The movie industry today has produced some of the best actors of this time. Some have become easy multi-generational talents that have spread themselves across a variety of genres. Adam Sandler is one of those people. Sandler has become a household name from his acting skills to his ability to make audiences laugh and cry. From being a rom-com king to a leading face in a drama, one thing we can be sure of is that Sandler will give us a show.
Update June 8, 2023: This article has been updated with even more great films from Adam Sandler and updates about his future projects.
Sandler has been in the acting game for years, and some of his best movies have become comfort watches for people of all ages. Over the course of his career, he has released a wide variety of films ranging in genre and tone and worked alongside some interesting filmmakers. Sandler has a busy 2023 ahead of him. Murder Mystery 2 has already been released on Netflix, and he will next be seen alongside Idina Menzel in You Are So Not Invited To My Baby Shower, which will be released on Netflix at the end of the summer. He will also appear in the Netflix film Spaceman in the fall. The film is a novel adaptation and will follow Sandler as Jakub Prochazka, who goes to space and encounters mysterious beings, all while his pregnant wife is home without him. Here are the best Adam Sandler movies, ranked.
12 Murder Mystery and Murder Mystery 2
Murder Mystery, followed by its sequel Murder Mystery 2, stars Adam Sandler and one of his longtime costars, Jennifer Aniston. Nick, played by Sandler, and Audrey, played by Aniston, are a modern-day married couple. Nick is a police officer in New York, while Audrey is a hairdresser. The two have their 15th wedding anniversary, and as a gift to his wife, Nick takes the two on a trip to Europe, as Audrey had always wanted to go.
On their flight abroad, Audrey meets a billionaire who invites the couple to venture to Monte Carlo on his yacht. Nick and Audrey agree, thinking they’ve hit the lotto. However, while on the yacht, things don’t run so smoothly. Someone ends up murdered, and being the detective that Nick is, he begins giving orders to everyone who is on board. Both Murder Mystery films benefit from Sandler and Anniston's natural chemistry.
11 Blended
The reunion everyone needed. Blended came out in 2014 and reunited Sandler and Barrymore, who had worked together on both 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer. Well, this one recaptured that in new and refreshing ways. In this film, Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) are raising their families as single parents. After a disastrous first date, the two end up clashing again on a honeymoon vacation in Africa, where they find common ground and see their families beginning to blend.
10 Hubie Halloween
While most of Sandler's Netflix original comedy movies have been pretty unremarkable, Hubie Halloween is the exception. The movie is very much in the vein of the comedy classic Ernest Scared Stupid. Sandler plays Hubie, a lovable doofus who loves Halloween and is mocked by his community. Hubie Halloween is dripping with atmosphere, and every frame looks and feels like Halloween, with the movie having plenty of fun mini-stories that feature all the trademarks of the holiday. For audiences looking for a funny Halloween comedy, Hubie Halloween is certainly worth a watch.
9 The Wedding Singer
The Wedding Singer is definitely one of Sandler’s best performances. Released in 1998, it was a box office hit, grossing $123.3 million at the box office. When Robbie, played by Adam Sandler, was supposed to get married, his fiancée leaves him because she wanted to marry a rock star and not a wedding singer. Distraught, Robbie takes time before returning to work. There, he’s met by a new waitress, Julia, played by Drew Barrymore. Julia is supposed to marry a man who she doesn’t realize is cheating on her. In hopes of saving her from a broken relationship, Robbie makes an effort to break Julia and her fiancée, Glenn, up.
Emotions run high when Robbie sees Julia through a window pretending to marry him, as she and Robbie grow feelings for each other. The movie plays with the conventions of a romantic comedy, and Sandler showed he was more than just a comedian but could also pull off a romantic leading man role in the right circumstance.
8 Billy Madison
1995's Billy Madison was Sandler's first leading role and the movie that made him a comedy star. Billy Madison is not your average adult. Despite his age, there is nothing else about Billy Madison that is adult-like in any way. When Billy's father tells him that he has to retake and pass every grade in just 24 weeks, audiences are given the delight of seeing Billy go through various grades and interact with different types of kids.
Adam Sandler also wrote Billy Madison, making this comedy classic even more entertaining, as his creativity covers so many topics in film. Though Billy may have had to endure the elementary school experience again, he not only proves to himself and his father that he is capable of responsibility, but he also falls in love along the way with one of the teachers. The movie is laughable from start to finish and definitely serves as one of Sandler’s most popular films.
7 Click
Audiences know Sandler can make them laugh, but he is also a master at making them cry. Click is the best of both worlds. This movie has Sandler playing Micheal Newman, a workaholic husband to a disgruntled wife, Donna, played by Kate Beckinsale. When he gets a hold of a remote that can control time, he thinks that this is his opportunity to be home more. However, this does not go as planned.
Having also produced the film, Sandler, again, was able to bring his creative mind to the screenplay. In the film, Micheal may have been mistreated by his boss, causing him to want to change his life around. But when time is in his hands, he’s finally able to reclaim everything he never realized was missing in his life. Click was also a great success at the box office. The film grossed $240.7 million with a budget of $82.5 million and was also nominated for Best Makeup at the 79th Academy Awards
6 50 First Dates
50 First Dates is an iconic movie and a must-watch for every rom-com lover out there. It is easily the best Sandler and Barrymore movie had to choose our favorite Barrymore-Sandler pairing. The film has enough of a goofy plot paired with emotional heaviness to have us laughing through our tears. Sandler plays Henry, and Barrymore plays Lucy. When Lucy suffers memory loss after an accident, Henry is forced to recreate their meeting every day to remind her that they are, in fact, in love.
Another popular Barrymore and Sandler film, 50 First Dates, is a great depiction of what not giving up hope is. Though Henry could have denied his love at first sight for Lucy, he instead embraced his undying longing for her, despite her fleeting mind.
5 Funny People
Funny People saw Sandler team up with legendary filmmaker and his former roommate, Judd Apatow. Sandler plays George Simmons, a successful comedian who is looking back on his life with regret after he is diagnosed with a fatal illness. He brings a young struggling comedian Ira, played by Seth Rogen, under his wing. When George gets better, he is now faced with how to approach life with this new second chance.
In many ways, Funny People seemed like an autobiographical riff about Sandler's career, and the movie even uses old footage of Sandler's early stand-up career and old home videos Apatow recorded of him. Much of the fake bad movies George Simmons appears in the movie as seem like vague plays on movies Sandler himself would actually make. Both Apatow and Sandler have denied this. The finished result might have been a box office disappointment, but it is a powerful film about what one does with second chances and shows just how good at comedy and drama Sandler is.
4 Big Daddy
If any Sandler movie is destined to make the heart swell, Big Daddy is the one. This 1999 comedy-drama stars Sandler as Sonny Koufax and the young Dylan and Cole Sprouse as Julien. Sandy has been living carefree as it is until his girlfriend dumps him. He wants to prove to her that he can take on responsibility, and to do that, he adopts a 5-year-old boy, a recipe for disaster.
Big Daddy did a great job of proving Sandler's acting ability as he managed both the film's incredibly silly moments but also heartfelt moments. Sonny essentially risks all he has, though it’s not much, to become a father to Julien, aka “Frankenstein.” Though he’s never parented before, Sonny does everything he can do that Julien doesn’t end up in foster care, even if that means he will be arrested. Big Daddy was one of Sandler's biggest box office hits, grossing $234 million worldwide, and was able to hold its own in a very busy movie summer in 1999.
3 Hustle
Hustle is one of Sandler's most recent films, and it deserves credit for being one of his best movies. This sports drama came out on Netflix, and Sandler's charm shines through in every aspect of this movie. He plays a basketball scout named Stanley Sugerman, who finds his new project in an amateur street player Bo Cruz. Sandler was overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science for this film, but he did receive his first Screen Actors Guild Nomination.
2 Uncut Gems
Sandler gave one of if not his best performances in 2019's Uncut Gems. In recent years, he has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in ALL genres of film. As an actor, Sandler in Uncut Gems is on a whole other level. This crime/comedy film has Sandler playing Howard Ratner, a jeweler who is about to embark on a journey that could make or break his career and life. The story includes infidelity, loan sharks, exquisite jewels, and more.
Uncut Gems was a surprise hit at the box office, grossing $50 million against a budget of $19 million, and was the highest-grossing film released by A24 at the domestic box office until the release of Everything Everywhere All At Once. Sandler not being nominated for Best Actor for Uncut Gems is also seen as one of the biggest snubs at the 92nd Academy Awards. The film was also chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films in 2019.
1 Punch Drunk Love
Punch Drunk Love was the film audiences and critics did not know what Adam Sandler had in him. Released in 2002 at the height of his comedic film streak, Punch Drunk Love was a quiet, intimate romantic comedy directed by awards darling Paul Thomas Anderson. Sandler himself didn't believe he had the movie in him, but Anderson was a fan of the actor and wanted to work with him. He saw what many filmmakers, critics, and Sandler himself could not see.
The result was a beautiful film and Sandler's best performance. This is the movie that redefined Sandler's entire career and showed everyone that even in his most critically hated films, he had the potential for greatness. Punch Drunk Love might not be the movie people think of when the name Adam Sandler is mentioned, but anyone who has seen it knows it is his best movie.
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