One of the most recognisable British actors of the past few decades on the big screen, Jude Law turns his attention this week to the small screen playing opposite Jason Bateman in the Netflix crime thriller Black Rabbit.
While Law, 52, who began his career in British theatre, is best known for cinema roles including in The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Road to Perdition, he has made television before. In his early years, he had a two-year stint on the ITV soap Families, but more recently and more notably starred in the HBO/Sky/Canal+ series The Young Pope, attracting rave reviews in 2016.
But in a career that spans four decades on screen, what is the best Jude Law performance? Our critics have put their heads together to rank their top ten. But is there anything missing, and what is your No 1? Let us know in the comments below.
10. Sherlock Holmes (2009, Sky)
Jude Law Dr John Watson in Sherlock Holmes
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Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective has graced big and small screens countless times, but Guy Ritchie brought a fresh twist to the character: what if Holmes had the brawn to match his brains? Robert Downey Jr’s scrappy, sword-wielding, sunglasses-wearing Holmes is paired with Jude Law’s Watson, who isn’t just your average bumbling sidekick. This reimagining elevates Watson to co-lead, giving Law the space to shape the character and make him intriguing in his own right. Together, they redefined the detective duo for a new generation.
9. The Order (2024, Prime Video)
This gripping true-life tale of far-right extremism in mid-Eighties USA stands as one of the most underrated films in Law’s career. He plays the FBI agent Terry Husk, a hard-bitten New York FBI agent sent to the Pacific Northwest to pursue a white supremacist movement called the Order. Based on the real-life organisation behind the assassination of the Jewish radio host Alan Berg and a string of bank robberies intended to fund a national insurrection, the movie unfolds with chilling realism. Law goes head-to-head with the group’s leader, Bob Mathews (played by Nicholas Hoult), in a gripping showdown.
8. The Holiday (2006, Sky)
This one’s the sugary-sweet entry on this list. It’s pure Nancy Meyers fantasy where heartbreak is cured by house-swapping and cashmere jumpers. The film centres on two heartbroken women who meet through a home-exchange website and agree to swap houses over Christmas. Cameron Diaz’s character, Amanda, lands in a picturesque Surrey cottage where she unexpectedly meets the other woman’s brother, played by Law. With a twinkle in his eye, Law delivers exactly the kind of romantic lead this film needs. It’s not an Oscar-worthy turn, but it has just the right amount of spark to tie the story together and turn it into a Christmas favourite.
7. Road to Perdition (2002, Disney+)
As a hitman in Road To Perdition
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Based on a cult graphic novel, Sam Mendes’s gangster saga is an entertaining tale of damnation and redemption in 1930s Chicago. Law joined a stellar cast that includes Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig to play a sinister hitman who is also an obsessive crime scene photographer. It’s a stark departure from Law’s usual roles — cruel, grimy and unnervingly intense. There’s something about his presence that makes it impossible to look away.
6. The Young Pope (2016, buy/rent) and The New Pope (2020, buy/rent)
Law as the first American pope
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Paolo Sorrentino’s daringly dark dramas star Law as the first American pope, Lenny Belardo, who demands Cherry Coke zero for breakfast and reverses the Vatican’s no-smoking rule. It’s a bonkers idea, but Law pulls it off expertly, balancing the pope’s contradictions masterfully: vulnerable and ruthless, maddening yet magnetic. It’s a turn that moves this series beyond the surreal and satirical into a haunting character study rooted in faith and power.
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5. Firebrand (2023, Prime Video)
With Alicia Vikander in Firebrand
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Some fine actors have taken on the role of Henry VIII, but Law rises to the challenge with a performance that is both unsettling and commanding. Karim Aïnouz’s film focuses on the monarch’s paranoid and increasingly incapacitated years, and his relationship with his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr (Alicia Vikander). It’s the actor’s most extreme transformation yet — by this point, the king was so frail he could barely walk, needing nine men to lift him onto his horse. But this performance goes far beyond physicality: it’s a nuanced, intelligent and quietly masterful portrayal.
4. The Nest (2020, buy/rent)
In Rory O’Hara, Law is gifted a brilliantly nuanced and complicated character to embody in Sean Durkin’s psychological drama. It follows the story of the financier O’Hara and his wife (Allison, played by Carrie Coon) and family as they move from a middle-class life in New York City to a mansion in Surrey, a transition that will test their relationship and finances to their limits. A character study in flawed humans and reckless ambition, the film is an excellent platform for Law to open up as an actor and truly shine.
3. Cold Mountain (2003, buy/rent)
Law earned himself an Oscar nomination for best actor with his central performance as William “WP” Inman, a wounded soldier from the Confederate army who deserts near the end of the American Civil War. Following Inman’s attempt to make it back to be reunited with the woman he loves, Ada (Nicole Kidman), Anthony Minghella’s film brings out Law’s range as a versatile actor capable of taking viewers to faraway places.
2. Closer (2004, buy/rent)
A romantic drama with depth, intrigue and a stellar ensemble cast, in which Law offers a fine performance as the writer Dan Woolf opposite Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. After starting a relationship with an American woman involved in a car accident (Alice/Jane, played by Portman), Woolf writes a book about her life only for a complex love quadrangle to develop when their lives intersect with the American photographer Anna (Roberts) and British dermatologist Larry (Owen).
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1. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999, buy/rent)
WIth Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr Ripley
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Law is at the peak of his powers as Dickie Greenleaf, the charismatic, sexy and captivating centre of attention who can make people feel as if they’re the only person in the world before dropping them like a stone. He rightly earned a best supporting actor Oscar nomination and won a Bafta for his sublime turn as the magnetic Dickie who draws Matt Damon’s Tom Ripley into his seemingly perfect world, before falling foul of the obsessive killer in Anthony Minghella’s superb psychological thriller.