What separates the perennial A-list actor and self-proclaimed "Gazelle" from the rest? Somehow, it is his underestimated range. By Old Hollywood standards, leading men were generally expected to play the same personality-type in all of their films for trust-establishing, audience-appeasing reasons. Today, performers are welcomed to transform for roles on a much more frequent basis.
While he has technically not gone full method, like some of his contemporaries, Brad Pitt still draws massive turnouts, regardless of whether or not he is relying on his dramatic chops or comedic sensibilities. The following 10 are cinematic examples of him in peak form, whilst living in the latter.
10 Killing Them Softly (2012)
There are black comedies. And then there is Killing Them Softly. Andrew Dominik's initially misunderstood, but now more appreciated heist ensemble sees Brad Pitt take on a role he very rarely plays. While he is not necessarily the villain, he surely is in the business of killing for hire, as Jackie Cogan.
Relentless in his pursuit of getting paid, in spite of his employers keeping him ever on the runaround, the film culminates in a few brutally honest, sardonic quips delivered by Pitt that evoke the larger flaws of capitalism in America. Consequently, the film is one that will stick with most viewers long after the credits roll.
9 Megamind (2010)
If Brad Pitt free-roaming around the recording studio in rare voice-over form while holding a handheld mic (according to IMDb trivia) is not funny enough, then the fate of his animated counterpart, "Metro Man," definitely takes the cake.
In the largely-forgotten and vastly underrated requiem for a supervillain character study, the titular Megamind (Will Ferrell) is lost without a purpose after finally defeating his good-guy nemesis (Pitt). Then, a twist reveal unearths that Pitt's Metro Man faked his death to instead follow his undeclared, secret passion and become "Music Man." Cue laugh track.
8 Moneyball (2011)
Pitt garnered an Oscar nomination for his turn as the real-life, analytical daredevil baseball executive, Billy Beane. While engaged in many demonstrations of brilliantly-executed, deadpan office-place humor, Pitt's most laugh-out-loud moment actually required no dialogue at all: mere seconds after witnessing Oakland manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) defy an order mid-game on his TV, the camera holds in the hallway for three seconds before the TV set comes flying through his open door and into the hallway wall.
Such laugh-inducing destruction was the result of displaced passion manifested as rage. It's hard not to be romantic about baseball.
7 Fight Club (1999)
Where the narrator (Edward Norton) is stagnant, Tyler Durden (Pitt) is alive - with the glory of soap-turned-to-bombs and get-togethers that's guidelines require no one to talk about them.
Representing the liberated, unhinged type of person the narrator has always desired to be, Durden's unsavory living conditions and shameless bravado qualify him as a candidate whose truth-telling diatribes inspire laughter. It is only when those rantings turn to action that audiences - and the narrator himself - begin to fear that the King of Comedic Zing throughout David Fincher's acclaimed cult film was more or less the devil in plain sight all along.
6 Ocean's Trilogy (2001 - 2007)
Handsome, mild-mannered, calm, cool and collected. And the man can turn a phrase, too. As "Rusty" Ryan in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, and Ocean's Thirteen (and sadly not Ocean's Fourteen), Brad Pitt is not without charm, nor his knack for endless punchlines.
However, underrated moments of humor also derive from his continuous ability to surprise his fellow heist-men with the scientific and technological knowledge he casually drops. Though to be fair, Rusty would not be the two-man in Danny's 11-turned-12-turned-13-member team if his intelligence quotient was not up to snuff.
5 Inglourious Basterds (2009)
"Gorlami." One viewing of Pitt trying to pass off as Italian at a doomed movie premiere and the verdict will come rushing in as to whether or not Quentin Tarantino and Pitt's first official collaboration is among the funniest performances the actor has delivered.
Though the film's ensemble-first credo would ultimately reduce Pitt's screen time just out of serious contention to earn any awards consideration, his top billing is not without merit, as all roads in the film lead back to Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine, and the German will fear him.
4 True Romance (1993)
A literal moment before he would become a household name for good, Pitt took on the role he was born to play: the stoner, couch potato roommate in a Quentin Tarantino-penned movie.
Of course, it would be nearly two decades before Pitt would be directed by Tarantino himself. But in 1993, he worked wonders as Floyd - the giggle-prone, perma-stoned squatter whose zen way of being makes him the right man for any and all high-tension situations - just as another Pitt/Tarantino character would come to be, some 26 years later.
3 Twelve Monkeys (1995)
In fictional media that commendably places a mirror to real-life events in too-fully-baked-to-be-faked ways, there is often a standout, misunderstood, silenced, or even institutionalized character spewing all the answers and then some.
Twelve Monkeys was not Pitt's last outing playing a gifted mind with a strong feel for life in post-viral pandemic circumstances, as World War Z and his turn on Saturday Night Live as Dr. Anthony Fauci were just two decades away. Terry Gilliam's time travel-heavy narrative did represent a pivotal moment in his then-jettisoning career, though. He earned his first Oscar nomination as the high energy show-stealer, Jeffrey Goines.
2 Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood (2019)
Fresh in everyone's minds as the acid cigarette-tripping savior of Tarantino's latest effort, Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth - a role for which he won his first acting Oscar - operates to the beat of a different drum.
Needless to say, if every anxious and insecure actor had a stunt driver/right-hand man always at their beck and call with unconditional jokes and smokes, there would be less tension throughout the town made of dreams, as evidenced by the revisionist finales to end all revisionist finales, where a real-life nightmare became anything but.
1 Burn After Reading (2008)
A triumph for the Coen Brothers in this eclectically on-brand Best Picture-followup was somehow managing to dial back on Pitt's sex appeal.
In a film that co-starred his frequent collaborator and fellow tabloid cover-hogger, George Clooney, the crew's challenge of characterizing Pitt as an in-over-his-head, hyperactive moron with more screws loose than one proved daunting enough to plunge into with all of their cards. A few iconic GIFs later, and even Burn After Reading staunchest detractors can agree that Pitt made off with everyone's hand (while he never stopped fist-pumping, even after the closet scene).
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