Theater, film, and television, along with culture at large, lost one of few true living legends with the passing of James Earl Jones. One of the most recognizable voices in the world, Jones was certainly best known for his basso profondo, thunderous performances in The Lion King and George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy, but his body of work was so much more than that. The Arkabutla, Mississippi native performed for nearly seven decades to astounding acclaim and influence, and he was one of the scarce few performers in history to achieve EGOT status, when taking a lifetime achievement Oscar into account.
The following intends to highlight some of the greatest features and performances in the lauded actor’s filmography. This is a singular legacy, and it is simply impossible to not short change the actor with a top 10. Many other movies including The Sandlot, Sneakers, and the Oscar-nominated romantic comedy Claudine, just to name a few, are highly recommended as well. The beloved performer will be greatly missed.
10 ‘Conan the Barbarian’ (1982)
Appeared as Thulsa Doom
It’s secret what Jones’s most iconic villainous turn was, but he deserves similar praise for a chilling, underrated turn that elevated a studio-backed B-movie that was highly successful, still generally well-regarded to this day. From New Hollywood filmmaker and writer John Milius, sword-swinging high fantasy Conan the Barbarian stars a pre-Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular warrior, seeking vengeance against Jones’ Thulsa Doom, a cult leader who murdered his parents.
Schwarzenegger’s undeniable presence, physicality and charisma are a huge part of why this transporting, often brutal adventure movie works so well, but it’s Jones who delivers the weightiest and best performance by some distance. Thulsa Doom is a murderous villain of calculating malice, but it’s also clear all the actors, and Milius, were having some fun with all this. Conan the Barbarian is a hell of a lot of fun to watch, too. Jones wasn’t in the follow-up, Conan the Destroyer. It was so much worse.
9 ‘The Great White Hope’ (1970)
Appeared as Jack Jefferson
Jones’ interest in performance developed during his time at the University of Michigan. Following a move to New York City, he supported himself by working as a janitor as he studied at the American Theatre Wing. He’d appear in numerous productions through the 1950s and ’60s before the pivotal career moment of The Great White Hope, Harold Sackler‘s fictionalized dramatization of boxer Jack Johnson’s often tragic life (here he’s named Jack Jefferson). Among numerous accolades, The Great White Hope won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the Tony Award for Best Play.
This is where Jones’ career truly took off, as he and co-star Jane Alexander won Tonys for their work, reprising their roles in the 1970 film to respective Oscar nominations. The film version of The Great White Hope is dated in some ways, and by some metrics the least of the films on this list. Still, it’s an essential performance that hasn’t aged at all.
The Great White Hope is currently unavailable to stream.
8 ‘Coming to America’ (1988)
Appeared as King Jaffe Joffer
Eddie Murphy is undeniably a comic genius (that’s a responsible and accurate use of that very strong word), and he was arguably at his absolute zenith as a standup comedian and actor in the mid-to-late 1980s. One of his best features is certainly Coming to America, where the SNL alum plays Akeem, wealthy African prince who travels to the boroughs of New York to find love. Arsenio Hall, John Amos, Shari Headley and Madge Sinclar round out the supporting cast.
Essential to why the film works so well, too, is Jones, who plays King Jaffe Joffer, Akeem’s well-meaning brick of a father. It’s a deadpan, commanding presence that is in some ways the heart of the movie. Jones would reprise the role in 2021’s inferior, not entirely unpleasurable Coming 2 America. The original Coming to America remains a howlingly funny, rather heartfelt comedy classic that ranks among the very funniest movies of its decade.
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7 The Jack Ryan Movies (1990-’94)
Appeared as Admiral Greer
Adapted from the work of Tom Clancy, the initial run of Jack Ryan films are among the best “dad movies” you’ll ever come across, all well-reviewed and financially successful. Alec Baldwin starred in submarine thriller The Hunt for Red October (alongside Sean Connery in one of his most famous roles outside of Bond) before Harrison Ford picked up the mantle as Clancy’s CIA operative who’s inspired multiple later films as well as a successful show starring John Krasinski.
In the initial trilogy, Jones plays Admiral James Greer, the deuteragonist who recruited Ryan. 2002’s The Sum of All Fears, a so-so follow-up to the original Ryan films starring Ben Affleck, would feature Morgan Freeman as a composite chacter named William Cabot, an amalgamation of Greer and Clancy’s Marcus Cabot.
6 ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ (1995)
Appeared as Rev. Stephen Kumalo
Jones starred opposite Richard Harris of Camelot and Harry Potter in the second cinematic adaptation of Alan Paton’s 1948 about a Black priest and a white farmer struggling with troubling news of a murder in the nascence of apartheid. The book was previously adapted in a 1951 picture starring Sidney Poitier. That earlier film still holds a special place in history, and was nominated for Cannes’ Palme d’Or. Perhaps it was logical to re-adapt the film with more modernized sensibilities in the immediate wake of the fall of apartheid, and after Nelson Mandela was elected.
Critical response to Darrell Roodt‘s ’95 picture was generally quite positive at the time, with Roger Ebert delivering a notable mixed opinion while praising the photography and the lead actors. Of the leads, he said, “the performances by Jones and Harris have a quiet dignity, suitable to the characters if not reflecting a larger reality. But the film contains little that would have concerned the South African censors under apartheid. It is not dangerous.”
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5 ‘Matewan’ (1987)
Appeared as Few Clothes
The topic of labor unions is never really far from the public conversation, and along with the likes of Harlan County, USA and Norma Rae, John Sayles‘ Matewan is one of the best films ever made on the subject. Chris Cooper gives a great early performance (his film debut) as coal mining union organizer Joe Kenehan alongside Jones, who plays a scab named “Few Clothes” Johnson.
Reviewing the drama on their iconic, long-running TV show, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were highly complimentary of Matewan, Siskel calling it the “most ambitious film” to date from Sayles, who previously made waves directing smaller independent fare. Matewan is an overall excellent period drama that holds up decades later, notably released in a top-shelf Criterion Collection disc in 2019.
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4 ‘Field of Dreams’ (1989)
Appeared as Terence Mann
“If you build it, he will come.” Easily one of the best sports movies ever made, (it’s also one of the best and most re-watchable of all fantasy films), Kevin Costner plays Iowa farmer Ray, guided by mysterious visions to build a baseball diamond. Field of Dreams takes a swing, and a great deal of risk, from a thematic standpoint. It’s a picture that seeks to recapture the kind of old-fashioned whimsy and optimism that defined Frank Capra‘s Americana classics of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In that, it’s remarkably successful.
Jones plays Terence Mann, a controversial writer of the past who becomes central to the overall mystery, and toward Ray’s supernatural reconciliation with his father. This is one of two widely loved baseball classics starring Jones, and easily the best. Still, The Sandlot is a standout, crowd-pleasing family film that definitely deserves to be watched and re-watched.
3 ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ (1964)
Appeared as Lt. Lothar Zogg
Jones entered the cinematic world in what is arguably the best comedy movie of all time, playing Lt. Lothar Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Starring Petter Sellers and George C. Scott, the dark satire toys with a “what if” scenario of nuclear fallout that becomes increasingly absurd, Dr. Strangelove was nominated for Four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Sellers).
As for Jones, Zogg is a small but highly memorable role: he’s the bombardier who attempts to be the voice of reason at one point, before calamity becomes simply inevitable. Zogg is last seen as the B-52 bomber drops a nuclear device over the Soviet Union, with Major “King” Kong (Slim Pickens) straddling it like a mechanical bull. It’s maybe the most iconic moment and image in all of satirical cinema.
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2 ‘The Lion King’ (1994)
Appeared as Mufasa (voice)
In the film that many consider to be the zenith of the Disney Renaissance (from a financial standpoint, it certainly is), Jones voiced the patriarch of the Pride lands, the wise and just Mufasa, who seeks to pass on his knowledge of the great Circle of Life to his firstborn, Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas). The Lion King, loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a visually masterful, funny musical with some of the highest dramatic stakes of any family fare.
The murder of Mufasa at the claws of Scar (Jeremy Irons), like the death of Bambi’s mother many decades prior, is among the most upsetting moments in any family film (in any film, perhaps), a stark contrast to most kids’ entertainment of present day, which largely seems committed to being soft and inoffensive. Still, The Lion King is ultimately a story of inter-generational triumph, one that’s resonated with countless viewers (it remains the highest-grossing traditionally animated film), and the high stakes are an essential part of why it’s left such an impact.
1 The ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy (1977-1983)
Appeared as Darth Vader (voice)
Make no mistake about it: James Earl Jones brought to life the greatest screen villain of all time. Coasting generally on the goodwill surrounding American Graffiti, George Lucas barely even managed to get 20th Century Fox onboard in backing his ambitious, nostalgic space opera about a farm boy, space wizards, a pirate and a princess. The sci-fi fantasy of strange alchemy, of course, became the most financially successful movie ever made at the time, and spawned the single most iconic franchise in Hollywood history.
Though it’s certainly important to mention Darth Vader was a composite effort (David Prowse provided the body, and Sebastian Shaw made a brief appearance as the redeemed Anakin Skywalker), it’s Jones’s thunderous, emotion- vocals that made the Sith Lord a presence that was all at once frightening, imposing, and dramatically enigmatic. The original 1977 film gave us a great villain with hints at his backstory. Over the course of Lucas’s initial saga, still arguably the best movie trilogy of all time, the audience realized this is as much a story of mercy as it is a tale of heroism. Vader’s redemption arc represents the greatest broad strokes of filmmaking, perhaps ever.
