21 Christian Bale Movies That Prove He's A Brilliant Big Screen Talent
Vote up the best movies that showcase Christian Bale's acting chops.
Christian Bale is one of the greatest talents of his generation. The actor has done more than 50 movies, and even in the bad ones, Bale gives 110% to make the role a realized character, doing whatever it takes even changing his appearance and physique for roles. There’s no connecting traits between the many roles bale has taken on.The actor has played politician Dick Cheney, psychopath Patrick Bateman, and Batman, among many others
Which Christian Bale performance proves he’s a brilliant big-screen talent? Is he your favorite Batman? Do you get both scared and amazed thinking about his transformation in The Machinist? Or do you believe his best is as a conman in American Hustle?
- 1971 VOTESPhoto: The Dark Knight / Warner Bros. Pictures
The Premise: Orphan millionaire Bruce Wayne (Bale) goes back to Gotham City to save it from his decaying state and does so by creating an alter-ego Batman. Batman has to fight to save the soul of his city from incredible villains like the Joker (Heath Ledger) and Bane (Tom Hardy).
How He Steals The Show: Bale will always be Batman for a whole generation of audience members. He made the most believable Dark Knight of them all. He showed the torture and anguish under the mask, made the physical sacrifices to be the guardian of Gotham, and created a voice for the hero that became his one of his signature traits. Bale was believable as both Bruce and Batman and sold the character's internal conflict beautifully.
Lasting Impact: The franchise’s legacy and impact was gigantic, and it’s still shown today. Cristopher Nolan's Batman movies still hold up and are looked upon as one of the best superhero franchises ever made. His more serious and realistic style influenced other franchises like James Bond. Furthermore, the fact that The Dark Knight didn’t get one of the five nominations for best picture at the 2009 Oscars made the organization expand the category to ten films. Even after Robert Pattinson starred in The Batman and Ben Affleck portrayed the Dark Knight in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League many people still feel like Bale is their Batman.
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The Premise: Adapted from the Brett Easton Ellis's book of the same name, this movie is all about Patrick Bateman (Bale), a yuppy bank investor who has everything he wants, yet moonlights as a serial killer and is losing his mind in the process.
How He Steals The Show: This performance was the first adult role that cemented Bale’s status as a notable actor. His Bateman is toxic masculinity made person, but he’s also severely damaged, scared, scary, narcissistic, and the perfect picture of what it means to be entitled. The actor sells the horror and humor of the situations the character lives in and creates a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like duality to Bateman.
Lasting Impact: Patrick Bateman might still be the best performance in Christian Bale’s career. The character was already flashy on the page, but this book was said to be unfilmable for a reason: the lead character's consciousness. But Bale not only imbued him perfectly, but made him an iconic cinematic psychopath.
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- 3484 VOTESPhoto: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Premise: Two rival magicians, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borgen (Bale), keep trying to one-up each other with their magic tricks, even if it has scary, irreversible consequences for each other’s lives.
How He Steals The Show: Bale has a far more contained performance of the two, as Jackman’s is more flamboyant. The audience feels Borgen is always secretive and is emotionally reserved. Yet, he is loving, caring, engaging, ambitious, resentful, and sometimes he’s cruel. Despite the contradictions, Bale manages to make it honest and believable.
Lasting Impact: This film might be the best forgotten Christopher Nolan story as the mix of actors, script, direction, and style creates the perfect magic trick to surprise audiences. In 2020, Empire Magazine ranked it number 66 in their “100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century List”.
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- 4326 VOTESPhoto: Paramount Pictures
The Premise: Based on the real-life of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a boxer who tried to win the title with the help of his older brother Dicky (Bale).
How He Steals The Show: Bale lost 30 pounds for the role and spent a lot of time with the real Dicky so he could emulate his mannerisms and Massachusetts accent. He created a well-rounded character full of contradictions and demons. Bale won his first Oscar for the performance as the best supporting actor and also earned a Golden Globe.
Lasting Impact: The film is one of the best in the careers of Bale, Wahlberg, Amy Adams, and director David O. Russell, and it’s in the pantheon of great boxing movies. The movie also took Russell out of a six year hiatus and earned him his first Oscar nomination, allowing him to direct Silver Linings Playbook the following year.
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- 5312 VOTESPhoto: Paramount Classics
The Premise: Trevor Reznik (Bale) is a machinist who suffers from insomnia and hasn’t been able to sleep for over a year. His mind plays tricks on him, and it's not clear if what is really happening and what is all in his head.
How He Steals The Show: The physical transformation Bale endured was so wild and creepy that even his mere sunken visage and emaciated body could haunt audiences. The actor lost over 60 pounds for the role, showing his commitment to the story. If that wasn’t enough, the actor is always great at showing his character's descent into madness.
Lasting Impact: The film has become a cult classic. Bale proves he is committed to whatever is necessary to embody his characters, and The Machinist is always mentioned in any discussion about actors who go through major physical changes for a role.
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- 6238 VOTESPhoto: Lionsgate
The Premise: Desperate for money, rancher Dan Evans (Bale) so he accepts a job escorting outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the 3:10 train to a prison in Yuma. What Dan doesn’t know is that Wade's gang will do anything to get their leader back.
How He Steals The Show: Bale's and Crowe's conflicting energies, plans, and acting styles make the film worthwhile. Bale’s character tries to be a good man, but he can be as ruthless as his rival when he has to be. Bale is able to show that duality perfectly in a character who tries to keep everything he thinks and feels inside.
Lasting Impact: The film is one of the greatest revisionist westerns of the century and proved how good director James Mangold is at tone, tension, and managing great casts.
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- 7202 VOTESPhoto: Warner Bros.
The Premise: Jim Graham (Bale) is a 12-year-old kid living with his parents in Shanghai during World War II. When Japan invades he is captured and must survive alone in a Japanese Imprisonment Camp.
How He Steals The Show: Being 12 and becoming the lead of a Steven Spielberg movie is no easy feat. Bale not only got the role, he also gave an incredible performance, showing how this innocent kid was forced to grow up after going through many traumatic events. The actor sells every emotion and breaks the audience's hearts.
Lasting Impact: This role was Bale’s breakout performance, so the film's biggest lasting impact is that it showed the world that Bale was destined for bigger things. His performance and character are still mentioned when people talk about great child actor performances.
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The Premise: Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his girlfriend Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) are a couple of conmen. When they get caught by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), they must help him prove a New Jersey Mayor is dirty in order to avoid going to prison.
How He Steals The Show: This film has the Christian Bale special: changing his appearance so much that he looks like someone else. He gained 40 pounds, walked slouched, and had a comb-over to look like someone absolutely different from his usual self. He also performs the hell out of the character, as he always two steps ahead, conning everyone, and looking for the best angle for himself and Sydney.
Lasting Impact: This movie was the moment when David O. Russell was at his best, and he could work with an incredible cast, not only Bale, Adams, and Cooper, but also Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Michael Peña, and Robert De Niro. The film was a success at the box office ($250 million worldwide) and also an awards darling as it got 10 Oscars nominations including best picture and Bale’s first nomination as best leading actor.
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The Premise: After World War III, the new society in charge believes emotions were the cause. They forbid them and put in prison anyone who is having them. To do so, there’s a group of clerics, including John Preston (Bale), who will do anything to keep those rules in place. When John forgets to take his pills meant to suppress emotions, he starts experiencing emotions and realizes how wrong he has been.
How He Steals The Show: This movie might be Bale’s first action role ever. The actor proves he's absolutely capable of playing action with style and efficiency. He shows he could have his own John Wick-esque franchise if he desired to and also nails the character's range of emotions, making him the perfect package for this movie.
Lasting Impact: Even when it was released, the film was called a Matrix knockoff as there was a dark sci-fi future, plenty of leather clothing, slow-motion action, and stoic characters. The film is entertaining, but that’s it. Its more important feature was showing the world that Bale could handle playing an action hero in spades.
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The Premise: Based on Michael Lewis’ book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, this film tells the real-life story of those who foresaw the 2007 Subprime mortgage crisis and were able to short the market.
How He Steals The Show: Bale plays the real-life person Michael Burry, a number genius who was the first to foresee the housing market collapse. The real Burry is a pretty eccentric person, and so is Bale’s performance as what may be the closest thing the movie has to a hero. Bale was nominated for a Golden Globe and the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance.
Lasting Impact: It helped many audience members understand the housing market crisis in the plainest and funniest of terms. It also showed that director Adam McKay was capable of more than shooting Will Ferrell comedies like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
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- 11178 VOTESPhoto: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The Premise: The movie is based on the real-life story of Dieter Dangler (Bale), an American pilot who was shot down and captured during the Vietnam War in Laos. Despite all odds, Dangler must survive and find a way to escape.
How He Steals The Show: Bale took the role seriously and even lost weight for the camp internment part of the movie, as he wanted to show the physical toll Dangler went through. The actor’s performance is great, showing how damaging it was both physically and emotionally and his need to endure.
Lasting Impact: Although the Werner Herzog movie wasn't successful at the box office, Bale was lauded for his performance, proving he was an actor’s actor and could play any kind of role with absolute dedication.
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The Premise: Ferrari has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans many times, and Ford is tired of always losing to them, so they hire Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and driver Ken Miles (Bale) to win them the title.
How He Steals The Show: Playing a real-life character and changing his appearance and gestures to mimic the real person, Bale portrays Miles as both anxious and stubborn. He knows what he needs to be faster but doesn’t know how to get there. The character enjoys his life when he’s with his family or racing but doesn’t care for company politics, making him a perfect counterpart to the more pragmatic Shelby.
Lasting Impact: The racing sequences were lauded by critics and audiences as they made them feel like they were inside the car, experiencing the race. Even then, the most remembered thing about the film were its two leads. The acting styles of Damon and Bale are as complementary as the characters they play in the movie.
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The Premise: This story is all about criminal John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and the FBI agent who did everything in his power to catch him, Melvin Purvis (Bale). While Dillinger commits crimes and falls in love, Purvis uses new investigative techniques, like tapping phones, to find him and end his criminal streak.
How He Steals The Show: Playing conflicted, smart, soulful characters is one of Bale’s strengths, and here he does it well. His character is less flashy, and fun than Depp's, but Bale gives him an admirable focus and determined spirit that allows the character to shine as a hero despite his many complexities.
Lasting Impact: It wasn’t a box office or critical darling (it only has a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and ultimately it was a a film that couldn’t deliver on the promise of two great actors playing against each other under the supervision of a great director. But if the movie is remembered for anything, it's because of Depp’s and Bale’s performances.
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The Premise: During a London underground construction project workers wake up a dragon who has been hibernating for centuries. Twenty years later, dragons have killed most of humanity, and the survivors are in hiding. Quinn Abercromby (Bale) leads a community, but everything changes when Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) meets him and tells him they've found a way to kill the dragons.
How He Steals The Show: Bale is the lead of the film, the moral center, and the hero. His character is the son of the woman who woke up the first dragon and was killed in the process of saving him, so he still feels partially responsible. The actor shows how the weight of the world is always on his shoulders while trying to keep his people safe. His chemistry with McConaughey is great, and they sell their "two-sides-of-the-same-coin" personalities. The character's arc works wonders thanks to Bale's performance, as Quinn goes from a life hiding to a life of action where he takes things into his own hands to end the reign of dragons.
Lasting Impact: The film is sadly forgotten, even if its mix of medieval and futuristic style should be remembered. The movie birthed a video game with a similar plot (although you could also play as a dragon) that was more lauded than the movie. There were plans for a sequel, but the box office was so underwhelming that they never came to fruition.
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The Premise: Adapting the Louisa May Alcott classic for the screen, this film tells the story of the March sisters during the American Civil War as they learn many life lessons, good and bad. They fall in love, mourn family deaths, get into sisterly fights, and show their bond, creating a fantastic female-led story.
How He Steals The Show: Bale plays Laurie, the friend and love interest of Jo (Winona Ryder), who ends up marrying her sister Amy (Samantha Mathis). Bale embodies the character's shyness and awkwardness while also becoming a great love interest. The movie shows that in another life, Bale could’ve become a fantastic romantic lead performer, as he nails every aspect of that kind of role and has great chemistry with both Ryder and Mathis.
Lasting Impact: This 1994 adaptation holds a place in many people’s hearts and was also nominated for three Academy Awards.
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The Premise: This story is about Jack “Cowboy” Kelly (Bale), a 17-year-old kid selling newspapers in New York, a profession done by kids that are called “newsies.” When the newspaper boss raises the prices, the newsies go on strike to protect their means of living.
How He Steals The Show: He not only is the lead and the metaphorical Sun that every other character and actor orbits, he also dances and sings and does it pretty well. Bale was 17 when he did this movie, and he was still proving his leading man qualities. But the story works thanks to him, as he’s playful, honorable, charismatic and sometimes mischievous.
Lasting Impact: The movie bombed at the box office but became a cult classic on video. Its lasting impact is the fact that it got a Broadway adaptation that has become much more successful than the film itself. The musical was nominated for eight Tony Awards, winning best choreography and best original score.
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- 1791 VOTESPhoto: Studio Ghibli
The Premise: Sophie, a teenage girl, is cursed by a witch and becomes an old lady. She then goes to Howl’s (Bale) castle, where she makes a pact with Calcifer, who’ll break her curse if she breaks his link with Howl.
How He Steals The Show: Bale plays the lead character, Howl. Although he hasn’t done that many animation voice-over jobs, the actor gives the character both warmth and intelligence and shows the same dedication and commitment as he would to a non-animated movie. The actor loved Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, so he offered his services to voice any character in the Japanese animation master's next film, and that's how he ended up being Howl in the English version.
Lasting Impact: Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are still working today, and their film The Boy and the Heron won 2023’s Academy Award for best animated movie. In that film, Bale also has a role, so twenty years later, he’s still collaborating with Miyazaki and the Japanese Animation studio.
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The Premise: This film tells the story of real-life US Vice President Dick Cheney (Bale) from when he was an intern in Washington to when he became one of the most powerful men in the world as President George W. Bush's second in command.
How He Steals The Show: Another incredible physical transformation for Bale who this time gained 40 pounds and got many prosthetics to look like the real Cheney. What’s more important is how he uses his voice and body to become a master of being threatening without actually saying anything that sounds like a threat. The actor creates a three-dimensional character full of contradictions and reflects every side of one of the more divisive political figures in American history.
Lasting Impact: The film is mostly remembered for Bale’s transformation. He earned an Oscar nomination for best performance, and won a Golden Globe. It also showed director Adam McKay was all-in on doing political movies, leaving comedies behind, even if there still was some satire in this film.
- 1953 VOTES
The Premise: Gorr, the God Butcher (Bale), is on a crusade to kill every god in the galaxy, including the god of thunder Thor (Chris Hemsworth). If Gorr wasn’t enough of a rival, Thor also has to deal with his ex-girlfriend Jane (Natalie Portman) who is dying of cancer as she becomes the new Mighty Thor.
How He Steals The Show: Bale is the best thing about a film with some tone and writing problems. He makes audiences feel for Gorr as he loses his daughter and faith, and they understand why he’s getting revenge against the gods. The film doesn’t know if it wants to be a comedy or a horror movie, which ultimately Bale's character who is much scarier and tragic than the rest of the film around him.
Lasting Impact: There were too many expectations about this film after Thor: Ragnarok and the movie didn’t deliver, starting a streak of less popular movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- 203 VOTES
The Premise: Captain Joseph Blocker (Bale) has won and lost many battles against the American indigenous people over the years. When the President asks him to escort Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) back to Montana before he dies of cancer, Blocker can't say no. During the travels, Blocker gets a new appreciation for the people he’s been trying to kill his whole military life.
How He Steals The Show: This performance might be one of Bale’s more internal ever, yet he’s able to show how his relationship with the indigenous people changes. The actor has a lot of dialogue yet its most effective when he says much more through his looks, movements and actions. Although he ends up being one of the good guys, the actor conveys Blocker as more of an antihero who has seen enough war to know what’s really important to fight for.
Lasting Impact: When it was released, the film received accolades for Bale’s and Studi’s performances. It also showed the indigenous people as real characters rather than simplified caricatures.
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- 212 VOTESPhoto: Netflix
The Premise: Investigator Augustus Landor (Bale) is called to resolve a murder that happened at West Point Academy in 1830. While trying to solve the killing, he receives the help of a cadet there named Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling).
How He Steals The Show: Bale can do tortured and conflicted, and he does so here. Bale sells his character’s dark past and sadness, creating a man that is much more tragic and dark than what appears on the page. So much so that a twist at the end makes his performance even better.
Lasting Impact: Bale’s performance is the most notable thing about the film as the character has many demons from his past that he’s still being haunted by. Other than that, the film didn’t have that much repercussion, and it's viewed as a simple gothic-thriller movie with a surprising twist at the end.
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