Jamie Foxx's Most Memorable Roles, Ranked

Actor, comedian, and musician Jamie Foxx is the kind of multi-talented star that Hollywood doesn't see much anymore. Born Eric Marlon Bishop, he adopted his famous stage name early in his career, inspired by the legendary comic Redd Foxx. He used it to gain notoriety on the comedy circuit first, then as a cast member of "In Living Color" in the early 1990s before his transition to the big screen.

In addition to his on-screen performances, though, Foxx has also released several albums of his own music, the first of which landed on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994. His movie career took a little longer to take off, but his day finally came after a string of well-reviewed performances in the mid 2000s. After winning an Academy Award, Foxx established himself as one of the most well-respected and talented actors in Tinseltown. 

A versatile actor who can impress playing just about anyone, Foxx has had roles in gritty crime dramas, soulful biopics, and bombastic superhero movies. But which are his most memorable? Read on to find out.

"White House Down" may not have won the battle for best Presidential action movie of 2013, but it wasn't because of its cast. While "Olympus Has Fallen," the similar movie released the same year, featured Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman as the President of the United States, "White House Down" had its own award-winner playing the leader of the free world, and it was Jamie Foxx.

As President James Sawyer, Foxx comes under attack from terrorists and is only saved thanks to the efforts of Capitol police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum). Together and on their own, President Sawyer and Cale must fight back and retake the White House — and the nation — from terrorist control. 

A classic old school action movie, "White House Down" is held aloft by Foxx, who brings a coolness and swagger that you might not expect from the President of the United States. Noted critic Roger Ebert gave Foxx high praise, calling his version of the U.S. President "lot of fun ... expressing a deeply humane political vision, yet with a true politician's common touch." Noting that the resemblance — physical and otherwise — to then-current President Obama was anything but coincidence, he cited the cast as the reason to watch the otherwise ordinary action movie.

"Just Mercy" seemed to come and go with all too little fanfare when it arrived in 2019, which is something of a mystery considering its cast. At the top are Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, and they're joined by Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson, and O'Shea Jackson, Jr.. Foxx takes the role of a real life figure — one of many he's played in his career — in this dramatic true story of a wrongfully convicted man whose only help comes from a young upstart lawyer fighting to save his life in court.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton ("Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"), the film tells of civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, a young but dedicated advocate for social justice who sets up a small law firm to service minority communities. Looking for new clients, Stevenson meets Walter McMillian (Foxx), a death row inmate who's been found guilty of murder, and who professes his innocence while serving a sentence passed against the jury's own recommendation.

Led by Jordan and Foxx, "Just Mercy" soars as a powerful statement on racism and the failures of the legal system, as well as the cost of fighting for what's right. Spotlighting an overlooked civil rights figure and a lesser-known case of real-life injustice, "Just Mercy" may be one of the most underrated gems in Foxx's impressive filmography.

Early in his career, Jamie Foxx was a successful stand-up comic, and later was a main cast member of the sketch comedy show "In Living Color." As the career path back in the '80s and '90s typically went for successful comedians looking to take the next step, Foxx was chosen to front his own sitcom, "The Jamie Foxx Show," which debuted in 1996. There he played Jamie King, a small-time Texas musician who relocates to Los Angeles for his shot at the big time, taking a job at the hotel owned by Aunt and Uncle.

With a successful five-season, 100-episode run, "The Jamie Foxx Show" didn't just help make the actor a household name, but also helped put nascent network The WB on the map. Loosely inspired by elements of Foxx's own life (he grew up in the same Texas town as King), the show also gave Foxx the chance to show off not just his acting and comedic chops, but his musical talent as well. Often seen playing and singing himself, Foxx was able to show that he was an incredibly versatile entertainer.

While the show never achieved much mainstream success, "The Jamie Foxx Show" has long been a cult favorite, and played a huge part in making him the Hollywood force he is today.

Another true story, 2005's "Jarhead" is based on the memoir of U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford, and recounts his training and service through the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s. It was directed by Sam Mendes (whose later war movie "1917" would get him his fourth Oscar nom), and starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Saarsgard, Chris Cooper, and Lucas Black, with Jamie Foxx playing Staff Sergeant Sykes, who recruits the young trainee into Scout Sniper school.

In the middle of their training, however, the war breaks out in Kuwait, and eventually, Sykes and Swofford's unit is sent into action. Released at the height of the second war in Iraq in 2005, the film's message was obvious, as "Jarhead" takes a hard look at the psychological toll of war. Antithetical to the types of jingoistic wartime action-adventures that Hollywood used to regularly churn out in decades past, or even classic anti-war thrillers, the film focuses more on the everyday life of soldiers as they work through the loneliness and frustration that's often glossed over in modern big screen war stories.

In 2009, "Atonement" director Joe Wright enlisted the services of two of Hollywood's biggest stars — Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx — for a film that dramatized the true story of a musical savant who lived on the streets of Los Angeles. His name is Nathaniel Ayers, and he struggled with mental illness all his life, while becoming a genius on the violin. In 2005, while homeless and playing for change in L.A., Ayers was discovered by Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez, who made him the subject of his book, "The Soloist: A Lost Dream."

As it turns out, Ayers was no mere vagrant, but a well-trained musician who had once attended Juilliard. It was only after a mental health crisis that he fell into poverty and found himself on the fringes of society, struggling to survive, with little more than the clothes on his back and his old broken-down instrument.

Jamie Foxx plays Ayers in the film, and brings the perfect touch of heart, soul, and charm that make Ayers' unique struggles universally relatable.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

The second of three films to team Jamie Foxx with "Heat" director Michael Mann, "Collateral" also unites him with Tom Cruise, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, and Javier Bardem. The film begins with Foxx playing a Los Angeles cabbie named Max Durocher, whose quiet evening is interrupted by an enigmatic passenger named Vincent (Cruise). The suave, well-dressed stranger offers Max a large sum to ferry him around the city to a series of destinations. 

Agreeing to what feels like a deal too good to be true, Max realizes that it is: Vincent is a contract killer, and now Max finds himself swept up in his dangerous, bloody scheme to bump off the witnesses to a crime. As the night unfolds and the danger escalates, Max becomes an unwitting pawn in Vincent's deadly mission. 

A fast-paced neo-noir action drama full of taut, nail-biting suspense and expertly executed chase sequences, "Collateral" is one of the finest thrillers of the decade. Cruise impresses as the cold, calculating hitman, while Foxx plays opposite him as the ordinary man desperate to act as the conscience of a killer. 

It takes a special actor to be chosen by Quentin Tarantino to lead one of his films. In 2012, the auteur writer-director of such iconic films as "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" chose Jamie Foxx to star in the title role of his homage to spaghetti Westerns, "Django Unchained." The story of a former slave turned gunslinger and vengeance-seeker in the years leading up to the American Civil War, it was another Tarantino classic, and his biggest box office hit to date, a record it still holds. 

The action picks up with German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who frees the slave named Django (Foxx) to help aid him in his quest to collect the sizable reward for the fugitive Brittle Brothers. But when the deed is done, it's Schultz who decides to help Django on his own mission to find plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the man who now owns Django's lost love Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

In typical Tarantino fashion, "Django Unchained" is a no-holds-barred, gratuitously blood-spattered drama. But it's also a daring and stylish new take on the Western genre, a stark exploration of revenge and injustice. And Foxx's Django, with a brashness and bravado that only he could bring, elevates the film in ways wholly unexpected.