Sometimes it feels like Ron Howard has been around forever. The actor/director, who was born on March 1, 1954, has been a star in TV and movies for over 65 years. From his early days playing Andy Griffith‘s son Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show” to his directing of the latest “Star Wars” story, “Solo,” the unassuming Howard still finds himself the center of attention.
Now primarily known as a director, Howard has won two Academy Awards — for producing and directing 2001’s Best Picture winner “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russell Crowe — and has two more nominations to his credit for producing and directing 2008 nominee “Frost/Nixon” starring Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.
Let’s take a photo gallery tour of his 17 greatest feature films, ranked from worst to best. Keep in mind that our gallery strictly focuses on his directing career and leaves out his terrific work as an actor in movies. Our gallery does include such wonderful movies as “Apollo 13,” “Splash,” “Cocoon,” “Parenthood,” “Thirteen Lives” and more.
17. HILLBILLY ELEGY (2020)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Vanessa Taylor, based on the book by J.D. Vance. Starring Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins, Owen Asztalos.
Howard’s heart was certainly in the right place when it came to adapting J.D. Vance’s bestselling memoir, even if the results are a mixed bag. The film follows Vance (played as a boy by Owen Asztalos and as a young man by Gabriel Basso) as he works his way up from a poor upbringing in the rust belt to Yale law school, all while dealing with his drug-addicted mother (Amy Adams). Glenn Close steals the show in a transformative performance as Vance’s Mawmaw, a tough-talking granny who helps keep his eyes on the prize despite his childhood adversity.
16. WILLOW (1988)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Bob Dolman. Starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Billy Barty, Jean Marsh.
Howard’s big budget fantasy film, based on a story by George Lucas, received mixed reviews from critics but has since become a cult favorite among fantasy film buffs. Val Kilmer portrays a swordsman who is determined to protect an infant who is destined to overthrow the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh). But the film is completely stolen by Warwick Davis as the title character, a resourceful dwarf who plays a key role in protecting the infant from the dastardly queen.
15. FAR AND AWAY (1992)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Bob Dolman. Starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman.
Although “Far and Away” was clearly sold as “A Ron Howard Film,” it soon became known far and wide as “The Tom and Nicole Movie.” The epic story of Irish immigrants who come to America to seek a better life in the 1890s is almost forgotten today, replaced instead in the public’s mind as the film in which Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who first worked together in 1991’s “Days of Thunder” became America’s new power couple onscreen. A shame really, because Howard does some very nice work here, bringing together various threads of Dolman’s script.
14. THE DA VINCI CODE (2006)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Akiva Goldsman, based on the novel by Dan Brown. Starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina.
Though not exactly Howard’s best reviewed film ever, “The Da Vinci Code” is by far his biggest-grossing film, earning over $217 million in the U.S. alone and over $758 million worldwide. The story, focusing on a professor/detective (Tom Hanks) who is searching for a code embedded in Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper,” sold “Harry Potter”-like numbers of books, and audiences flocked to see Howard’s direction for the film version, as well as to its two sequels — “Angels and Demons” (2009) and “Inferno” (2016).
13. GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977)
Director: Ron Howard. Writers: Rance Howard, Ron Howard. Starring Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan.
Thanks to producer Roger Corman, Howard got his first-time shot at directing with this genre picture that was designed for the drive-in crowd (back in the day when there were drive-in theaters everywhere). The plot is fairly simple: Sam Freeman (Howard) and his girlfriend Paula Powers (Nancy Morgan) decide to elope, but their flight is an affront to their friends who decide to take to the road themselves to try and stop them. Critically, “Grand Theft Auto” opened to mixed reviews, but enough critics mentioned that Howard displayed a promising directorial style that it encouraged him to keep going.
12. BACKDRAFT (1991)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Gregory Widen. Starring Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert DeNiro, Scott Glenn.
“Backdraft,” the story of firefighters in Chicago who seek the identity of a serial arsonist who fires are taking the lives of their colleagues, is one of those Ron Howard movies in which, despite an all-star cast, the real stars of the film are the sound and visual effects craftsmen (in fact, “Backdraft’s” three Academy Award nominations were in those very categories). Still, Howard’s skill with actors led to strong performances from the film’s leads, Kurt Russell and William Baldwin.
11. THE PAPER (1994)
Director: Ron Howard. Writers: David Koepp, Stephen Koepp. Starring Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid, Robert Duvall.
In an era in which current newspaper dramas are based on historical events (“Spotlight,” “The Post”), it’s refreshing to look back at a film in which print journalism is the setting for what is essentially a workplace comedy/drama. Here Howard is reunited with his “Night Shift” breakout star Michael Keaton as a harried editor of a fictional big-city paper determined to solve the murder of two businessmen. Howard paces the film at a breakneck speed, garnering both tension and laughs.
10. NIGHT SHIFT (1982)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel. Starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long.
“Grand Theft Auto” proved to be enough of a calling card for Howard to get his second film, the morgue-set comedy “Night Shift,” distributed by a major studio (Warner Bros.). It may have been designed as a feature-film vehicle for his “Happy Days” co-star Henry Winkler, but once the public got a glimpse at Michael Keaton‘s renegade Bill “Blaze” Blazejowski, that was the ball game. But Keaton got enough butts in seats that it ensured that Howard would be able to continue his rising career.
9. THIRTEEN LIVES (2022)
Directed by Ron Howard. Screenplay by William Nicholson. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman.
With “Thirteen Lives,” Howard faced one particular challenge that’s peculiar to filmmakers adapting historical events to the screen: how do you make a film with any suspense when audiences all over the world already know the ending? If you’re Ron Howard, you ignore the worries of others and proceed to tell the story — the heroic rescue of thirteen members of a Thai soccer team trapped in a flooded cave — as best you can. It helps, of course, when you have a top-flight script by William Nicholson and assemble an ensemble of actors of the caliber of Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton. At that point, Howard’s relaxed directing style makes the whole thing look easy.
8. CINDERELLA MAN (2005)
Director: Ron Howard. Writers: Cliff Hollingsworth, Akiva Goldsman. Starring Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti.
Based on the life of famed boxer James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe), Howard’s film biography evokes a detailed sense of period for the early 20th century. The boxing scenes are superbly edited, and Crowe’s confident performance makes you feel that he really is a boxer. Add to that his chemistry with Renee Zellweger as his worried wife and an Oscar nominated performance by Paul Giamatti as his manager, and you’ve got one of Howard’s stronger films.
7. RUSH (2013)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Peter Morgan. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde.
Howard received some of his best reviews in recent years with this look into the world of Formula 1 motor-racing and the real-life rivalry between top drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). Critics particularly praised Howard’s decision to downplay the film’s racing scenes (although they are there and are particularly well done) and emphasize the complicated relationship between the two men. Though both men were primarily known to the public as rivals, Howard’s character-based approach manages bring out the brotherhood that also existed between them.
6. PARENTHOOD (1989)
Director: Ron Howard. Writers: Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel. Starring Steve Martin, Dianne Wiest, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards.
Howard is used to working with large casts, but his film “Parenthood” boasts 17 major characters in its look at what it takes to keep a large family together and thriving. Based on parental experiences from production dads Howard, writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel and producer Brian Grazer, “Parenthood” was a significant critical and box-office hit, spawning two separate NBC series — one a 1990 flop starring Ed Begley, Jr. and Leonardo DiCaprio, the other a six-season hit in 2010 starring Craig T. Nelson and Peter Krause.
5. A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Akiva Goldsman. Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connolly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany.
Simply in terms of awards, “A Beautiful Mind” remains the apex of Howard’s directorial career. The biographical drama about the efforts of Nobel Prize-winning economist John Nash (Russell Crowe) to deal with his paranoid schizophrenia received strong critical support across the board and swept most of the major awards for which it was nominated that year. Howard himself won as Oscar as the year’s Best Director and a second Oscar for producing the year’s Best Picture. He also won a Golden Globe for Best Picture, although Howard lost the Best Director award to Robert Altman for “Gosford Park.”
4. FROST/NIXON (2008)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Peter Morgan, based on his play. Starring Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon.
Howard’s biggest challenge in directing the film adaptation of Peter Morgan‘s Tony Award-nominated play was to make cinematic a story that was basically two guys sitting in a chair. But, between adding exterior shots and using fluid camerawork, he made “Frost/Nixon” work as a film, thanks in no small part to the electricity generated by his two main characters — British journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) interviewing former U.S. President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). For his work, Howard received two Oscar and Golden Globe nominations each for Best Director and Best Picture.
3. COCOON (1985)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Tom Benedek. Starring Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Don Ameche, Steve Guttenberg.
Howard hit a home run with young and senior audiences alike with this science-fiction heartwarmer with a geriatric twist. Based on David Saperstein‘s novel, Tom Benedek‘s script focuses on a number of residents in a Florida retirement home who occasionally trespass to use the pool in the home next door, thinking that the house is empty. It’s definitely not. Aliens from the planet Antarea have set up shop there, hoping to resuscitate fellow aliens being housed in cocoons off the coast. They have charged the swimming pool water with a “life force” to bring their colleagues back to life, the very pool in which the senior citizens have been swimming. And thus our tale begins. Howard brings out strong performances from his cast, particularly Don Ameche, who won an Oscar for his performance.
2. SPLASH (1984)
Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Bruce Jay Friedman. Starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, Eugene Levy, John Candy.
“Splash” was the first of Howard’s films to get onto the awards radar, earning an Oscar nomination for its original screenplay by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and playwright Bruce Jay Friedman. The film also marked the first leading role for Tom Hanks, with whom Howard made five films in total. The romance between a human (Hanks) and a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) (with important comedy support from John Candy) struck a chord with audiences and lifted Howard’s work to the next level where critics began to take his direction seriously.
1. APOLLO 13 (1995)
Director: Ron Howard. Writers: William Broyles, Jr., Al Reinert. Starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan.
One of Howard’s most critically-acclaimed films, “Apollo 13” focuses on America’s third mission to put a man on the moon, a mission that was fraught with potential disaster when, en route to the moon, an explosion on board imperiled the mission and threatened to take the lives of the astronauts in the capsule. Rather then making it a strictly action movie, Howard instead took the approach of making it a character study, not only of the men whose lives were threatened but also of the people on the ground trying to get them home safely. For his efforts, Howard was nominated for a Golden Globe as the year’s Best Director.
