Will Smith Reveals His Best And Worst Movie Roles

Will Smith has been asked versions of the same question for years. Fans want to know what he holds closest and what he would rather leave on the shelf. The answer matters because his career covers just about everything from sci fi blockbusters to tender family dramas.

He also has a habit of answering with a smile that suggests he knows exactly which choices still spark debates among moviegoers. There are the towering hits everyone quotes, and there are the experiments that did not quite land. When he looks back, he thinks about the craft, the crowd, and how the work aged.

This time he put it plainly. For the roles that define his best work, he points to the first ‘Men in Black’ and to ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’. In his words, “For the best, I think it’s a tie between the first Men in Black and Pursuit of Happyness. For different reasons, those are the two almost perfect movies.” And for the one that misses the mark, he goes straight to ‘Wild Wild West’, adding, “I don’t know, Wild Wild West is a thorn in my side.”

Hearing him single out ‘Men in Black’ is no surprise. The role of Agent J turned a charismatic TV star into a global movie lead, with a comic rhythm that played off straight faced weirdness. It is the kind of performance people reference when they talk about pure movie star timing. It also set a tone for late nineties crowd pleasers that still feels modern.

The nod to ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ lands differently. That film asked him to scale back and sit with silence and struggle. He carried the emotional spine as Chris Gardner, letting small gestures do the heavy lifting. The result moved audiences without shortcuts. It is easy to see why he keeps it near the top when he talks about the movies that feel whole.

Then there is ‘Wild Wild West’. Time has given the steampunk western a campy afterlife, but Smith has never been shy about how awkward it feels to revisit. The image that sticks is not the gadgets or the set pieces. It is the star in chaps who looks like he would rather be anywhere else. When he calls it a thorn, you can hear both the joke and the sting.

What makes his picks resonate is that they map to the two sides of his screen persona. One is the quick talking hero who rides chaos with a grin. The other is the grounded dramatic lead who lets vulnerability show. Both live in his body of work, and both are why audiences follow him across genres.

So when Smith names those roles as the very best, and ‘Wild Wild West’ as the one he would gladly swap out, it feels less like a list and more like a story about growth. He is still measuring himself by how a film makes people feel. He is still weighing whether a choice served the character and the crowd. And he is still game to laugh at the missteps, which might be the most Will Smith thing of all.