Sex, Lies, Ocean's, and Magic Mike: Ranking Steven Soderbergh's 20 best films

is a heist flick that doesn’t have the energy, flair, or insouciance of the series or , but it does showcase the workman-like professionalism of a director who read a script he liked and decided to shoot it. Comfortably in his crime film wheelhouse, Soderbergh assembles quite the cast, led by Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro as hired thugs in ’50s-era Detroit who are recruited for a simple (yeah, right) “babysitting” job. The destination is not as exciting as the journey, but that’s okay when you’re escorted by David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Bill Duke, Brendan Fraser, and the late Ray Liotta. No Sudden Move is a satisfying and nifty little crime thriller, proving that even Soderbergh’s minor films, the ones he directs strictly as a lark, never fail to satisfy. [Mark Keizer]

Into the Soderbergh-verse strolls André Holland, one of those actors who seems a preternaturally good fit for just such an amble, in . It’s one of the best recent examples of the director’s ability to infuse his swanky intensity, à la Ocean’s Eleven, into a compelling character study, à la Erin Brockovich. The setting for this original story from Tarell Alvin McCraney—a lockout in the moneyed world of professional basketball—makes the film stand out from Soderbergh’s typical subject matter. But watching Holland balance high-stakes drama with a subtle archness, leading a cohesive cast that includes Zazie Beetz, Melvin Gregg, Sonja Sohn, and Kyle MacLachlan, feels like a reminder that there’s little outside of Soderbergh’s wheelhouse. [Jack Smart]

Soderbergh’s 23rd feature stars MMA star Gina Carano as Mallory, a government agent who (spy movie cliché No. 1) goes rogue when she (spy movie cliché No. 2) gets double-crossed. So, yes, is not here to tell a particularly unique or even interesting story. It’s here for one reason; so we can watch Carano kick major ass. And she does, exceedingly well. Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs are content to provide just enough backstory (something about Barcelona) to justify the bone-crunching that Carano delivers on an army of men (including Channing Tatum). Co-starring Michael Fassbender and Ewan McGregor, Haywire is a shotgun blast of fun; lean, mean, and totally satisfying. [Mark Keizer]

Soderbergh directed two documentaries about monologist Spalding Gray; 1996’s (no relation to the indestructible ABC drama) and 2010’s , which was released six years after Gray died by suicide. In tribute, Soderbergh culls through 90 hours of performance footage and interviews and creates what is, essentially, the story of Gray’s life. Per usual, Gray’s onstage presence is minimalist; he sits at a desk where maybe there’s a lamp or maybe there are some notes. But his storytelling skills are as magnificent as the stories themselves. Whether talking of his mother (who also took her own life) or his world travels, Gray is hilarious and tragic and always riveting. In guiding the narrative with a light touch that allows Gray to constantly shine, Soderbergh gives this Rhode Island native the gift of immortality through cinema. [Mark Keizer]

Soderbergh is nothing if not a restless experimentalist. In his micro-budgeted stunt, , he casts real-life porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced Manhattan escort whose life plan takes a detour when she falls for a client. Grey is, how do we say this, not a very expressive dramatic actress. But her deficiencies actually help sell the film’s major theme of how soulless and transactional our lives have become. Context helps understand why the film had its fans: it was a direct comment on the U.S. financial collapse of 2008. Since then, financial anxieties remain, if for different reasons, making The Girlfriend Experience more timeless than it could have imagined. [Mark Keizer]

Prior to the 2013 release of , Soderbergh announced that the Jude Law and Rooney Mara pharmaceutical thriller was going to be his final film. Spoiler Alert: it was not his final film. But if it had been, Soderbergh would have gone out on a high, so to speak, with this timely and crafty drama about the evils of Big Pharma. Soderbergh refuses easy point-scoring and instead focuses on the noir-ish story of a (possibly) suicidal woman (Mara) under the care of a sinister doctor (Law) who’s more than willing to prescribe her the latest anti-depressants. Once again serving as his own cinematographer, Soderbergh utilizes glossy and impeccable visuals to spin a timely Hitchcockian tale that vibrates with unease. Channing Tatum co-stars in a film with such a heavy and foreboding air that you’ll dread the next time your doctor writes you a prescription. [Mark Keizer]

, Soderbergh’s four-hour, two-part portrait of Cuban revolutionary and T-shirt icon Che Guevara, is the director’s most ambitious film. It’s also his most controversial which, of course, doesn’t stop it from being eminently watchable. Soderbergh famously said he wanted to pass no judgment on Guevara but some argued that being neutral was tantamount to being reverent. Either way, there’s no denying that Soderbergh places the viewer right there in the jungles of Bolivia where you’ll almost feel the fatigue of his soldiers. Best of all, he gets a fiery lead performance from Benicio Del Toro. No matter where you side politically, Soderbergh can’t be faulted for being fascinated by, and trying to dissect the appeal of, one of the most important counter-cultural figures of the 20th century. [Mark Keizer]

If the sight of Michael Douglas and Matt Damon decked out in outrageously flamboyant Vegas-style outfits, slathered in makeup, and bejeweled in capped teeth makes you think Soderbergh’s 2013 HBO movie is a comedy, we wouldn’t blame you. But the film, in which Douglas plays real-life piano prodigy Liberace and Damon his lover, is really a fur-lined, white satin tragedy. The power dynamic between the much older Liberace and his young charge who’s fated to be his “father, brother, lover, best friend” is laid out in unapologetically real terms by screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (). Douglas gives the performance of his career, while Soderbergh manages to revel in the glorious excesses of Liberace’s life while never ignoring the sadness and cruelty underneath. [Mark Keizer]

There’s no way around it, this film from more than a decade ago hits differently now that its premise of a worldwide pandemic has become a part of our daily reality. You’d think that would make people want to avoid it like, well, you know. Instead, it got a second surge of popularity in 2020, skyrocketing into the top 10 on iTunes and other on-demand streaming platforms. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Burns approach the film like a ’70s disaster flick, to the point of stacking the cast with well-known actors and killing off Gwyneth Paltrow within the first 15 minutes, just so you know they mean business. Also on board this epidemiological thrill ride are Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, and Jennifer Ehle, to name a few. As the virus spreads around the world and scientists race to find a vaccine, we see just how poorly suited and ill-prepared we are as a global society to deal with a catastrophe on this scale. Too bad not enough people got the message. [Cindy White]

A tight, taut thriller, executed with just the right balance between quirky and eerily plausible, can be seen as Soderbergh’s modern-day riff on Rear Window. But instead of a crime glimpsed between spying apartment neighbors, blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp introduces a clever inversion; a crime is heard rather than seen, via the Alexa-like home devices to which this film’s title refers. Tech worker Angela, played by a convincingly weird Zoë Kravitz, overhears what she believes to be an assault and undertakes an increasingly high-stakes mission for justice. This sufferer of agoraphobia proves unforgettable thanks to Kravitz’s finely observed minutiae: her habit of waving her hands back and forth after sanitizing, for example, speaks volumes. Soderbergh focuses on sound design and scoring with his signature panache, and has a blast with tilted camera angles and extreme frame compositions that evoke Angela’s inner turmoil and paranoia. Ultimately, Kimi captures and magnifies the anxiety of the COVID era. [Jack Smart]

Soderbergh took on the twisty true story of a troubled chemical industry whistleblower who brought a price-fixing scheme to the attention of government officials in the 1990s and decided what it really needed in adaptation was a few laughs. The Informant! (the exclamation mark in the title is the first indication he’s not playing straight here) stars Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, a biochemist who gets himself in over his head when he becomes the center of an FBI investigation he’s not at all equipped to handle. Buffeted by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale as the two constantly confounded agents assigned to the case and the always great Melanie Lynskey as his devoted wife Ginger, Damon bobs and weaves his way through this dark comedy that’s not without some teeth. He’s the gravitational center of a plot that spirals out of control, but it’s Soderbergh’s commanding work behind the camera that always keeps the film grounded. [Cindy White]

What if you made another Ocean’s film, but took away all the glamour? And instead of Las Vegas, this heist is set at a NASCAR speed track in North Carolina? That was the pitch from screenwriter Rebecca Blunt that proved too tempting for Soderbergh to pass up, taking him out of a four-year retirement since Behind The Candelabra to direct . As with his funniest films, it’s full of zany characters, but portrayed by actors who know to underplay rather than oversell—well, except for a wild-eyed, blonde-dyed Daniel Craig, testing out his pre-Knives Out accent. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver play a pair of brothers and operate in the oddball, rather than leading man, realm (as they always should). Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Hilary Swank, and a handful of real-life NASCAR personalities round out a rollicking good heist comedy that breezes by almost as fast as those race cars. [Jack Smart]

“They’re called boobs, Ed.” “That’s all you got, lady, two wrong feet and fucking ugly shoes.” “Do they teach beauty queens how to apologize? Because you suck at it!” The list of iconic lines in makes up an impressively high portion of Susannah Grant’s script, and it’s largely due to Soderbergh’s spot-on direction of an Oscar-winning Julia Roberts in the title role. It’s a based-on-a-true-story legal drama about the Pacific Gas and Electric Company poisoning the groundwater in Hinkley, California, and the small team of lawyers who pursued a class-action lawsuit against them. But it’s also a retelling of a person discovering her outrage over injustice and what she can do about it, a single mother whose personal sacrifice to her cause can’t help but inspire. Soderbergh renders Brockovich’s eventual victory hard-won yet never anything less than riotously entertaining. There are lovely, quiet moments too, like the way Roberts learns of her child’s first word over the phone while driving, silent, with tears in her eyes and that miraculous smile on her face. [Jack Smart]

, Soderbergh’s criminally overlooked, Depression-era, coming-of-age gem, came after the promise of was wasted on his second film, , probably the only time Soderbergh’s reach exceeded his grasp. Based on the 1972 novel by A.E. Hotchner, King Of The Hill is about a young boy (Jesse Bradford) forced to fend for himself in a St. Louis hotel after his mother is institutionalized and his brother goes to live with an uncle. This is a warmly nostalgic and modestly told tale, but underneath it’s about as scary a story of childhood as you can get. King Of The Hill is, by far, Soderbergh’s most underrated film. [Mark Keizer]

“It’s raining men, hallelujah!” The Weather Girls’ iconic ode to the masculine form isn’t just a great song to set a striptease to, it’s a rallying cry for generations of moviegoers excited about flipping the script on the heterosexual male gaze that seemed to be the default in Hollywood for so long (and still does, to some extent). Yes, is more than a gratuitous showcase for a bunch of male strippers, but why not celebrate that novel aspect as one of its many charms? Inspired by the real-life experiences of star Channing Tatum (who worked as a dancer in a Florida strip club when he was 18), Soderbergh set out to redefine conventional ideas about masculinity and how it intersects with capitalism, but never lets any of that get in the way of a good time. Taking the stage alongside Tatum are certified hotties Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Adam Rodriguez, and Kevin Nash, as well as Alex Pettyfer as the wide-eyed, easily corrupted ingénue. And let’s not forget Matthew McConaughey’s incomparable showmanship as club owner Dallas. This is Soderbergh at his crowd-pleasing best. [Cindy White]

Soderbergh’s debut feature is a seminal and groundbreaking work on several fronts. Not only did bring him attention early in his career as a director to watch (he still holds the record as the youngest solo director to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes at 26 in 1989), its critical and financial success became a proof of concept for the independent film industry in the early ’90s. It also helped put the Sundance Film Festival (where it won the Audience Award) on the map as a marketplace for art-house darlings in search of a wider audience. Despite the intentionally provocative title, the characters in the film spend a lot more time talking about sex than actually participating in it. Soderbergh is more interested in sex as a concept, and the ways people use intimacy to establish or avoid connections. James Spader gives a standout performance as a drifter obsessed with videotaping women talking about their most intimate desires. The stripped-down cast also includes Peter Gallagher as a married man whose affair with his wife’s sister (Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacomo, respectively) is complicated by his old college friend’s voyeuristic kink. Even in his first film, you can see Soderbergh establishing the breezy, naturalistic visual style he would go on to perfect in later years. [Cindy White]

Soderbergh is often most effective when telling a lean, clean story with laser-sharp focus, turning a rather unadorned plot into something complicated and deeply involving. In other words, 1999’s . An angry, wiry, and exceptionally good Terence Stamp plays an ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to find out who killed his daughter—simple enough. But Soderbergh, using sun-bleached visuals and well-chosen snippets of a young Stamp in 1967’s , lays on the existential angst. And pairing Stamp with fellow ’60s icon Peter Fonda as a record producer who may know the score was a masterstroke. The Limey is a gritty California noir that proves, no matter what story he’s telling, Soderbergh’s instincts are almost always spot-on. [Mark Keizer]

As and his various viral videos about the can attest, Soderbergh knows how to cleanly break down processes and systems with a detachment that remains dense and riveting despite very little concession to an upside. In , based on the British series and adapted, with Oscar-winning success, by addict-turned-screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, Soderbergh explores America’s futile war on drugs in such a fashion. He works on a very large canvas, not so much attacking the problem but laying it out for audiences to see so they can come to their own conclusion. From the lowly Mexican border cop (Benicio Del Toro, who won an Oscar for his performance) to the undercover DEA agents (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman), from the cartel wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to the low-level smuggler (Miguel Ferrer), each brush stroke is as powerful as the whole painting. Color-coding the major storylines to help present the problem understandably and from multiple perspectives, this is Soderbergh’s most accomplished all-around work. The Motion Picture Academy certainly loved Traffic: Soderbergh won a Best Directing Oscar for the film. [Mark Keizer]

Is the gold standard of Hollywood heist films? Considering how prevalent it is on basic cable, it sure feels like everyone’s go-to favorite. And the film’s megawatt star power, unmatched by other examples in the genre, is largely what sets it apart: George Clooney AND Brad Pitt AND Julia Roberts, and they’re just the tip of this ensemble’s iceberg?! It helps that this adaptation from Ted Griffin, a remake of the , matches every charismatic movie star with a juicy enough part to make each actor treat it as more than flippant fun. Of course, it’s plenty flippant, and the cast is clearly having the time of their lives. Ocean’s Eleven benefits from endless rewatching both because it scratches the swanky-thriller itch with its impeccably detailed Vegas casino heist and because Clooney, Pitt, Roberts, and their co-stars understand a little goes a long way with Soderbergh’s irresistible comedic sensibility. [Jack Smart]

As much as we take Soderbergh’s success for granted today, during a large chunk of the ’90s he was listing about in the Hollywood wilderness, possibly attempting career suicide with and amusing himself with his arthouse take on Spalding Grey’s one-man show, . What saved him and set him on a permanent track toward all-time greatness was his first studio film, the 1998 crime thriller . The film, in which a career criminal played by George Clooney romances a U.S. marshal played by Jennifer Lopez, is a perfect match of director and source material. Elmore Leonard’s crackerjack 1996 novel is filled with everything we love about Elmore Leonard novels; the crackling dialogue, the juicy characters, and the seedy, crime-infested milieu. Soderbergh, showing a polish and style we didn’t know he possessed, created a masterful blend of crime film and romance that felt simultaneously modern and a bit ’70s. He also found moments for all his supporting actors to shine, including Albert Brooks, Don Cheadle, Dennis Farina, and Ving Rhames. Out Of Sight is sexy, sultry, and slick. It’s mainstream in the broad strokes but shot through with the pizzazz of an auteurist who doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s everything we love about Soderbergh wrapped up into one thoroughly entertaining package. From here, Soderbergh would craft one of the great Hollywood careers, a “one for me, one for the studios” directing resume that would make him one of modern cinema’s most restless, intelligent, and successful helmers. [Mark Keizer]