Summary

• Ed Harris proves his acting range with intense villain roles and heartfelt characters.
• Harris has a broad range of talents that included performances in over-the-top action hits and emotional dramas.
• Harris excels in historic films like Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, and Pollock, portraying real-life figures with depth.

With a career spanning almost 50 years, Ed Harris has proven himself as one of the best actors in Hollywood, as he’s excelled in countless roles across varied genres, including action, comedy, drama, and sci-fi. With a skill for playing highly menacing villains, Harris was also just as convincing in heartfelt, vulnerable roles that showcased the incredible scope of his acting range. While some viewers may recognize Harris for his acclaimed television roles, such as in Westworld, Harris was best known for his many powerful performances on the big screen.

A four-time Academy Award nominee, the fact that Harris has never won an Oscar is one of the great travesties in Hollywood, as he's proven his skill time and time again. With roles in over-the-top action movies like The Rock, playing a sociopathic control freak in The Truman Show, or as an AIDS-suffering patient in The Hours, it’s hard to think of any other actor with a career as varied a career as him. While Harris has taken up more than 100 acting roles, one thing that united them all was intensely committed performances.

10 Stepmom (1998)

Ed Harris as Luke Harrison

At its core, the success of Stepmom rested on the two lead performances of Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, but Ed Harris proved just how good he was in a supporting role as Luke Harrison. Harris played the divorced father whose terminally ill ex-wife struggled to come to terms with accepting his new partner, who will soon become their children's stepmother. A heartfelt tearjerker by director Chris Columbus, Stepmom may be too melodramatic for some, but when it hits, it really hits.

Stepmom explored themes of family, jealousy, and acceptance, and Harris did a great job at playing a man caught in the middle of wanting to do what’s best for both his ex-wife and his new fiancé. A funny, heartwarming, and at times deeply sad film, Stepmom may hit all the obvious beats of a standard family drama, but it does it with such effectiveness that it’s easy to forgive its faults. Stepmom was a great story about learning how to be a parent, forge friendships, and accept the hardships of life.

9 Snowpiercer (2013)

Ed Harris as Wilfred

Before directing the Best Picture-winner Parasite, director Bong Jong-ho delivered a post-apocalyptic action film called Snowpiercer that included all the same kind of social commentary Jong-ho was known for. With Ed Harris as Wilfred, the creator of the Snowpiercer train, the film depicted the last remnants of humanity who, after global warming had covered the Earth in snow, were doomed to live aboard the train to survive. However, rather than bring people closer together, this disaster divided them further, and lower-class passengers were forced to stay in the back of the train while the rich enjoyed luxury at the front.

Snowpiercer was a clever social critique that blended satirical commentary with an action-packed story as Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) led a revolution that would gradually see him make his way to the front of the train to confront Wilfred. Harris gave an exceptional performance as Wilfred, whose charisma and presence were apparent from the second he appeared on-screen. As a genius capable of building a train as advanced as the Snowpiercer, Wilfred was also a fascist dictator with all the qualities of a sociopath who revealed there was more to the rebellion than even Curtis knew.

8 The Rock (1996)

Ed Harris as General Frank Hummel