There really isn’t any actor out there that carries the same energy and appeal as Pedro Pascal right now. He has been acting in major Hollywood productions for a while now, but it has really only been in the last few years that he has exploded into the star that he is. After several great years for Pascal, 2023 has proven to be one of his biggest yet.
After kicking off the year as Joel in HBO’s acclaimed series The Last of Us, Pascal immediately also starred in the third season of the hit Star Wars series The Mandalorian. He also is starring alongside Ethan Hawke in Strange Way of Life, a short film directed by the acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, which just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Pascal has featured in many great films and series throughout his career, and his lengthy filmography will only continue to grow as his popularity increases. He already has several high-profile projects lined up for the next handful of years, ranging from the second season of The Last of Us to Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated follow-up to Gladiator.
He is also set to appear in Ethan Coen’s new film Drive-Away Dolls, as well as Barbarian director Zach Cregger’s new film, Weapon, in which Pascal will star alongside The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve. With this upcoming deluge of Pascal appearances, we’ve decided to take a look back on the actor’s work up to this point. Here are his best films and series so far, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
11 The Mandalorian: Season 3 (2023) – 85%
The third season of The Mandalorian may not have blown fans away quite as much as the first two seasons did, but it was still a solid success. The season premiered in March 2023, and it earned a Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes at 85%, with 239 reviews averaging a score of 7.55/10. Interestingly, while Pascal is most frequently credited for the work bringing the series' lead character Din Djarin to life, he is on set only occasionally.
Since the character rarely removes his helmet, Djarin’s physicality is almost always brought to life by the actors Brendan Wayne, Lateef Crowder and Barry Lowin. In an interview recently, Pascal talked about his work on The Mandalorian, stating that at this point his involvement with the series is mostly just voice-over work.
10 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) – 87%
The comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talentstarred Pedro Pascal alongside Nicolas Cage, who played a fictionalized version of himself in the film, while Pascal played a rich superfan of the actor who hires him to attend his birthday party. The film was released in April 2022 and was considered to be one of the best comedies of the year. It has also taken on a new life after its theatrical run, as it has gained a larger audience on streaming and has spawned several popular TikTok trends.
With 309 reviews counted, and an average score of 7.3/10, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent earned a rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.
9 Prospect (2018) – 89%
One of Pascal’s more under-the-radar entries on this list is the sci-fi film Prospect, which was given a limited run in theaters in 2018 before getting a digital release in early 2019. The movie follows several contractors who are hired to mine materials from a poisonous forest on an extraterrestrial moon.
Pascal plays a prospector named Ezra, who is directly competing with the film’s main characters, Damon (Jay Duplass) and Cee (Sophie Thatcher). Despite the lack of buzz around the film when it was released, it did manage to get a pretty strong score on Rotten Tomatoes. With just 56 reviews counted, the movie landed an approval rating of 89%, with the average score being 7.1/10. Prospect was praised for its focus on character development and story, rather than special effects or spectacle, and there have been talks about a sequel in the years since.
8 Narcos: Season 2 (2016) – 93%
Narcos is another series that is directly responsible for making Pascal a star. The Netflix original series made waves when it debuted its first season in 2015, but it was the second season that really shot the series into the stratosphere. The second season was released in September 2016, and it received significantly more critical acclaim and audience attention than its predecessor.
Pascal plays one of the lead roles in the series, as Javier Peña, one of the DEA agents responsible for catching Pablo Escobar. While Narcos’s first season had a solid 78% score on Rotten Tomatoes, season two surpassed that and earned an impressive 93%. That score was determined by 27 reviews, which averaged 7.4/10.
7 The Mandalorian: Season 1 (2019) – 93%
The first season of The Mandalorian was a landmark in several ways. Not only was it the core original series that debuted with the launch of Disney+; it was also the very first live-action Star Wars television series. With that, the series received a lot of attention, which was only amplified by the quality storytelling and filmmaking at the center of it all.
The series debuted in November 2019, and it was immediately a massive hit. With 339 reviews counted, it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%, averaging a rating of 7.95/10. Pascal was much more involved in the first season than he was in the third, as the balance between his in-suit and voice-over work was still being struck. On top of that, Din Djarin’s helmet is removed briefly in the season finale, firmly establishing to viewers that Pascal is the face of the character.
6 The Mandalorian: Season 2 (2020) – 93%
The second season of The Mandalorian began airing on Disney+ only a year later, in late October 2020. Season two built upon pretty much everything season one did, both in terms of story and technology. On top of that, it also expanded the show’s breadth in the Star Wars universe, as fan-favorite characters like Ahsoka Tano, Bo-Katan, and Luke Skywalker were brought into the fold.
Pascal also got to show his face on more than one occasion this time around. The second season also earned a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s listed higher than season one because that rating is based on 450 reviews and had an average score of 8.5/10, making it a solid improvement over the debut season.
5 Calls: Season 1 (2021) – 95%
You may be unfamiliar with the AppleTV+ series Calls, but the critical reception to the show argues that it’s one that is a show certainly worth checking out. The show is a mystery series from Don’t Breathe director Fede Álvarez, and it is an adaptation of a French series of the same name. The story of the show is told through various interconnected phone calls, in which characters are attempting to unravel a conspiracy that is building toward the apocalypse.
Pascal lends his voice to a character aptly named Pedro in one episode of the series, which is titled Pedro Across the Street. While the series has not gained all that much of an audience, it did receive an outstanding 95% certified fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the average rating being 8.5/10.
4 If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) – 95%
If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 film from director Barry Jenkins, which served as the follow-up to his Best Picture-winning movie Moonlight. Pascal plays a small role in the film, only appearing in one scene as the character Pietro Alvarez, but he makes quite an impression in his limited screen time. If Beale Street Could Talk received an approval rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, from 366 reviews that averaged a score of 8.6/10.
The success of If Beale Street Could Talk is not the result of Pascal’s one scene though, the credit for the film can be given to Jenkins’s incredible direction and the outstanding performances from the lead cast, consisting of Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Teyonah Paris and Brian Tyree Henry.
3 The Last of Us: Season 1 (2023) – 96%
Pascal’s turn as Joel in the first season of The Last of Us is likely going to be one of the defining roles of his career, as it should be. Pascal does some of his finest work to date in The Last of Us, which is just one of many reasons why the show has been so universally praised. With an astonishing 467 reviews counted, season one of The Last of Us managed to maintain a 96% approval rating, with an average score of 8.75/10.
With shows like Succession, Poker Face,and Beef all receiving immense acclaim as well, 2023 has proven to be an excellent year for television. However, it’s hard to imagine The Last of Us not sweeping its way through awards season once the year comes to a close.
2 Narcos: Season 3 (2017) – 97%
The third and final season of Narcos was released in September 2017, and it was the most critically successful of the series yet. Pascal took on an even larger role in the third season, with many praising his performance as one of the best in the entire series. With 32 reviews counted, the final season of Narcos scored a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Looking at it another way, only one of the aggregated reviews gave the third season a rotten score. Every other review was positive, with scores averaging out to be 7.5/10.
1 Game of Thrones: Season 4 (2014) – 97%
Finally, the most highly-rated project that Pascal has been involved with is the fourth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones. It’s easy to paint all of Game of Thrones with a broad brush after the lackluster final seasons, but let’s not forget that the earlier seasons of the show were genuinely great. The fourth season, in particular, received the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the entire series. With 571 reviews counted (beating out The Last of Us’s 467), the fourth season of Game of Thrones received a 97% approval rating. What’s even more impressive is that it averaged a rating of 9.05/10, with only 17 rotten scores given.
Pascal was one of the highlights of the fourth season of the fantasy series, and his character Oberyn Martell immediately became a fan favorite. His role in Game of Thrones was also the beginning of Pascal’s rise to fame, as Narcos premiered the following year and he began receiving a lot more high-profile work immediately thereafter.
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