Father’s Day is almost here, which means dads everywhere will likely be sipping from their #1 DAD mugs, even if they secretly admit they might land more realistically in the Top 10 or perhaps Top 15. In reality, the world abounds with great dads, but the cache of standout Dad Movies is comparatively limited. Many of the genre’s greatest champions have turned to DTV movies or are busy with self-financed, sprawling multi-part epics that may never see completion. With sports being a beloved interest of many dads, let’s frame this as a contest. Which recent film star truly reigns supreme in the realm of Dad Movies?
To begin, we must set certain ground rules for eliminations. Matt Damon and Christian Bale have led in arguably the Dadliest movie of the last decade, 2019’s Ford v. Ferrari. It earns a spot on our recent list of Dad Movies Through the Ages quite effortlessly. Damon, in particular, has emerged as a modern-day patron saint of the Dad Movie genre, with roles in the Bourne series, Stillwater, Air, and collaborations with Christopher Nolan. Still, both he and Bale have a tendency to veer toward prestige projects rather than pure Dad Movie fare. Similarly, although Damon’s buddy Ben Affleck churns out Dad-friendly films, he exudes a certain divorced aura that doesn’t quite align with many dads’ ideal self-image. Action icons like Jason Statham lack the historical depth expected in the genre. Moreover, the perfect Dad Movie star exhibits a faded-megastar appeal—they were once widely celebrated, remain well-known, but have embraced a certain film style as they settle into middle age.
As such, your current Dad Movie contenders are determined to be Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, and Gerard Butler. Let them fight!
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Kevin Costner
Photo: History Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: The Untouchables; Bull Durham; Field of Dreams; Tin Cup; Open Range
Strengths: Baseball; sometimes other sports; cowboys; playing dads or dad-like mentors to Superman, Jack Ryan, etc.
Weaknesses: Dubious racial undertones and loyalty to Mike Binder (see Black or White) (actually, don’t); investing resources into an ambiguous-length western that tends to confound.
Number of Westerns: 8
Analysis: Costner’s Dad Movie Canon could be twice as long, and he certainly has dad cred from his mentor roles. But the man hasn’t made a true classic, even within this subgenre, in ages.
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Harrison Ford
Courtesy Everett Collection Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: Blade Runner; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, specifically; The Fugitive; Clear and Present Danger; Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Strengths: Taking a punch; pointing figures; growling
Weaknesses: Bad taste in character-actor parts; relatedly, appearing in the only bad Captain America movie.
Number of Westerns: 1
Analysis: Harrison Ford probably could have taken this title at any point through the mid-2000s, but a lot of his best and most-seen performances in the past decade have been in legacy sequels. Nothing wrong with that; he seems quite engaged in sequels to Blade Runner and Star Wars. But his big concession to the classic Dad Movie crowd has been on TV, where he does one of those Taylor Sheridan western shows — though that’s not the one counted here; that would be the misconceived Cowboys & Aliens, illustrative of how he has sometimes eschewed meat-and-potatoes thrillers in favor of nerdier fare.
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Russell Crowe
Photo: Everett Collection Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: The Insider; Gladiator; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; 3:10 to Yuma; The Nice Guys
Strengths: Ham; performing exorcisms for the Pope; playing Superman’s biological dad; semi-secretly being hilarious
Weaknesses: Ham; not offsetting dourness by hosting SNL often enough
Number of Westerns: 3
Analysis: Russell Crowe has really embraced genre in his later years, which is a mixed blessing; sometimes he’s doing something as fun as The Pope’s Exorcist, while other times it feels like he’s squandering his occasional career as a character actor.
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Gerard Butler
Photo: Everett Collection Five-Picture Dad Movie Canon: 300; How to Train Your Dragon and/or Reign of Fire (depending on your age); Den of Thieves; Angel Has Fallen; Copshop
Strengths: Consistency; lack of pretension
Weaknesses: Compulsive collaboration with Ric Roman Waugh; sheer volume of terrible movies
Number of Westerns: A shameful zero!
Analysis: As the youngest of this bunch, Butler has made an impressive play for the title. But he needs more Den of Thieves-level junk classics and fewer genuinely low-rent stuff like those horrible Has Fallen movies. (Angel gets a pass for being a Fugitive knockoff.)
Our Call: With the western-appearance bonus points, it’s really between Crowe and Costner. Does Crowe lose cred for not being American? Is Costner the only contemporary movie star you could accuse of being in too many westerns?! Does Crowe gain points for being cooler than Mel Gibson, while Costner loses them for being not as cool as Clint Eastwood? Ultimately, dads have to pick the guy who works best for them. But Crowe might be the surprise champion here. Maybe spend your Father’s Day watching The Water Diviner while standing up off to the side of the TV.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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