Jim Caviezel is one of those actors that makes you wonder why he isn’t more famous. That’s really saying something considering the man is known for playing Jesus Christ, but outside a handful of films, he isn’t quite the A-list star he probably should be by now. It isn’t for a lack of talent, and he certainly is a great leading man. However, many of his films weren’t box office hits, although he has starred in some underrated, undiscovered gems. Although Caviezel isn’t done playing the Son of God, he has yet to find another movie role that has had a major cultural impact.
Caviezel has made some great television in recent years, most notably Person of Interest, which he starred in for five seasons from 2011 to 2016. He played John Reese, an ex-CIA agent who attempts to solve crimes predicted by a mysterious AI, with the help of the equally mysterious Harold Finch (Lost’s Michael Emerson). He also starred in the excellent AMC miniseries reboot of The Prisoner with Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings), but he’s due to make a splash on the big screen again.
Jim Caviezel will likely have another hit in Mel Gibson’s planned sequel to The Passion of the Christ, titled Resurrection. That film is currently in pre-production, but until then, we picked the top 12 Jim Caviezel movies and ranked them. We only picked films in which he had a leading or significant supporting role, so we won’t include films like The Rock (where he briefly played an F-18 pilot) or G.I. Jane (where he had a small part as a Marine).
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12 Outander (2008)
The Weinstein Company
No, not that Outlander. Jim Caviezel’s Outlander is the best Viking/alien movie you never saw, as the 2008 film died a quick death at the box office. Caviezel plays a soldier from another planet who crash lands in Norway during the Viking era. He teams up with the Vikings to kill an alien hunting them, in a film promoted as “Beowulf meets Predator.” It never quite rises to the promise of that tagline, but Caviezel makes for a great leading man, playing a stoic alien soldier who thankfully looks human.
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Hellboy stars Ron Perlman and John Hurt also star in the film, which was produced by Lord of the Rings producer Barrie M. Osborne (believe it or not), and while it isn’t particularly good, the cast and special effects make for a good late-night watch of a B-movie. Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings) has originally supposed to play the lead, but dropped out after production delays, allowing Caviezel to step in.
11 Escape Plan (2013)
Summit Entertainment
Who knew that the pairing of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in an action film would be so…meh? The action legends deserved better than Escape Plan, a movie with a solid premise and decent performances, but undercut by a lackluster script and uninspired direction. Caviezel plays Willard Hobbes, the cold and ruthless warden of a secret prison where Stallone’s character Breslin is being held. Breslin is actually a security expert, and is there undercover to test the prison’s worthiness.
As it turns out, Stallone has been double-crossed, and he’s being held on his own in a prison that no one can locate. He and Schwarzenegger (who is also held there) team up to break out as they battle the conniving Hobbes, and Caviezel seems to enjoy chewing up the scenery at every chance. It’s a dumb movie, but it’s a dumb, fun movie.
10 Pay it Forward (2000)
Warner Bros.
Pay it Forward, from director Mimi Leder (Deep Impact, On the Basis of Sex), isn’t nearly as good as the social movement it helped popularize, but it has a great ensemble cast. Caviezel joins Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey, Jon Bon Jovi, and Haley Joel Osment in a movie that lays on the melodrama too thickly to feel sincere.
Caviezel has a small but pivotal role as a homeless drug addict who is affected by Osment’s Trevor, whose practice of “paying it forward” inspires him to change. While Caviezel and the cast are quite good, the movie itself just doesn’t rise to the occasion.
9 When The Game Stands Tall (2014)
Screen Gems
When the Game Stands Tall is one of those football movies that a lot of good actors do at one point or another in their careers. Like similar football films, it isn’t bad, and it also isn’t great, but it’s entertaining and inspirational, particularly because it’s based on a true story. Caviezel has the perfect vibe as Coach Bob Ladouceur, who turned around the fortunes of the Spartans football team of De La Salle High School in Concord, California. A terrible team that never had a winning season became a perennial state champion, with a 151-game winning streak that broke national records.
While the film relies a bit too much on sports clichés, Caviezel plays Ladouceur with an understated dignity, and the supporting cast, which includes Laura Dern and Michael Chiklis, is serviceable. If you’re a football fan, you’ll love the film, and non-football fans will at least enjoy the proceedings.
8 Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
Film Foundry Releasing
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius finds Jim Caviezel playing the golf legend in this solid biopic, although the pacing is as pedestrian as the game of golf itself. Director Rowdy Herrington also brought us the kinda-sorta classic Road House, and here, hesticks to the movie formula well enough.
Other than Caviezel’s performance, however, there’s not a lot to put this movie on the green. To his credit, Caviezel captures the volatile Jones without apology, a player who rose to the top of the game before realizing he needed to as great a man as he was a golfer.
7 Deja Vu (2006)
Touchstone Pictures
Tony Scott’s mind-bending sci-fi thriller Deja Vu features Denzel Washington as an ATF agent investigating the bombing of a New Orleans ferry, only to discover the government has found a way to time travel, allowing him the chance to stop the bombing and save one of the victims, a woman he has fallen in love with. It’s a trippy concept, but Denzel makes the absurd seem plausible.
Caviezel plays the bad guy in this one, a rare turn for him, and he goes all in as a domestic terrorist committed to the cause. He doesn’t get a lot of screen time (with Val Kilmer and Paula Patton also in the film), but he makes the most of it. As long as you don’t try to make it all make sense, you’ll enjoy the performances. The movie was notable as the first major film to begin production in New Orleans following the 2005 Katrina Hurricane, and the storm’s aftermath was worked into the storyline.
6 The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)
Roadside Attractions
An extremely difficult film to watch, The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on the book by Freidoune Sahebjam, which chronicled the reported real-life stoning of a young woman, Soraya, in 1970s Iran. The woman’s aunt, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, meets Sahebjam (Caviezel), a French-Iranian journalist, and tells him the story of her death, determined to find justice for her.
Aghdashloo (24) is fantastic as a woman driven to expose the truth behind her niece’s death, which village leaders try to cover up. Caviezel equals her performance, and the pair make this film work, even when the dark tone seems like too much.
5 Infidel (2019)
Cloudburst Entertainment
This indie thriller saw only a limited release in 2020 (the pandemic didn’t help) but it’s now available on Blu-ray and streaming, where it should find an audience, because Infidel is a surprisingly good thriller. Caviezel plays an American kidnapped by terrorists and held in Iran, while his wife (Claudia Karvan) works to free him.
Low-budget indie films often disappoint, but the script (inspired by true events) is solid, and Caviezel is excellent. The film is notable for having Natalie Holt as a composer, who went on to score the Marvel series Loki, as well as the Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney+.
4 Frequency (2000)
New Line Cinema
An underrated sci-fi thriller from director Gregory Hoblit (NYPD Blue), Frequency follows John Sullivan (Caviezel), a New York cop still mourning the death of his father Frank (Dennis Quaid), a firefighter who died in the line of duty years before. One night in 1999, John begins using his father’s old ham radio during a strange storm featuring solar flares and unusual atmospheric conditions. The storm somehow allows John to make contact with his father in the past, who is also using the radio under similar weather conditions in 1969. John tries to warn him about his death, and in doing so, sets off an unexpected chain of events.
The logic behind it all is far-fetched to be sure, but Caviezel and Quaid have outstanding chemistry, and the film is very entertaining. The film was actually remade as a 2016 CW series starring Peyton List, but it ended after a single season.
3 The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo gets a faithful retelling here from director Kevin Reynolds (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), but it isn’t quite the epic it should be. The pacing is inconsistent and some of the performances from the supporting characters are a bit too theatrical, but the power of the story is undeniable, and both Caviezel and Guy Pierce (L.A. Confidential) are excellent.
2 The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Icon Productions
Mel Gibson’s personal controversies reflected poorly on The Passion of the Christ, an epic retelling of the final hours of Christ’s life on Earth. It’s an exhausting, disturbing, and yet ultimately exhilarating Biblical epic, and Gibson made an effective choice to lace the film’s realities with supernatural surreality.
Some took issue with the film’s over-the-top violence, but in truth, The Passion is perhaps the most accurate depiction of a crucifixion put to film, although Gibson did appear to take some obvious liberties with the amounts of blood Jesus lost during the event. Caviezel is incredible, infusing a rare, introspective humanity into his performance as Jesus.
1 The Thin Red Line (1998)
20th Century Fox
Terrence Malick’s World War II epic The Thin Red Line is a phenomenal film that was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Although Caviezel plays the lead character of Pvt. Robert Witt, Adrien Brody’s character of Cpl. Fife was supposed to be the film’s central figure. Malick famously cut most of Brody’s scenes and restructured the film around Caviezel’s character. Malick’s unusual filmmaking methods made that possible, and it also made The Thin Red Line one of his most memorable films, and one of the finest war films in recent years.
Caviezel’s Pvt. Witt begins the film as an AWOL soldier living on a beach in the Philippines, but he is found and forced back into duty, where he finds his purpose as a soldier again and becomes a hero to his squad. In true Malick fashion, Caviezel is only part of a much larger, all-star cast, although he embodies best the film’s themes.
