The Everything Aaron Sorkin Ranking

Walk with me.

For the past 30 years, Aaron Sorkin has carved out space as perhaps our most renowned American screenwriter. From A Few Good Men to The West Wing to The Social Network and on, he’s proved himself to be the poet laureate of difficult men with soaring goals, shifting scruples, and varying degrees of self-awareness. With an idealism that can be either admirable or inane, he’s sought to explain concepts as big and unwieldy as Facebook, the media, and the United States government—and while his conclusions haven’t always been precise, they’ve always been compellingly articulated in a patented pitter-patter that feels intoxicating on screen.

With his latest film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, dropping on Netflix this week, we decided to look back on everything he’s done—the movies, the shows, and more—to see how it all stacks up. Hopefully you can give this ranking part of your attention—the minimum amount.

14. The Newsroom

Oh, The Newsroom. It started so well! Will McAvoy’s long, irate explanation as to why America is not the greatest country in the world is righteous in a traditionally Sorkin sense and cynical in a relatively new one. At the time, it felt like the screenwriter was keeping The West Wing’s ideals but filtering in some of the world-weariness of having actually experienced the Bush years rather than spending them with a fantasy Clinton 2.0. To this day, I catch fragments of it floating around TikTok. That “I don’t know what you’re talking about” sure is cathartic!

But Jeff Daniels’s big barnstormer also contains a field’s worth of red flags. Calling millennials the “worst, period, generation, period, ever, period” after outlining a bunch of problems that aren’t their fault; waxing nostalgic about an imagined past that, with 2020 eyes, comes dangerously close to MAGA territory; claiming everything would be solved if we just worshiped at the feet of “great men” like McAvoy and, presumably, Sorkin. The West Wing was about an alternate reality where wishful thinking could be forgiven. The Newsroom lectured about the very recent past with 20/20 hindsight, which McAvoy’s team of reporters and producers dispensed with great sanctimony. It does not, to use a very un-McAvoy bit understatement, work out very well.

The Newsroom has its acolytes, Quentin Tarantino famously among them. But even to Sorkin fans, its three seasons on HBO was a grueling slog. Like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip before it, the show has a poor choice of venue: Of all the news formats to make a symbol of the tenuous integrity of journalism, the discourse nadir of cable news is undoubtedly the worst. The backdrop only makes Sorkin’s typical flaws, like casual misogyny and a boss-employee workplace romance that ages like milk, stand out all the more. The show’s central revelation is that if people only behaved like they got out of a time machine from about two years in the future, the world would be a better place. If only The Newsroom itself had the perspective its characters did. —Alison Herman

13. Malice

Call it the sophomore slump: After A Few Good Men in 1992, Aaron Sorkin wrote Malice, a movie you’ve maybe never heard of. It stars Bill Pullman, Alec Baldwin, and Nicole Kidman and is generally a ’90s thriller—emphasis on ’90s—about a surgeon with a god complex. However, an absurd twist and an unnecessary B-plot about a college campus rapist make most of the proceedings questionable. The movie really only sings during, unsurprisingly, deposition scenes that are echoed in Steve Jobs and The Social Network. That’s not to say this movie is bad, though—you could do much worse than catching this pulp-a-thon on TNT on a Sunday afternoon. It’s just not elite Sorkin, is the thing. —Andrew Gruttadaro

12. Molly’s Game

Going from social media giants to rich celebrities playing high-stakes poker might seem like a weird pivot for Sorkin, but his 2017 directorial debut Molly’s Game fits right in his wheelhouse. Sorkin needs the right material, and characters, to match his dialogue-heavy scripts—and whatever your opinion of poker, it’s a game of undeniable skill that requires deception and on-the-fly probability calculations. (It’s no wonder that perhaps the best poker film ever made came from Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who currently display their Sorkin-like penchant for hammy dialogue in Billions.)

Molly’s Game is Peak Sorkin, for better and for worse. The film thrives when retracing the real-life story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), who went from being a potential Olympic skier to the organizer of star-studded poker underground games, and how she deals with the cards she’s dealt—including clientele with mafia ties, the FBI, and her own drug addiction. It’s exciting stuff, but Molly’s Game is also hamstrung by Sorkin’s most aggravating tendencies. A scene where Kevin Costner shows up as Bloom’s father to patronizingly psychoanalyze her on a park bench is so unbelievably bad it gives The Newsroom’s infamous Bin Laden pilot moment a run for its money. But if you can excuse such Sorkinian indulgences, don’t be afraid to go all in. —Miles Surrey

11. Aaron Sorkin’s Cameos

Some of you may not know this, but our guy fashions himself as a lil’ shiny-haired Alfred Hitchcock. In nearly every movie or show he’s written, Aaron Sorkin has made a cheeky cameo. Usually in a bar. Why? I don’t know, it’s not my job to parse people’s kinks. But it is my job to judge these cameos, and I gotta say, I enjoy ’em. As a bit, it’s a little played out—but that’s what makes it endearing. —Gruttadaro

A Mini-Ranking of All of Aaron Sorkin’s Cameos

8. Aaron Sorkin as “Man in Crowd” in The West Wing: He’s not really doing anything; just listening to a blues guitarist play during an inauguration.

7. Aaron Sorkin as “Man in Bar” in Molly’s Game: I’ll be honest, this was the only cameo I couldn’t find on rewatch. This Aaron gets extra points for disappearing into the scene.

6. Aaron Sorkin as “Man at Bar” in Sports Night: We’ve yet to arrive at the talking cameos, but in this one, he smokes a cigarette.

5. Aaron Sorkin as “Ad exec” in The Social Network: He’s one of the guys when Eduardo is pitching The Facebook early on who gets to be like, “Hey, what’s the deal with this sweatshirt-wearing fella over here?” In terms of performance, it’s not bad; in terms of a cameo, Sorkin’s too recognizable at this point for it to be clever.

4. Aaron Sorkin as “Aide in Bar” in The American President: Chomping down on a cocktail olive, Sorkin’s character yammers on about how the president’s crime bill is losing support in the Senate. It’s a plot point; big of the screenwriter to let the screenwriter deliver it on screen.

3. Aaron Sorkin as “Aaron Sorkin” in 30 Rock: One of two cameos in which he plays himself, Sorkin really nails this role. There’s a meta walk-and-talk with Liz Lemon, Sorkin talks about being afraid of Nick Lachey, and then he delivers this line: “We don’t need two metaphors, that’s bad writing … not that it matters.” Good job by all.

2. Aaron Sorkin as “Man in Bar” in A Few Good Men: Is there a term for when an incredibly minor character says something that prompts an epiphany within the main character? Deus ex talkina? Anyway, that’s what this is: Sorkin’s “Man in Bar,” an apparent lawyer, is chatting—very loudly—about how he bullied a defendant into settling. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is sitting within earshot (who isn’t?) and you see, that’s the sort of dishonorable nonsense he’s also an expert at. He feels shame, and it’s this moment—seeing himself reflected in this Aaron Sorkin avatar—that convinces him not to settle the case against Dawson and Downey. It’s the biggest role Sorkin has played in one of his movies.

1. Aaron Sorkin as “Aaron Sorkin” in Entourage: I decided not to rewatch this brief Season 6 arc of Entourage and instead let my 20-year-old self cast the judgment. And guess what: 20-year-old me remembers this being pretty dope. Sorkin was all business and I’m pretty sure the story line peaked with Gary Cole driving his car through a house and Sorkin and Arie visiting him in jail. The aughts were friggin’ sick, bro, we’re gonna live forever. —Gruttadaro

10. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Do you think Aaron Sorkin is funny? Quick-witted, sure. Engaging, of course. But funny? How one answers that question determines how you feel about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And given that show’s longstanding reputation as an infamous flop, the consensus is a resounding “no.”

The fall of 2006 was a wild time. Sorkin was coming off the most successful network drama of the early prestige era; Tina Fey was graduating from her post atop the writers’ room at Saturday Night Live, the first woman in history to hold that position. Both would follow up their landmark successes lightly fictionalizing the comedy institution—Fey with the dense, meta, absurdist sitcom 30 Rock, Sorkin with the hourlong drama Studio 60. (Even the shows’ titles were mirrors.) Believe it or not, the showrunner with actual experience in both SNL and the art of joke-writing enjoyed better success.

So, no, Studio 60 is not funny, an original sin a show about a bunch of comedy writers could never overcome. Sorkin’s tendency toward self-importance works well in the White House, where the stakes are high and the pompousness is earned. When it’s transplanted to L.A., it leads to unfortunate clips that go viral more than a decade later. Nothing gets the laughs going like being sanctimoniously reminded you’re in “the Paris Opera House of American television.” And for the love of God, if you have Amanda Peet in your cast, don’t have a male character address her as “kitten”! —Herman

9. Charlie Wilson’s War

In Sorkinland, the workplace is where we find our families and pursue our highest ideals. In Charlie Wilson’s War, the workplace is also the booze-and-women-fueled office of a little-known Texas congressman whose funding of the Afghan mujahideen ends the Cold War but creates a dangerous power vacuum in the region—or so the last 10 minutes imply, sort of. Can a character written by Aaron Sorkin and played by Tom Hanks ever be morally dubious? Does anyone involved even want him to be? Questions for another movie! Please now enjoy Philip Seymour Hoffman smashing a window while quoting Gilbert and Sullivan:

—Amanda Dobbins

8. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Before this movie was directed by Aaron Sorkin, it was going to be directed by Steven Spielberg—a fact that is hard to forget at certain stylistically challenged moments. Lincoln this is not. But as a marriage of writer and history, of ideas and execution, it’s hard to think of a more Sorkin-y subject than the Chicago 7 trial. Boomer idealism! Courtroom shenanigans! Unambiguous rights and wrongs! Men who embrace decency and are applauded—literally, in the climactic scene, for at least three minutes—for it! The entries to come on this list prove that Sorkin thrives with some sort of filter, be it logistical or directorial. But for better and for worse, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is Sorkin uncut. —Dobbins

7. Steve Jobs

Weirdly, Steve Jobs has somewhat been lost to time, even though it only came out in 2015. Maybe that’s because of when and how it came out: off the heels of The Social Network, among several other works that attempted to tackle the Apple cofounder’s legacy. Sorkin’s stock had never been higher, a collaboration with Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender sounded like a dream, and it had to be amazing compared to the Ashton Kutcher joint. The expectations were perhaps too overstated, and the movie’s legacy is understated as a result.

But despite how it seems, the movie is good. Even if the daughter drama of Sorkin’s script doesn’t entirely land, his time-lapse through Jobs’s life and career—using product launches as checkpoints in a 25-year history— hums, especially when Fassbender’s Jobs is given the opportunity to grandstand. (The scene when Jobs is fired from Apple is pure Sorkin.) Jobs is a perfect Sorkin protagonist—blustery, principled, difficult, brilliant. And the movie on the whole is sharp, acerbic, and cleverly built. It’s not the screenwriter’s best work, but it’s certainly not his worst, and it’s probably time to look back on the movie and give it its due. —Gruttadaro

6. Sports Night

The laugh track—you’ve heard about it? Sorkin didn’t want it, ABC did, they battled over it in the press for the first season instead of doing things like developing the female characters or finding an audience. A year later, the behind-the-scenes-of-SportsCenter comedy was canceled, and these days it’s mostly regarded as a beloved deep cut, the place where Sorkin tried out all his workplace plot lines before reusing them on The West Wing. Fair, mostly. But four shows and countless walk-and-talks later, it’s still a little magical to watch that first jolt of chemistry between Dan (Josh Charles) and Casey (Peter Krause), or to feel that sheepish swell of pride when Isaac (Robert Guillaume) tells Dana (Felicity Huffman) that she made the right call. In a career dedicated to romanticizing workplaces, Sports Night is still the first love. —Dobbins

5. The American President

It’s the single best speech that Sorkin has ever written, and that’s on a list that includes Jack Nicholson’s “You Need Me on That Wall,” Martin Sheen’s Latin tirade, and the opening scene of The Social Network. You also won’t catch me complaining about a screwball-lite romantic comedy starring Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, and a majority of what would become the West Wing cast. “It’s a Virginia ham!”

—Dobbins

4. Moneyball

The story of the analytics revolution in baseball and the man who fearlessly ushered it in is right down the middle (pun intended) for Aaron Sorkin. The man loves nothing more than a monologue explaining an esoteric concept—or an iconoclast who turns out to be right and gets to shove it in the face of the status quo—and Moneyball has that in spades. Over stock footage of Eric Chávez and Scott Hatteberg. It’s wonderful and, as with all great Sorkin, highly rewatchable.

But Moneyball is also Sorkin’s warmest work. The personal story that Sorkin tells about Billy Beane—from his failure as a pro to his professional angst to his relationship with his precocious daughter—brings a human element to the movie that’s not quite present elsewhere. (Sorkin certainly understands humanity, but it rarely seems like he likes humans.) That rare warmth makes Moneyball stand out on his résumé. It also doesn’t hurt that the movie is responsible for a Top 3 Brad Pitt. —Gruttadaro

3. The Social Network

It wasn’t Ben Mezrich’s dishy book about the founding and early years of Facebook, The Accidental Billionaires, that Aaron Sorkin was tasked with adapting for the big screen a decade ago. It was that book’s 14-page proposal. Speaking to Deadline in January 2011, as he made the awards season rounds to chat about his subsequent Oscar-nominated adapted script for The Social Network, Sorkin said that he had needed only to read three pages into Mezrich’s original proposal to know he was extremely into the project. And you could say pretty much the same thing about reading the crisp, snide, prescient screenplay that resulted. From the savage ping-pong of the movie’s opening scene to the melancholy glow of a computer screen that ends it, The Social Network is hyper-specific in its setting yet timeless in its message, grand in its ambition yet precise in its aim.

Sorkin’s script can make (multiple!) staid depositions crackle. His staccato dialogue echoes the cadences of how a mad nerd’s keyboard might sound in the middle of a coding sesh. The Social Network contains lines that have never stopped ringing in our collective ears since they were first spoken on-screen with chill by Jesse Eisenberg (“If you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook”) or with chill by Justin Timberlake (“You know what’s cool …?”). But it also, delightfully, has smaller, less remarkable but cruelly revealing asides that justify repeat viewings, as when one of the Winklevoss twins tells a stenographer, in a tone that suggests he says this a lot: “Cameron, spelled the usual way.”

In another 2011 interview that he gave shortly before winning the Oscar for The Social Network, Sorkin explained that he loves writing this sort of behind-the-scenes content, and that his goal when showrunning The West Wing was to portray “the two minutes before and after what we see on CNN.” With The Social Network, Sorkin accomplished the first half of that, but 10 years later it feels like we’re still stuck in the unending aftermath of Facebook going live. Which might be why, lately, Sorkin has been offering to write a follow-up movie about the increasingly powerful and embattled corporation. All the best horror films ought to get a sequel, you know? —Katie Baker

2. A Few Good Men

You can’t handle the truth!

It’s a line you know. It’s a line your parents know. It’s a line your children will know. Delivered by Jack Nicholson to Tom Cruise, it’s one of cinema’s most famous moments.

But iconic movie lines don’t become iconic just because of the words within. Context matters. And everything surrounding “You can’t handle the truth!” makes it what it is: Kaffee’s journey from sniveling suit to vigilante for justice; the slog his team of attorneys goes through trying to exonerate their clients; the heat of the moment, and the fact that both Cruise and Nicholson are yelling at each other at full volume; and most importantly, the monologue that follows the line. Because Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup is right: The truth is that ugly things happen in the name of protecting our freedom; that we’re willing to condone grotesque acts if it means the continuance of our normal lives; that honor and morality are good, but survival is better. And facing that truth, well, it’s hard to handle. Aaron Sorkin’s brilliance as a writer lies not only in his ability to drum up one-liners—but in his knack for surrounding them with profound ideas and compelling characters. —Gruttadaro

1. The West Wing

If you’re looking for the season breakdown, it’s 2, 3, 4, 1. (We don’t count the post-Sorkin years.) But The West Wing is an achievement in the whole. It has all the Sorkin hallmarks, yes—the warp-speed dialogue, the deeply principled men, the decency politics, the fathers and daughters and classic rock references. President Josiah Bartlet, as played by Martin Sheen, is the most fully realized of Sorkin’s many liberal American fantasies. But over 88 episodes, he has the room to become a human, too, with flaws (an overinflated sense of ego, a related belief in American exceptionalism) and preferences (Notre Dame football, The Lion in Winter). He starts wars and yells at God, but he also has a bad back and likes to call the Butterball hotline for kicks. It helps that Bartlet is surrounded by one of the most accomplished television casts in modern history; watching John Spencer, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Rob Lowe, and Allison Janney figure out the rhythms of a Sorkin office is like [insert Sorkin-esque Sports Metaphor about the 1927 Yankees here]. It’s a family you want to believe in, not least because they’re just better at this—running a country, making a network TV show—than anybody else.

In 2020 it’s hard not to dwell on The West Wing’s naiveté, and yet I’ve recently found myself overwhelmed by the simple idea that people, let alone politicians, might define themselves by their contributions to others. “Because it’s something we pass on,” Bartlet tells his young aide Charlie, before handing over a carving knife that his father gave to him, and his grandfather before that. The knife was made by Paul Revere. Some dreams are still worth sharing. —Dobbins