5 Most Underrated Jack Black Movies

The secret to a huge payday at the box office? These days, the magic name is "Jack Black." Between the record-breaking success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (where he voiced the big baddie Bowser) and now the ridiculous performance of "A Minecraft Movie," Black is the man on top and can't be stopped. It's also unsurprising, considering he's been one of the most recognizable comedy faces in Hollywood for decades, with roles in films like "Saving Silverman," "Shallow Hal," "School of Rock," "Nacho Libre," "Tropic Thunder," the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise, and the recent "Jumanji" reboot movies (in addition to his band Tenacious D) keeping him a superstar.

But what about the roles that people might not be as familiar with? What about those hidden gems in Black's filmography that don't get as much attention because they aren't as showy as some of his more notable works? In honor of his continued domination at the box office, we've gathered a list of his five most underrated movies. An important note: determining whether or not something is "underrated" is wholly subjective. A movie like "High Fidelity" seems like it's still a relatively unknown film compared to something like "Kung Fu Panda," but it was still popular enough to have justified a spin-off streaming series in 2020 (and won a lot of critics awards), so there was a method to the reasoning in determining what was mentioned. If one of your favorites isn't here, be glad because it likely means it's already too famous to be featured.

When Richard Linklater directed "School of Rock," he helped transition Jack Black into a mainstream comedy God. When the duo reunited eight years later for the much darker and far less family-friendly "Bernie," they made a movie destined to be a cult hit despite the critical acclaim. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert loved the story about Bernie Tide (Black), the assistant funeral director who may or may not have killed a wealthy (and mean) widow named Marjorie (a hilarious Shirley MacLaine) and stuffed her body in a freezer, writing in his review, "It is surely one of the performances of the year. I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it's like nothing he's done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role."

Linklater has often called the film his take on "Fargo," and with the murder mystery and dark humor at its center, he's right. To make things even more interesting, Bernie Tiede was ... well, is a real person, and the film is based on very real events that took place in a small Texas town. All the same, "Bernie" is one of the best projects in Black's filmography and a must-watch for anyone who loves dark comedies with a sprinkle of true crime.

David Frankel has a pretty impressive filmography, having directed huge hits like "The Devil Wears Prada," "Marley & Me," and "Hope Springs." But he's also made some not-so-huge-hits like "Miami Rhapsody," "Collateral Beauty," "One Chance," and the painfully underseen "Jerry & Marge Go Large." But the film that is oft-forgotten is "The Big Year," a comedy starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson as a trio of men competing against one another in a birding contest. 

Based on "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession" by Mark Obmascik, the film follows its three leads as they attempt to see who can spot and identify the greatest number of bird species in North America (north of Mexico) in a single calendar year (an undertaking that dedicated birders refer to as a Big Year). It seems that audiences weren't confident a story about bird-watching could be entertaining, which means another great Black role went unnoticed by the mainstream and the film was a box office bomb.

Black's character, Brad Harris, is a software engineer who, at 36-years-old, finds himself living at home with his parents on the heels of a divorce and an abandoned career. However, thanks to his innate skill of being able to identify any bird species by sound alone, he's hopeful his Big Year will be successful and he can finally prove to his parents that he's not a total failure. Black's "aw, shucks" charm shown in movies like "The Holiday" is well on display here (especially when he meets fellow birder Ellie, played by Rashida Jones), but there's still plenty of room for bird-watching hijinks. Perhaps it was the expectation that the film's comedy mainstays would be going for broke with slapstick mayhem that hurt the movie's reception, but "The Big Year" has a whole lot of heart.

Cinephiles may be able to recognize Noah Baumbach and name all of his movies at the drop of a hat, but general audiences still aren't hip to the prince of indie dramedies. Baumbach is one of the best at crafting stories around "unlikable characters," and it could be argued that "Margot at the Wedding" is one of the best examples of this talent. (It's also why so many people hate this movie.) The film centers on Margot (Nicole Kidman), a successful albeit borderline narcissistic writer who is visiting her family for the wedding of her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her fiancé Malcolm (Jack Black), bringing her 11-year-old son Claude (Zane Pais) on the trip. This causes some chaos, naturally, but that chaos births pitch-dark comedy with a sense of humor so bleak it fits right at home with the filmography of someone like Todd Solondz.

At the same time, "Margot at the Wedding" is a musing on the stewing selfishness that is slowly poisoning American society by way of capitalism and an emphasis on materialism. Nevertheless, Baumbach clearly loves these characters, even if they hate themselves and each other. Black, meanwhile, delivers one of the best performances of his career in this film, which is a dark and twisted subversion of what audiences usually expect of him. (No spoilers here; you'll just have to watch it and see for yourselves.) This particular movie is to Black what "Uncut Gems" is to Adam Sandler, and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.

Hey, did you know that Jack Black starred in the directorial feature debut of future "Better Call Saul" star Bob Odenkirk? Of course, real ones know that Odenkirk had been a comedy mainstay for decades before his serious TV role would come calling, but in his first feature as a director, "Melvin Goes to Dinner," he essentially made the lovechild between "My Dinner with Andre" and "The Office" if it grew up and wanted to be Kevin Smith. An adaptation of Michael Blieden's stage play "Phyro-Giants!" (with the playwright returning to pen the screenplay in addition to starring in the eponymous role), the film is about Melvin, a med school dropout who makes dinner plans with an old friend after an accidental phone call connects them. As the night goes on, the number of people involved in the dinner grows, and grows ... and grows, and the result is a who's who of comedy greats.

The dinner is filled with conversations among friends discussing everything from infidelity to mortality, mental illnesses, how to get through it all, and a guy in heaven wearing a Wizards jersey. Black doesn't have the largest role in the film, but that's something he has in common with Jenna Fischer, Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig, the Sklar Brothers, Scott Aukerman, Wendy Rae Fowler, Ron Lynch, "Drunk History" creator and host Derek Waters, and Marc Evan Jackson. For what was likely a day-player role, it's not bad company to be in. Be advised, the film is absolutely a time capsule of 2003 — for better and for worse — but for those who can get past that, it's a hell of a fun watch.

Before Mike White was terrorizing rich white people at the international resorts of "The White Lotus," he was a screenwriter cutting his teeth in indie comedies, many of them starring Jack Black. Before the duo exploded in popularity thanks to the one-two punch of "School of Rock" and "Nacho Libre," White dissected the privilege of a wealthy, white high schooler who was failed by the system for the first time in his life when he learns his school counselor sent the wrong transcripts with his application for Harvard, essentially dooming him to stay in his hometown in "Orange County." The film marked the breakthrough lead performance for star Colin Hanks as aspiring author Shaun Brumder, with Black playing his burnout brother Lance (who has a penchant for passing out and entering scenes without any pants on).

Released by MTV, the film was only a minor success at the box office. Paired with its middling critical reception, "Orange County" doesn't have the popular legacy it deserves. As Lance, Black gives a delightfully funny performance as the stoner failson with a conscience, even if he does totally burn down an entire admissions building because he was too busy getting it on. Folks likely expected something bigger and flashier at the time. Over two decades later, though, "Orange County" remains a truthful musing on the complicated relationship creative people have with the place they grew up — a sentiment that would later be echoed in far more acclaimed films like "Lady Bird."