Al Pacino Films Ranked: 20 Movies From Worst to Best
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- Al Pacino's filmography is ranked across 20 titles, with the critic placing 'Serpico' (1973) at #3 and the critically savaged 'Manglehorn' (2014) at the bottom of the list.
- 'The Panic in Needle Park' (1971), co-written by Joan Didion, is identified as Pacino's first lead film role, in which he plays a heroin addict overdosing in a sex worker's apartment.
- 'The Devil's Advocate' (1997) used Donald Trump's apartment as a set, according to the critic, lending the satanic tone of the Pacino-as-the-Devil thriller an extra layer of real-world menace.
- 'Heat' (1995) is flagged as the first time Pacino and Robert De Niro appeared on screen together, with their coffee-shop standoff singled out as 'a little gem of unfussy intensity.'
- Pacino stormed off the set of 'Donnie Brasco' (1997), reportedly telling director Mike Newell: 'You mistake my art. You don't value me.'
- Pacino earned his seventh of nine career Oscar nominations for 'Glengarry Glen Ross' (1992), where he plays smooth-talking real-estate shark Ricky Roma opposite Kevin Spacey.
- 'The Irishman' (2019) is noted as Pacino's first collaboration with Martin Scorsese, with the actor cast as Jimmy Hoffa at age 79 — making him the 'new kid on the block' alongside De Niro, Pesci, and Keitel.
Why it matters: The ranking crystallizes how Pacino's screen persona — the shouting, the ego, the Method intensity — is inseparable from the roles that made him a nine-time Oscar nominee, while the 'Donnie Brasco' anecdote and the 'Devil's Advocate' Trump-apartment detail reveal the off-screen clashes and coincidences that have shaped his five-decade career.
