10 Best Andrew Garfield Movies & TV Shows, Ranked

For the past two decades, Andrew Garfield has stood out as one of the most charming and talented actors that Britain has to offer. Over the course of his career, he's proven himself to be constantly eager to take on new challenges, appearing in a Catholicism-soaked period drama one moment and a sprightly superhero flick the next. You never know exactly what he's going to take on next, except that he's guaranteed to bring a certain boy-next-door charisma to every performance. 

After making his on-screen debut in 2005's teen comedy "Sugar Rush," he catapulted to stardom with a string of well-received leading roles (and, of course, an appearance on the long-running science-fiction program "Doctor Who," a rite of passage for any British actor). Garfield is no stranger to awards season, as he has received nominations at the Academy Awards, Emmys, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Tonys. And while not every project of his is a slam dunk, a lot of them are, and all are improved by his presence. Here are his best films and TV shows, ranked from good to great with both general critical census and our personal opinions in mind.

There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned, reach-for-the-tissues British weepy drama. In "We Live in Time," Andrew Garfield stars as Tobias, an unassuming Weetabix sales rep who falls in love with an ambitious young chef, Almut (Florence Pugh), after she hits him with her car. (As "Back to the Future" has taught us, there's nothing like a near-fatal collision with a pedestrian to jump-start a romance.) But although that's when they first cross paths, we actually meet them much further along into their relationship; "We Live in Time" doesn't follow a traditional narrative structure, instead hopping back and forth to capture moments of their developing love story and, tragically, Almut's recurring cancer diagnoses. 

While we don't follow their relationship chronologically, the chemistry between Garfield and Pugh is strong enough that no matter where we pop in. We can feel their connection and the love that they share. Pugh gets the showier part, a young woman staring down her mortality and desperately trying to build a legacy for her daughter to remember, but Garfield is equally effective as her quiet, compassionate partner.

This isn't even an Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie — not really. He's only in the final third of the film, and during that time, he's sharing a crowded screen with his two Spider-Man compatriots, Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire. But even so, Garfield manages to make the most of his brief time in this Multiverse-bending addition to the Marvel canon, showcasing the likeability factor that served as his Spider-Man films' saving grace. When Peter Parker's (Holland) best friends are trying to find him, Ned (Jacob Batalon) ends up opening a portal using Doctor Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) sling ring. The good news is that he manages to find Peter Parker — two of them, in fact — but they're not the one he's looking for.

In "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Garfield highlights the best qualities of his interpretation of the character, quipping with the other Peters and bemoaning his lack of classic villains. In a lot of ways, this is his Spider-Man's redemption; not only does he get the chance to save the girl without snapping her neck this time, his appearance in this film proves once and for all that any problems that plagued his beleaguered Spider-Man outings were not on him. Garfield is blameless.

The first in a made-for-TV trilogy, "Red Riding: 1974" stars Andrew Garfield as a journalist who ends up becoming fascinated by (okay, obsessed with) a series of disturbing child murders that have plagued his Yorkshire community for years. Naturally, he does what all good reporters do and starts investigating, but it isn't long before he winds up in way over his head. 

Although "Red Riding: 1974" may not turn out splendidly for his character (he's only in the first of three films, so draw your own conclusions), it was enough to put Garfield on the map as a screen presence who could go toe-to-toe with the likes of Sean Bean and Rebecca Hall. "Red Riding: 1974" is one of his early projects that has gone under the radar for most audiences, but its slow burn of a true crime thriller deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence of high-profile counterparts like "Mare of Easttown" and "True Detective." It even has a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

"99 Homes" may not be the biggest film of Andrew Garfield's career, but it is one of his most well-regarded. In it, he stars as Dennis, a construction worker living in Florida during the Great Recession who finds himself in dire straits. He loses his job and his home in quick succession, leaving him unable to take care of his young son and ailing mother. And, as so often happens, someone comes along and preys on that desperation. In the case of "99 Homes," it's Rick (Michael Shannon), a real estate shark who spots blood in the water, offering to help out Dennis in exchange for his help with the business — namely, the eviction part. 

A devastating evisceration of the corporate cruelty of capitalism run amok that led to America's defining economic downturn of the 21st century, "99 Homes" features standout performances from both Garfield and Shannon, who leave nothing on the table in its morality play. This is for sure not Garfield's most likable role, but that doesn't make it any less emotionally resonant, as we watch him make choices that compromise his integrity in trying to stay afloat.

You know how there are movies that make you feel so sad that you don't even cry, you just sit there in the theater, almost as though you've been hollowed out? That's "Never Let Me Go." Based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, the film revolves around a trio of students (played by Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, and Carey Mulligan) at a restrictive, isolating boarding school. But as they come of age, they are allowed to interact with the larger world, and it's there that they learn the truth about their existence: They've been bred to serve as spare parts, and they will eventually be forced to donate organs until they have nothing left to give. 

Each of the three deals with this realization in different but heartbreakingly human ways. Tommy (Garfield) clings to the rumor that if a clone demonstrates that they are in love, they will be spared — something that is in love must have a soul. Bleak and beautiful, "Never Let Me Go" allows Garfield to display a raw emotional power lying just beneath the surface. Although the film centers on Kathy (Mulligan) and her experiences, Garfield's barely suppressed rage is a perfect contrast to her quiet resignation.

Andrew Garfield is no stranger to the theater. In 2012, he played Biff Loman in "Death of a Salesman" opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, and in 2017, he took on the lead role of Prior Walter in "Angels in America" on the West End and on Broadway. He was nominated for a Tony for both performances, and he won for best lead actor with "Angels in America." But these were straight plays, and his ability to headline a musical had gone largely untested — until he signed on to play Jonathan Larson in "tick, tick ... BOOM!"

Obsessed with birthing his own musical, Jonathan Larson lives in a perpetual frenzy of writing, composing, and attempting to juggle interpersonal relationships. And as he desperately reaches for immortality, we as viewers are grimly aware of how little time he actually has left — Larson died of an aortic dissection the day before the first performance of "Rent," the show that would cement his legacy in Broadway history. With tousled hair and wild eyes, Garfield brings to life the manic energy of the playwright, playing each impressively staged musical number as though he's bursting at the seams. The performance earned him his second Academy Award nomination, after "Hacksaw Ridge" five years earlier. (Which, by the way, you may be wondering where that film is on the list. Short answer: It's not on the list, because despite Garfield's strong performance, we tend to think it's actually a pretty bad movie. Sorry, "Hacksaw Ridge" enthusiasts.)

"Boy A" is Andrew Garfield's first starring role in a film, and it's a doozy. He plays the titular Boy A, who, in his youth, was part of a high-profile criminal trial that gripped the nation after he and a friend killed one of their classmates in cold blood. Now on the cusp of adulthood, he is no longer deemed a threat to society and released from juvenile detention, left to navigate the outside world and attempt to keep his true identity a secret with only the help of a caring social worker (Peter Murran). 

There's an immediate cognitive dissonance at play in "Boy A"; when we see this mild-mannered, sensitive young man, it's hard to imagine that he could ever be capable of committing murder. And indeed, he genuinely seems to have turned over a new leaf. But ironically, it's a random act of altruism — he and a work colleague happen upon a car accident, and he pulls a young girl from the car to safety — that threatens to tear down the quiet life he's built for himself. With this understated yet emotionally evocative performance, Garfield shows what he's capable of as an actor, and it's no wonder that "Boy A" quickly led to a promising career.

How could anyone maintain their faith when confronted with vile acts carried out in the name of their religion? On "Under the Banner of Heaven," based on the true-crime novel of the same name by Jon Krakauer, Andrew Garfield plays Jeb Pyre, a devout Mormon police detective who is shaken to his core when put in charge of the investigation of a brutal double-murder that involves a young mother and her infant child. This is Utah in the 1980s, and these kinds of cases don't come around every day. The deeper Pyre digs into the case, the more he comes face to face with the darker side of his religion, as a shady polygamist sect led by the Rafferty family seems to be involved in the crime. 

Garfield handles all of the policing bits of business just fine, but where he really excels is in the depiction of a pious man who is beginning to deeply question his faith. By the nature of the true-crime miniseries narrative structure, the details of the case are front and center, but Garfield crafts such a compelling character arc that we can't help but be thoroughly engrossed in his personal journey, as his loss of faith brings him into conflict with his wife, his church, and his community at large.

In 17th-century Japan, Christian missionaries are prohibited from acting on their faith. If they are caught, they have two choices — apostasy or death. And yet, for some reason, Jesuit priest Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) remains active in the country ... until he goes missing and, equally inexplicably, the Portuguese priests Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) make the decision to travel to Japan and attempt to locate their lost mentor. We know that Martin Scorsese sometimes uses his films to work through his Catholic upbringing, but this is even more Catholic-y than usual — and it took the legendary director nearly 30 years to get it off the ground.

What follows is a film that may not be for everyone. It's quiet, meditative, and takes its time getting to the point. But it's also unexpectedly captivating, as we watch Garfield's Rodrigues grapple with what it means to be Christian — if it's possible that the Christian thing to do may be to verbally deny your faith? With gorgeous cinematography, thought-provoking philosophical content, and understated leading performances, "Silence" is sort of the classic example of a film where you get out of it what you're willing to put into it.

If you're looking at the above image from "The Social Network," chances are you're hearing the dialogue from one of the film's most memorable scenes, where Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) confronts Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) about the dilution of his Facebook shares. "You better lawyer up, a**hole," he says. "Because I'm not coming back for 30%. I'm coming back for everything." 10/10, we have no notes.

Although Jesse Eisenberg is the star of "The Social Network" as the profoundly unlikable founder of social media behemoth Facebook, there are moments — like the one above — where Garfield threatens to steal the entire movie out from under him. His performance as Zuckerberg's more popular roommate and collaborator is packed full of charm, and while he's firmly in the supporting character territory, out of everyone in the film, he is the most memorable. Was he robbed of an Academy Award nomination? Yes, absolutely. Although, it may have come as some consolation that he was nominated for "The Social Network" at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes.