Every Adam Sandler Movie Ranked Worst To Best
Exploring one of Hollywood's most iconic careers.
How does one even begin to describe Adam Sandler and his work? Perhaps I could kick things off with the statistic that he's been making films for over thirty years, or that as a whole his box office total sits at nearly $3 billion. Or maybe I'd mention his $250 million Netflix deal, or recall his humble beginnings on SNL.
There are many ways to explore Adam Sandler and his influence on modern culture. We all know him as the eternal slacker, the unassuming nobody with mountainous flaws that always fail to overshadow his big heart. We all know how loud and bizarre he can be; how he loves silly rom-coms, sillier accents, and pushes the boundaries of taste wherever it suits him.
Over the course of his career, Sandler has made over forty movies, each ranging from painfully poor to excellent. Unlike many stars in Hollywood, he has vast creative control over his projects, which has allowed him to carve out a very specific style in his work, most of which casts him alongside his famous friends.
Yes, Sandler is many things -- idiosyncratic, crass, humble, excitable and exciting. He often fails to hit the bar he's aiming for (sometimes, he not aiming for one at all), but he always entertains on his own terms, for better and for worse. With that in mind then, as his messy career continues, here's every Adam Sandler movie ranked worst to best.
For brevity’s sake, cameo appearances will be excluded. Some spoilers follow.
41. Going Overboard (1989)
The best part of Going Overboard, Adam Sandler's mercifully obscure and borderline unwatchable debut, is that it allowed the future star to form many connections -- with directors Peter Berg and Steven Brill -- that would shape his career once it finally took off and knew what to do with him.
In Going Overboard, Sandler's charm is nowhere to be found, and neither is his joy. Like the film itself, which follows a comedian hired as a waiter on a cruise ship, he's stranded by empty jokes, an emptier budget, and...a terrorist threat?
Yeah, Sandler's debut is nothing to write home about, and looking back it's probably for the best he was hired by Saturday Night Live a year after its release. Who knows where he would have ended up without it, having just this train wreck (or is that ship wreck?) on his resumé.