Throughout his multi-decade career, acclaimed auteur and Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee has wowed audiences and let them down, but how do his big-screen outings rank in of quality? Beginning with his critically acclaimed “Father Knows Best” trilogy in the early '90s, Ang Lee’s career has since seen the helmer bounce between big-budget Hollywood projects and smaller, more intimate personal projects. However, unlike a lot of directors who move between big studio releases and smaller-scale dramas, the success of Lee’s movies has never been defined by their relative scale.
Often, directors who master interpersonal drama can struggle with huge, expansive movies, and vice versa. However, some of Lee's smaller dramas like Taking Woodstock have disappointed audiences and critics alike, while some of his best movies, such as the martial arts movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is among his most ambitious in scope.
With fourteen feature films to his name, it’s no small task to rifle through Lee’s on-screen CV. But ranking Ang Lee’s directorial efforts from a strange superhero blockbuster through to a tender, tragic love story means seeing where the helmer’s strengths and weaknesses lie, and a look through his back catalog can help viewers hazard a guess where the mercurial talent Lee may be heading next.
14. Gemini Man (2019)
It’s only fair to start with Lee’s lone flop, and what a flop Tony Scott and Joe Carnahan were considered for the 2019 misfire, and Lee is not the right choice for this rambunctious, high-concept sci-fi flick, but credit where it’s due, the movie at least looks interesting thanks to its eye-catching, trippy 120fps shooting technology.
13. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016)
Based on the bestseller of the same name, 2016’s war drama Life of Pi, Lee’s earnest movie, unfortunately, sapped Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk of the source material’s dark, Slaughterhouse 5-style anti-war satire and left viewers with a busy, but ultimately, empty visual spectacle.
12. Hulk (2003)
Hulk saw Eric Bana star as Bruce Banner as he went through his initial transformation into the titular antihero for the first time on the big screen. Hulk featured Lee’s interesting attempts to add campy flourishes like in-camera comic frames to liven up proceedings, but critics found the film's story uninspired and the CGI ugly. However, Hulk deserves props for being an unusually ambitious and genuinely strange superhero movie.
11. Taking Woodstock (2009)
Not a bad movie per se, but an under-ambitious one, Dazed and Confused.
10. Ride With The Devil (1999)
Ambitious but flawed, this revisionist Western stars a host of underrated young '90s actors (Tobey Maguire! Skeet Ulrich! Jonathan Rhys Meyers!) as gunslingers who are trapped in a morally complicated, surprisingly realistic battle of life and death. The plot is knotty but worth the wait, although the complex story could put off fans of fast-paced traditional Westerns. Slow and elegiac, it’s not quite Unforgiven but traffics in similarly ambitious themes and deserved better than its fate of bombing at the box office.
9. Life of Pi (2012)
Released in 2009, Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martell’s bestseller of the same name barely breaks from Life of Pi's simple story of a shipwrecked young man recounting his survival story to life in lush, beautiful color. The tale is as thin as it was in the original novel, but the central performance is strong and the visuals are unparalleled. Lee's gift for visuals elevates this one, and the movie was rewarded with Oscars in directing for Lee as well as cinematography, score, and visual effects.
8. The Ice Storm (1997)
Before Tobey Maguire, Sigourney Weaver, Katie Holmes, and Kevin Kline’s performances.
7. The Wedding Banquet (1993)
The second of the "Father Knows Best" trilogy may not be its most fondly ed, but that’s only because all three films are so strong. The tale of the titular banquet is told through the eyes of various participants, and this warm dramedy captures a specific culture and a universal story of family and love with charming, subtle wit. One of the first films to showcase Lee's comic timing, The Wedding Banquet remains an under-seen gem.
6. Lust, Caution (2007)
Easily the steamiest of Lee’s screen outings, Lust, Caution caught inevitable heat in China due to its combination of political intrigue and explicit sex. The film follows a group of young students attempting to assassinate a prominent politician through seduction. Lust, Caution is an intense erotic drama with a thrilling, unpredictable love story at its core, and a pair of strong lead performances elevate this to one of Lee’s best.
5. Pushing Hands (1991)
Centering on the classic problem of Western individualism versus Chinese culture’s focus on the collective good, this knowing, sharp comedy-drama introduced the world to Lee’s directorial potential. Centering on the struggles of an elderly Tai Chi master acclimating to life in New York, it's a fish out of water comedy whose culture clash feels atypically sincere and fresh. Upon rewatch, Pushing Hands is less ambitiously sprawling than Lee's later work, but all the stronger for its unsparing, humane focus.
4. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
Funnier, sweeter, and more impactful than the (also-great) other "Father Knows Best" trilogy installments, Eat Drink Man Woman was the romantic comedy film that saw Lee break into the mainstream. The comedy-drama follows the fortunes of a man and his three unmarried daughters, a set-up worthy of another social satirist Lee would soon go on to adapt the work of. The influence of Jane Austen on Lee's brittle wit is already evident here.
3. Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Lee’s first English language movie, this Jane Austen adaption benefits from a stellar cast in the form of a ionate Kate Winslet and demure Emma Thompson in the lead roles. Meanwhile, '90s stalwarts Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant add charm and gravitas as their respective love interests. Fast-paced, funny, and just the right amount of heartbreaking, Sense and Sensibility remains one of Lee’s best and one of the strongest Austen adaptations to date.
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
One of the most successful wuxia films in cinema history and the movie that introduced the genre to the Western world en masse, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts movie that is also likely Lee’s most visually stunning film. Ostensibly the story of a woman retrieving the sword of her lost love, this moving drama is also a thrilling action movie. It’s one of Lee's most arresting outings in visual and this one-of-a-kind hit deserved the outsized success the period piece enjoyed upon release.
1. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Lee’s best by a mile, this western love story features the strongest performance of Heath Ledger’s brief career and Jake Gyllenhall’s breakthrough role. Brokeback Mountain tells the simple, heartbreaking story of two cowboys who find tenderness together in a cruel, unsparing world, and the tragic cost that their love has on their lives. Gyllenhall dials back the dramatics of Donnie Darko for a more subtle, challenging turn while Ledger is nothing short of devastating in a moving drama that boasts the accolade of being Ang Lee’s undeniable modern masterpiece.
