Hugh Jackman's Best Movie On Rotten Tomatoes Has Nothing To Do With Marvel

Soon, Hugh Jackman will return as Logan in the highly-anticipated "Deadpool & Wolverine," hopefully returning the Marvel Cinematic Universe to glory in the process. If there's one role the Aussie actor is known for, after all, it's Wolverine/Logan, and as "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" taught us all, cramming your movie full of fan-favorite cameos is a recipe for box office success — though, in the latter's case, not necessarily for a good film.

Jackman has spoken about how he saved "Deadpool 3" with a phone call to star Ryan Reynolds, on which he expressed his desire to appear in the movie, prompting the literal "ka-ching" sound in the minds of Reynolds and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. However, even Feige advised Jackman against returning as Wolverine, mainly due to his historic run in the various X-Men films and James Mangold's almost universally beloved "Logan" — a film that seemed to give the character the perfect send-off. Still, the allure of a Logan return was too much to resist, and Wolverine's resurgence was confirmed, prompting harried MCU fans to immediately get over their superhero fatigue-induced stupor.

Look, did Jackman give his best performance in Denis Villeneuve's 2013 thriller "Prisoners?" Yes. But there's no denying his most recognizable role is that of Logan. The man is synonymous with Wolverine, in the same way Robert Downey Jr. is synonymous with Iron Man. That is to say that it's hard to imagine anyone but Jackman playing Logan. But as we all know, just because a role is your most well-known, that doesn't mean your finest film features that character in any capacity, as one quick look at the Rotten Tomatoes ranking of Jackman's films shows.

In a Rotten Tomatoes ranking of Hugh Jackman films, what could possibly be number one? The aforementioned "Prisoners" is surely a strong contender, as is Darren Aronofsky's 2006 romantic drama "The Fountain." But neither can actually claim to be Jackman's highest-rated film. What's that? Surely a Wolverine movie hasn't beaten these critically beloved projects to the top spot? Well, no, the highest-rated Hugh Jackman movie on Rotten Tomatoes is 2019's "Bad Education" — but Wolverine isn't too far behind.

"Bad Education" is a story of small-scale corruption which stars Jackman as school district superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone — who, as chronicled in the New York Magazine article on which the film is based, carried out the largest public school embezzlement in American history. The film, directed by Cory Finley ("Thoroughbreds"), features an impressive ensemble cast that also includes Allison Janney, Geraldine Viswanathan, Alex Wolff, and Ray Romano. But there's no doubt Jackman made the biggest impact, with The Wall Street Journal praising his "delicate and memorable performance" and Rolling Stone calling his turn as Dr. Tassone a "career best."

That certainly seems to be the case as far as Rotten Tomatoes sees it. At the time of writing, "Bad Education" has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Jackman's highest-rated film on the site.

There's a lot to be said when it comes to Rotten Tomatoes rankings. The site that claims there's only two perfect sci-fi movies in the history of cinema might have a few niggles to work out of its rating system. What's more, everyone at this point is surely aware the site is open to manipulation, and as shown in 2023, can and will be hacked by those looking to pad the scores of movies and TV shows that otherwise might not have fared so well.

But in Hugh Jackman's case, it seems the site has finally got something sort of right here. "Bad Education" is clearly one of Jackman's best roles, and deserving of a top spot. This being Rotten Tomatoes, however, the dodginess is never far away, as evidenced by the fact the next two highest-rated movies in Jackman's oeuvre are "Logan" with 93% and "X-Men: Days of Future Past" with 90%. Where's "Prisoners?" Eighth. Right behind "X-Men."

What does this tell us? Well, not a whole lot as Rotten Tomatoes is merely an aggregator that combines all the reviews for a film or TV show and produces a rough percentage score. As such, this isn't really a ranking of Jackman's performances, and more just a list of films he happens to be in that RT has rated based on overall reviews for the movies themselves. Still, it's a sad day when "Prisoners" and the excellent "The Prestige" lose out to three X-Men movies. We'll have to wait and see whether Logan's team-up with Deadpool shunts Denis Villenueve and Christopher Nolan down the list any further.