The best and worst Eddie Murphy movies

“Trading Places” is one of those ‘80s movies that people often talk about as an all-time great comedy which doesn’t quite live up to that hype. Now, that isn’t to say it isn’t fitfully funny, and pretty good, and it does have strong performances from Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. This was Murphy’s second feature film, and probably the one that really helped him break out after “48 Hrs.” Do recall how young Murphy was when he popped on “Saturday Night Live”? He turned 22 in 1983.

Wes Craven and Eddie Murphy joining forces for a horror-comedy? That seems odd, and it didn’t quite work. Murphy got to do what he loved, play multiple characters (including an Italian-American gangster named, ahem, Guido), but to no avail. Now, “Vampire in Brooklyn” has gotten a “reassessment” where some say it was actually good, but these days, effectively every film ever made gets an “actually it’s good” reassessment, and 95 percent of them you can dismiss out of hand.

This is, to us, Murphy’s best movie. It’s when he clearly became a movie star. In terms of action-comedies that deliver quality action and comedy, “Beverly Hills Cop” is up there with the best. It’s not a coincidence that both this movie and “Midnight Run,” another classic action-comedy, were both directed by Martin Brest. Sure, Brest’s career would end with “Gigli,” but he got a couple of classics onto his filmography as well.

“Beverly Hills Cop II” is fine. We totally get why there was a sequel to the first movie. “Beverly Hills Cop” made $234 million off of a budget of $13 million. It was a huge hit with a somewhat replicable plot. Returning to the well a third time a decade after the first movie, and seven years after the second, proved less fruitful. The movie was written by Steven E. de Souza and directed by John Landis, two guys who at their best delivered quality work, but also could check out and cash in on occasion. That seemed to be the case for both of them with the woeful “Beverly Hills Cop III.”

The success of “Coming to America” perhaps helped foster some of Murphy’s worst comedic impulses. It’s a lot of him and his buddy Arsenio Hall wearing a bunch of makeup and playing different characters, many of which have no real bearing on, you know, anything. “Coming to America” has the trappings of a self-indulgent star vehicle to be sure. However, it’s also good, and it was majorly successful, which also probably didn’t help Murphy keep the ship sailing straight. This was the peak of Murphy’s powers in many ways, but that inherently implies a fall.

“Holy Man” is not just facile ‘90s satire. It’s also dreadfully dull. This is such a nothing movie. There are no jokes, but also no big swings or fascinatingly flawed ideas. “Holy Man” is an utter shrug, so much so it doesn’t even get mentioned in discussions of Murphy’s litany of misfires on the big screen. If it wasn’t oxymoronic, we’d assert you can find a picture of “Holy Man” next to “forgettable” in the dictionary.

With “The Nutty Professor,” Murphy pushed the limits of his affinity for playing multiple roles and broad, one-note characters. If anything, he pushed it juuuust over the edge. That is to say there is a smidge of “Murphy in a wig and makeup” fatigue to be found in this reimagining of a classic comedy movie. This time around, those frustrations remained on the margins, though, allowing for a mostly enjoyable experience.

A couple of years after “The Nutty Professor,” Murphy also starred in a new version of a classic story. You know Dr. Doolittle. He talks to animals! That’s fine fodder for a light comedy, but what we got was a movie that was light on comedy. Even in some of his worst movies, Murphy at least seems committed. “Dr. Doolittle” feels more phoned in, which is remarkable given he later made a sequel that has even less oomph to it.

Many have come around to the idea that “Bowfinger” is the best movie that Murphy is in, or at least the “most underrated.” It’s not the best Murphy vehicle, but in terms of movies he has a key role in, the Hollywood comedy has a lot of fans. Steve Martin plays huckster filmmaker Bobby Bowfinger who crafts a plan to make a low-budget movie by filming actor star Kit Ramsey guerilla style without his knowledge, and then using his twin brother Jiff for all the scenes where that isn’t feasible. Murphy plays the Ramseys, and this time he gets to indulge in multiple characters in a way that is actually well-crafted and substantive.

On the flip side, we have Murphy’s other 1999 movie. He teamed up with Martin Lawrence, another comedy star with a checkered filmography, for a prison comedy that has nothing going for it. The jokes are obvious, the performances unremarkable. In truth, Lawrence is a one-note actor, and personally we don’t think he is all that strong at that one note. He shoulders more of the blame for the mediocrity of “Life,” but Murphy doesn’t exactly skate.

He was already a star, and had already pulled in many an impressive payday, but “Shrek” and its sequels further ensconced Murphy into the cultural iconography (and also has made, and will continue to make, him a ridiculous amount of money). “Shrek” was not a guaranteed success when it was released, and it had gone through the turmoil of losing Chris Farley after he had already recorded much of Shrek’s dialog. Mike Myers stepped in, Murphy did his thing as Donkey, and one of the defining animated franchises of the new millennium was born. Also, “Shrek” is good.

The year 2002 is when the slide for Murphy truly began, although it was less a “slide” and more a “drop off a cliff.” We could have included “I Spy” or “Showtime” on this list, and they are both 2002 releases as well. However, on a charitable day, those movies would get a C grade. At best, “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” gets the “gentleman’s F” aka a D-minus. It’s atrocious. It’s famously bad. It began the narrative of “Is Murphy’s career on the decline.” Only one other film has arguably been as disastrous to Murphy’s career, and we’ll be getting to that.

“Dreamgirls” is very much an ensemble piece, but also has more prestige than any movie Murphy has done. This is a drama, a musical at that. Jennifer Hudson won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars for “Dreamgirls.” Murphy also got himself an Oscar nomination for his turn in the film. He had been a movie star. This was his chance to be an Oscar winner.

We don’t know if the narrative is true. It’s anecdotal, and feels a bit too neat. So, you know, grains of salt and all that. Caveats aside, it does feel plausible that Murphy did not win Best Supporting Actor for “Dreamgirls” because “Norbit” came out on February 9, 2007 and Oscar voters either saw it, or just saw the trailer, or just heard how bad it was. “Norbit” is execrable. It’s noxious. It plausibly kept Murphy, the favorite in his category, to lose an Oscar. Now that, that’s a career disaster. (The other theory, we will note, is that many below-the-line voters did not want to vote for Murphy because he had been awful to them, or friends in the industry, on set.)

“Tower Heist” feels like more of a testing of the waters for the semi-resurgence that Murphy has enjoyed recently. It’s an R-rated heist comedy that allowed Murphy to recapture some of that Billy Ray Valentine or Axel Foley magic. While the movie is, on the whole, more decent than good, it got people buzzing about Murphy and showed that there was an appetite for him to have a renaissance.

“Meet Dave” is a classic example of how studio notes and script rewrites and production chaos rarely yield quality results. This does not feel like a Murphy vehicle, which by 2008 was probably a good thing. The problem is that it doesn’t feel like much of anything. It’s a sci-fi movie about a bunch of tiny aliens who come to Earth in a spaceship that looks like a human (played by Murphy). The studio did not want to pitch it as a sci-fi movie, hence the generic title “Meet Dave.” They rewrote the script and sanded off the edges until we were left with the blandest movie possible.

“Dolemite is My Name” was the true turning point for Murphy. It’s when his “comeback” was minted. Murphy starred in a Netflix biopic about comedian and cult filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore. He got to be vulgar but funny, but also dramatic. “Dolemite is My Name” got strong reviews, and also paved the way for Murphy to host “Saturday Night Live.” It’s a good movie, and more importantly, Murphy is good in it.

Yeah, perhaps it is a little awkward to talk up Murphy’s comeback with “Dolemite is My Name” and then end by going back in time for another “worst.” However, Murphy’s dodgy filmography is defined by the misses as much as the hits. Also, you could take it as a good sign that none of Murphy’s movies since “Dolemite” qualify for a “worst” entry (none qualify as a “best” either, but that’s a story for another day). “A Thousand Words” was the death knell of the “Eddie Murphy comedy,” or so it seemed. After it came out, he was in one film before “Dolemite,” 2016’s forgotten drama “Mr. Church.” He didn’t really make another “Eddie Murphy comedy” until 2021’s “Coming 2 America.” “A Thousand Words” is not his worst comedy, though it is bad, but it was seemingly the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.