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It wasn’t long ago that Matthew McConaughey was a joke. And not a good one, either. Circa 2008, he was known for three things: Dazed and Confused, the bongo incident, and squandering his talent on terrible rom-coms and big-budget disasters. It seemed impossible that he would escape from mediocrity, save for the occasional Tropic Thunder. But in 2011, things changed: he began taking riskier roles in weirder, more prestigious movies, culminating in Magic Mike, which he should have received an Oscar nomination for, and Dallas Buyers Club, which he will.
This Sunday, McConaughey’s career renaissance continues on HBO’s True Detective, which holy sh*t. I want it now, in all its swampy, brutal glory. (His character is named Rust Cohle!) Today, in honor of True Detective‘s almost-certain awesomeness, let’s take a look at the many eras of McConaughey, and rank them from worst to best.
18. Desperate Romantic Comedies With Kate Hudson Matthew McConaughey
(How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Fool’s Gold)
17. Desperate Romantic Comedies Without Kate Hudson Matthew McConaughey
(Failure to Launch, The Wedding Planner, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past)
16. Kids Movies Matthew McConaughey
(Larger Than Life — sorry Bill Murray)
15. Failed Blockbuster Matthew McConaughey
(Reign of Fire and Sahara)
14. Inspirational Matthew McConaughey
(We Are Marshall)
13. Mugshot Matthew McConaughey
12. Genuinely Bad Worst Movie of His Career Matthew McConaughey
(Surfer, Dude and The Paperboy)
11. Genuinely AMAZING Worst Movie of His Career Matthew McConaughey
(Tiptoes — seriously, just watch the trailer)
10. Lawyer Matthew McConaughey
(A Time to Kill and The Lincoln Lawyer)
9. Mid-to-Late 1990s Movie Star Matthew McConaughey
(Amistad, Contact, The Newton Boys, EDtv, and U-571)
8. “I Totally Forgot He Was In That” Matthew McConaughey
(My Boyfriend’s Back, Angels In the Outfield, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation)
7. Random TV Appearance Matthew McConaughey
(King of the Hill and Eastbound & Down)
6. Playing an Alcoholic Who Tries To Sell a Truck to Sam Rockwell in Glory Daze Matthew McConaughey
(Glory Daze)
5. Smaller Parts in Great Ensemble Films Matthew McConaughey
(Lone Star and Tropic Thunder)
4. Bizarro and/or Critically Acclaimed Indie Matthew McConaughey
(Bernie, Mud, Killer Joe, and Dallas Buyers Club)
3. Iconic Stoner Matthew McConaughey
(Dazed and Confused)
2. Chest-Thumping Matthew McConaughey
(The Wolf of Wall Street)
1. Magic Mike Matthew McConaughey
(Magic Mike)
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Ah…that Magic Mike gif is…so perfect.
Dude, The Paperboy was awesome. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Nicole Kidman peeing on dudes, but I liked it.
Agreed. Putting the paperboy in that position is just not right.*
*something I’ve had to repeatedly tell your mom.
I’m with you: Paperboy was awesome. McConaughey was great in it, and everyone was happy to see Zac Efron get peed on :). I also don’t remember Sahara being that bad. I’ve never seen Tiptoes, but I heard the How Did This Get Made? podcast about it, and it sounds like the worst movie of all time.
Kind of feel like his first appearance on TV in Unsolved Mysteries in a cutoff denim shirt should be its own era. [www.remotepatrolled.com]
You missed Maniacal Robo-leg McConaughey.
[www.i-mockery.com]
[www.youtube.com]
Eep. Nevermind.
I’d like to add a Creepy McConaughey Era, because he was pretty awesome in Frailty
Agreed. He was great in that.
That movie was awesome.
You’re a good man.
Frailty is among the only good McConaughey films, imo, along with Dazed and Confused, Time to Kill, Tropic Thunder, Lone Star, and the terribly underrated Reign of Fire.
Co-signing the hell out of this. Frailty is one of my favorite movies.
I will never not watch A Time to Kill when one of the random Turner networks is showing it.
Could not agree more. For me, that movie is the pinnacle of Mateo.
Bernie was so great and weird.
I don’t care what anybody says, Sahara was an entertaining movie.
Agreed. Different from the book but very entertaining (except for Penelope Cruz – but Steve Zahn more than made up for her Chihuaua faced puss).
The story behind that movie even getting made is a fun read as well.
+awesome. McConaughey and Zahn made me forget Penelope Cruz was even there. I love that movie so much. Thank you, KMart-$5-movie-bin!
.
Thank you for this. My Friday is now perfect.
I don’t care what your stupid list says, McConaughey and Bale fighting dragons in the future is AWESOME.
McConaughey wearing a sleeveless bomber jacket, straddling a machine gun atop a tank like its his cawk. Nuff said there.
Reign of Fire is very unappreciated. It was streets ahead.
SPOILER (?) He also has one of the more epic death scenes I’ve seen:
[www.youtube.com]
In a movie full of British people, his English was the most incomprehensible. Glorious, but good god.
By far, my fave McConaughey film. But I haven’t seen Paperboy, Magic Mike, Wold of Wall Street, or Dallas Buyers Club. Yet.
I think Failure to Launch needs it’s own category…..Sci-Fi Fantasy Where Matthew McConaughey would be attracted to Rocky Dennis.
Does he look recovered in True Detective because he looked like a shell of himself in The Wolf on Wall Street and as this list accurately notes, Magic Mike McConaughey is the greatest of McConaugheys.
I think True Detective has been in the can for a while, no?
I started realizing a long time ago that I was being stupid about Brad Pitt being too good looking to really be anyone I wanted to pay attention to. Then I realized I liked way too many of his movies to rob myself of the performance. McConaughey doesn’t have that exactly, but he turns in solid movies.
I do know I know far too much about their junk and I want all of that burned out of my brain.
1999s Mugshot McConaughey seems to be balding.
His hair has been thin for a long time. He tells everyone he uses Regenix.
Just remember, there is a reason why his hair has been thin for along time: major fuckin amounts of Testosterone.
Tip Toes looks mindbottling. Hot 90s Kate Beckinsdale did far too few movies.
I believe that was the most frequent comment amongst critics of the movie….”My mind has been totally bottled.”
Totally forgot about EdTV. Watched that movie soooo many time because I used to really have a thing for Jenna Elfman.
Killer Joe version of McConaughey was amazing.
Mud was such a great movie; that’s my favorite Mcconaughey
#s 10 and 7 were to high (or low depending on perspective. Suck your dreams dick!!!
Also #10 is responsible for the white mike vick cover of ESPN Mag, right?
I liked Contact
There are people that didn’t like Contact?
Hot preacher McConaughey was fantastic to the eyes.
I admit that I liked it at the time, and it was well made, but there are just so many bullshit moment and worse philosophical arguments… What I’m saying is that re-watching it made me want to slash several characters throats with Occam’s razor.
Mud fucking kicked ass.
I read this as Mud Fucking, a verb
PRINCESS SOFIA – the one good thing to come out of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I still love to says it because it’s just so wrong.
I can’t fight you on your top 5 (although The Wolf of Wallstreet as a whole is somewhat weak), but you should reconsider Reign of Fire. It is on par with other “good” bad movies such as Roadhouse and pretty much anything with Hugh Jackman (take it easy X-Men fans, I like those movies for the most part as well).
Honestly, I liked Reign of Fire. He was unhinged as fuck, ripped, and had a huge beard. Plus, dragons n’ Batman.
The thing that always boggles my mind is the big finale fight is set in the village of Pembury, my home town, which is definitely not on the way to Manchester (its actually south of London). Why they decided to change the location of a whole town instead of picking any number of other places is just truly weird.
I actually cant help but absolutely love Sahara, I’m not really sure why, and that Steppenwolf track is just so so good.
Similarly, despite everything else in that film, his character in Reign of Fire is on of my all time favourites.
I kinda want to go on a MM binge this weekend, but I’m afraid I will completely loose my mind.
I think his role in We are Marshall was pretty damn good. I believe the real Jack Lengyel said MM was very good and his accent was spot on.
I really want to see Dallas Buyers Club because I’ve always been curious about what happened to Wooderson after the Aerosmith concert.
Clearly this isn’t based on his acting. The Paperboy was good.
Tiptoes…my god, this looks shit-tastic. Never seen or heard of this one, must’ve went straight to video. “Gary Oldman in a role of a lifetime” playing a dwarf makes me want to actually watch this just for the so bad it’s good possibility.
Do it, it is one of the weirdest movies you will ever see.
#4 is pretty much Texan McConaughey. Which makes it #1 to me.