayed by Smith) boundless tenacity drove him to lead his daughters, Venus and Serena, to the pinnacle of Womens' Tennis. Williams persevered through poverty, rejection and hostile gang members in order to create a future for his children.
11. The Pursuit of Happyness
Based on a true story, The Pursuit of Happyness explores single father Christopher Gardner's (portrayed by Smith) pursuit of the American Dream in order to provide a better life for his son. After his attempts to sell Osteo National portable bone-density scanners (into which he sunk all of the family's savings) fail, Chris can't come up with the money to pay off his parking fine, which culminates in the Parking Authority placing a boot on his car. Fed up, his wife Linda leaves him and their son Christopher and moves to New York. Then, unable to make rent, father and son are evicted. Betting on himself and his long-term plan, Chris accepts a position as an unpaid intern with financial firm Dean Witter. During the six-month program, Chris and his son must sleep in homeless shelters and struggle to get by. But Chris never gives up -- which would mean giving up on his son's future.
10. Bad Boys
Will Smith's first starring role in a feature -- 1995's Bad Boys -- was a smash hit, bringing in seven times its budget at the box office. The partnership between Smith's Detective Mike Lowery and Martin Lawrence's Detective Marcus Burnett was unheard of; buddy-cop movies featuring an African-American police officer and a white counterpart (the Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon series, Running Scared and Die Hard) were revolutionary at the time. But two Black cops at the center of a high-profile action movie was one-of-a-kind.
9. Ali
8. Independence Day
In Independence Day, the human race is united by perhaps the only thing that can unite it: aliens bent on the destruction of mankind. A marine pilot, an MIT-trained satellite tech, a Vietnam-era fighter pilot with a few screws loose and the U.S. president all band together to kick the E.T.s off the planet.
7. Bright
Bright is only second to The Battle of the Five Armies as a damn good movie involving a magic wand and has Harry Potter beat by a mile. You know how Game of Thrones takes place in a medieval world populated by humans, giants, dragons, zombies and witches? Bright is like a modern-day version of Thrones -- except all of the Black people aren't slaves. Keep your eyes peeled for the centaur and dragon too. Netflix spent $100 million putting this flick together and you can tell by looking. It was money well-spent.
6. Bad Boys II
Miami PD narcotics detective Marcus Burnett has put in for a transfer away from his trigger-happy partner, Mike Lowrey. But in the meantime, their last assignment pits them against violent Russian gangsters and a murderous Cuban drug ring. When Marcus' sister, Sydney, is kidnapped, the estranged partners' rescue op leads all the way to Guantanamo Bay.
5. I Am Legend
Proving to be a vast improvement over the story's previous adaptation's star, Charlton Heston, Smith's Dr. Robert Neville has to cope with being one of the last humans alive while he feverishly works to develop a cure for the epidemic that transformed some of the other survivors into vicious nocturnal monsters.
After Dr. Alice Krippin's cancer cure morphs into a deadly virus, 5.4 billion people are wiped out; another 588 million mutate into savage, animalistic creatures. When not in his makeshift lab, Neville, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, spends his time scavenging supplies and cruising Manhattan -- while dodging the descendants of escaped zoo animals -- with his best friend, a German Shepherd named Sam. Neville, a trained virologist, possesses a natural immunity to the virus and painstakingly experiments with rats using his own blood until he makes a breakthrough.
After capturing one of the creatures in a trap, for use as a test subject, Neville finds himself ensnared in a similar device created by the mutants and discovers that not all of the mutants are as mindless as he believed.
Aside from scenes of Manhattan streets overrun with wild animals and utterly devoid of human life, I Am Legend is also notable for featuring a poster of the movie Batman v. Superman, which wouldn't hit theaters until nine years after Legend's release.
2. Focus
My expectations were very low when I watched Focus. But it's not what it seems. The trailer gave me the impression that the film was one of those serious thriller/heist/con movies with a twist at the end. But it's not. It's actually a comedy. And that's the twist. Except you don't have to wait until the end. You'd never know from the posters either, but Focus is funny almost from the start. It's not forced comedy and Will Smith and company aren't trying too hard to get laughs -- it just is funny. The key is that the people and situations in Focus would be humorless in most movies, but in this case you get to see them for what they are -- just people and just life. Cool people do dumb shit sometimes. World-class con-men can make fools of themselves and trophy girlfriends can be petty and caring -- at the same damn time.
1. Suicide Squad
Smith's Floyd Lawton, known as Deadshot in the tabloids, is a sociopathic hitman who's never been in love and doesn't feel a bit of guilt about killing people for money. But his 11-year-old daughter, Zoey, is deeply entrenched in his otherwise icy heart. And his love for her is what made it easy for the Batman to track him down and apprehend him. After he's recruited to a team of expendable supervillains, he gives the mission his all for one reason and one reason only: the promise of seeing his little girl again.
11. The Pursuit of Happyness
Based on a true story, The Pursuit of Happyness explores single father Christopher Gardner's (portrayed by Smith) pursuit of the American Dream in order to provide a better life for his son. After his attempts to sell Osteo National portable bone-density scanners (into which he sunk all of the family's savings) fail, Chris can't come up with the money to pay off his parking fine, which culminates in the Parking Authority placing a boot on his car. Fed up, his wife Linda leaves him and their son Christopher and moves to New York. Then, unable to make rent, father and son are evicted. Betting on himself and his long-term plan, Chris accepts a position as an unpaid intern with financial firm Dean Witter. During the six-month program, Chris and his son must sleep in homeless shelters and struggle to get by. But Chris never gives up -- which would mean giving up on his son's future.
10. Bad Boys
Will Smith's first starring role in a feature -- 1995's Bad Boys -- was a smash hit, bringing in seven times its budget at the box office. The partnership between Smith's Detective Mike Lowery and Martin Lawrence's Detective Marcus Burnett was unheard of; buddy-cop movies featuring an African-American police officer and a white counterpart (the Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon series, Running Scared and Die Hard) were revolutionary at the time. But two Black cops at the center of a high-profile action movie was one-of-a-kind.
9. Ali
Ali explores a decade in the life of legendary heavyweight boxing champion and political activist Muhammad Ali. The movie begins in 1964, the year that Ali, then known as Cassius Clay Jr., defeated Sonny Liston to become only the second-youngest (at 22 years old) fighter to win the heavyweight title. Liston refused to continue the bout before the seventh round. Prior to the fight, Clay verbally harassed Liston, describing him as a "big, ugly bear". Jeering opponents would be a signature of Clay's. After befriending civil rights activist Malcolm X, Clay joins the Nation of Islam and is renamed Muhammad Ali (he was initially renamed Cassius X) by the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad. However, when a rift develops between X and the Nation leadership, Ali sides with the NOI and abandons his friend. The two never reconcile prior to X's 1965 assassination.
The following year, Ali is drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but refuses based on his religious and political beliefs. He famously declares, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong...They never called me nigger." However, his refusal results in his being stripped of his heavyweight title (which he'd successfully defended in a rematch with Liston), losing his boxing license and his passport. He's also criminally charged, convicted of refusing to serve and faces five years in prison as well as a $10,000 fine.
Ali's conviction is finally overturned in 1971 and he goes on to challenge undefeated Philadelphia-native Joe Frazier in a title bout billed as the Fight of the Century. Ali's loss, by decision, is the first of his career. However, Frazier is subsequently defeated by George Foreman who later agrees put his title on the line against Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The 1974 fight, billed as the Rumble in the Jungle, is promoted by Don King and is preceded by a concert headlined by music legend James Brown. During the bout, attended by 60,000 fans and watched by one billion on television, Ali employs his famous rope-a-dope strategy and beats the previously undefeated Foreman with an eighth round knockout. Ali's victory over Foreman, who was seven years his junior, making him the the first boxer to win the heavyweight belt twice.
8. Independence Day
In Independence Day, the human race is united by perhaps the only thing that can unite it: aliens bent on the destruction of mankind. A marine pilot, an MIT-trained satellite tech, a Vietnam-era fighter pilot with a few screws loose and the U.S. president all band together to kick the E.T.s off the planet.
7. Bright
Bright is only second to The Battle of the Five Armies as a damn good movie involving a magic wand and has Harry Potter beat by a mile. You know how Game of Thrones takes place in a medieval world populated by humans, giants, dragons, zombies and witches? Bright is like a modern-day version of Thrones -- except all of the Black people aren't slaves. Keep your eyes peeled for the centaur and dragon too. Netflix spent $100 million putting this flick together and you can tell by looking. It was money well-spent.
6. Bad Boys II
5. I Am Legend
Proving to be a vast improvement over the story's previous adaptation's star, Charlton Heston, Smith's Dr. Robert Neville has to cope with being one of the last humans alive while he feverishly works to develop a cure for the epidemic that transformed some of the other survivors into vicious nocturnal monsters.
After Dr. Alice Krippin's cancer cure morphs into a deadly virus, 5.4 billion people are wiped out; another 588 million mutate into savage, animalistic creatures. When not in his makeshift lab, Neville, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, spends his time scavenging supplies and cruising Manhattan -- while dodging the descendants of escaped zoo animals -- with his best friend, a German Shepherd named Sam. Neville, a trained virologist, possesses a natural immunity to the virus and painstakingly experiments with rats using his own blood until he makes a breakthrough.
After capturing one of the creatures in a trap, for use as a test subject, Neville finds himself ensnared in a similar device created by the mutants and discovers that not all of the mutants are as mindless as he believed.
Aside from scenes of Manhattan streets overrun with wild animals and utterly devoid of human life, I Am Legend is also notable for featuring a poster of the movie Batman v. Superman, which wouldn't hit theaters until nine years after Legend's release.
4. Hitch
3. Emancipation
Will Smith has only headlined one romantic comedy and he knocked it outta the park with this story about a romance-consultant who meets someone who causes him to consider leaving the game himself.
Smith portrays Peter, a slave who escapes to a Union army camp in Louisiana upon learning about the Emancipation Proclamation.
2. Focus
My expectations were very low when I watched Focus. But it's not what it seems. The trailer gave me the impression that the film was one of those serious thriller/heist/con movies with a twist at the end. But it's not. It's actually a comedy. And that's the twist. Except you don't have to wait until the end. You'd never know from the posters either, but Focus is funny almost from the start. It's not forced comedy and Will Smith and company aren't trying too hard to get laughs -- it just is funny. The key is that the people and situations in Focus would be humorless in most movies, but in this case you get to see them for what they are -- just people and just life. Cool people do dumb shit sometimes. World-class con-men can make fools of themselves and trophy girlfriends can be petty and caring -- at the same damn time.
1. Suicide Squad
Smith's Floyd Lawton, known as Deadshot in the tabloids, is a sociopathic hitman who's never been in love and doesn't feel a bit of guilt about killing people for money. But his 11-year-old daughter, Zoey, is deeply entrenched in his otherwise icy heart. And his love for her is what made it easy for the Batman to track him down and apprehend him. After he's recruited to a team of expendable supervillains, he gives the mission his all for one reason and one reason only: the promise of seeing his little girl again.
Originally Posted 11/3/19
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