10 Best David Corenswet Movies & TV Shows, Ranked

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When head of DC Studios James Gunn announced that David Corenswet had been selected to play Superman, launching a new cinematic universe in a bid to compete with Marvel, it seemed as though the actor had been plucked from obscurity. Maybe even harvested on a farm where they grow movie stars who look perfectly suited to play superheroes, like Chris Evans as Captain America and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark before him — who knows? But although Corenswet was hardly a household name at the time, he had a respectable number of credits on his resume, proving that he had both the talent and the screen presence to do justice to the character.

From serious HBO dramas and unnerving horror films to Ryan Murphy Netflix series and warm-hearted romantic comedies, Corenswet has demonstrated an impressive range for someone who is still making his mark on the industry. And although not all of his projects were created equal, there are plenty of films and television shows within his filmography that are worth a watch. 

If you just saw the new "Superman" and are eager to see more of Corenswet's career, look no further than his best movies and TV shows, which we've assembled below.

"Affairs of State" may not be the best movie that David Corenswet has ever appeared in, but it does have the honor of being his feature film debut. In it, he plays Michael Lawrence a young up-and-comer in Washington D.C. employed by a high-powered senator, who does the one thing that pretty much guarantees an awkward working environment — he has an affair with his boss's wife, played by Mimi Rogers. And if that wasn't enough, he then finds himself forming an attachment with the senator's daughter, played by Grace Victoria Cox. 

This political thriller was released in 2018 and received mixed review — as a production, it's spectacularly unsubtle, although it does have shades of many popular films and television series of the genre. It can be a little silly at times, but we're certainly not going to get mad about a soapy political melodrama where everyone is sleeping with everyone else. And most importantly, it provided a launching pad for Corenswet, who quickly went on to bigger and better projects.

We picked a picture of David Corenswet hugging a dog in "The Greatest Hits" because, unfortunately, he dies in this one. Sorry, that's not a spoiler, because it's basically the entire premise of the movie. The film revolves around Harriet (Lucy Boynton), whose grief over the loss of her boyfriend Max (Corenswet) is made incredibly difficult to overcome by the fact that she has the power to travel back to different moments in their relationship whenever she hears a song that reminds her of him. (Interesting fact: This isn't the first time that Corenswet played Boynton's boyfriend, and it's not the first time he died on her, either.) 

Although this ability seems like a gift at first, it becomes clear fairly quickly that these stolen moments are haunting her, preventing her from moving on with her life as she becomes obsessed with trying to go back in time to save him. And when she sees a potential future with David (Justin H. Min, who you might recognize from "The Umbrella Academy"), a man she meets in her grief support group, Harriet has to make the painful decision to finally stop trying to live in the past with her lost love. A bittersweet romance that shows the complexities of relationships, "The Greatest Hits" features Corenswet at his most charming.

Everyone experiences points where their life could go one of two ways, when they have to make choices that will define where they go from there. "Look Both Ways" is sort of a "Sliding Doors" what-if scenario, when a young woman (Lili Reinhart) in her senior year is staring down the barrel of a pregnancy test. Whether she sees a plus or minus on that test becomes a touch point in her life, and for the rest of the film we see both scenarios play out, one where she's pregnant and one where she isn't. 

In the version of her life where Natalie (Reinhart) doesn't have a child, she moves to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams of becoming a filmmaker. While there, she works with Jake (David Corenswet), who hopes to one day work as a film producer, and the two hit it off. Corenswet plays one of two love interests in the film, representing the supposedly rosier version of Natalie's life where she has the freedom to follow her dreams — although "Look Both Ways" makes a point of reserving judgment on which of these paths is more inherently fulfilling, suggesting instead that life is, after all, what you make of it.

We regret to inform you that David Corenswet is an actor who owes a debt of gratitude to Ryan Murphy, whose reign of terror on Netflix is unmatched. He got one of his earliest prominent roles in "The Politican," where he played high school golden boy River Barkley. During the first season of the series, he is running against his friend and former lover Payton (Ben Platt) for student council president. But in the wake of a fight after River makes a cynical political move at the behest of his girlfriend (played by Lucy Boynton, his "Greatest Hits costar"), River suddenly and tragically dies by suicide in front of Payton. 

Shaken by the loss and grieving someone he cared deeply for, Payton throws all his attention into possibly the most dramatic high school student council race in American history. Although the show revolves around Ben Platt's locked-in performance as Payton, Corenswet nonetheless makes a massive impact with relatively little screen time, their relationship giving Payton a sense of vulnerability that was otherwise lacking. "The Politician" ran for two seasons on Netflix, but Corenswet's River is only featured in the first.

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Loosely based on "Full Service," Scotty Bowers' explosive tell-all about the largely closeted queer community in Los Angeles during Hollywood's golden age and his role in procuring sex workers to meet the specific needs of his celebrity clients, "Hollywood" is another splashy Ryan Murphy Netflix soap. Although the series is an ensemble drama featuring a number of different Hollywood figures — some fictional, some real, and some falling in between fiction and reality — David Corenswet is very much the face of the production. 

He begins the series as a wide-eyed World War II veteran moving to Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a movie star, but is quickly recruited into the service of Ernie West (Dylan McDermott), a pimp with a roster of men on call to accommodate his equally large line-up of clients. Although the show's artistic license often stretches believability, it's hard to knock the many impressive performances within the miniseries, especially that of Corenswet, who put himself on the radar of audiences as one to watch as Jack Castello. And if nothing else, audiences will enjoy the banger of a cast list, which includes Patti Lupone, Holland Taylor, Darren Criss, Samara Weaving, Jeremy Pope, Rob Reiner, Mira Sorvino, and Queen Latifah.

"Twisters" marks a special moment in the career of David Corenswet — it was this film he was working on when he auditioned to play Superman and received the news that he got the part, a role that would shoot him to stardom. But his performance in "Twisters" also showcases his range, because unlike the affable Clark Kent, here he plays Scott, a rigid numbers man with a dry sense of humor and a face of stone. As Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Javi (Anthony Ramos) reunite to deploy a new tornado scanning system in the field, Scott is a member of StormPAR team whose no-nonsense attitude stands in direct contrast to their main competitor, the brash YouTube star known as the Tornado Wrangler (Glen Powell). 

Although it isn't a direct sequel to the 1990s disaster classic "Twister," it carries on much of the heartfelt spirit of the original, including how willing it is to wave aside physics and the basic rules of how tornados work in service of a good action set piece. Come for Edgar-Jones and Powell's smoldering chemistry with one another (the fact that their kiss was cut is an actual crime), stay for Corenswet employing humor as dry as the Sahara Desert. Audiences certainly responded to the film, making it a summer blockbuster hit.

Based on a novel by Laura Lippman, "Lady in the Lake" extends AppleTV+'s excellent record when it comes to thrilling limited series. It stars Natalie Portman as Maddie, a 1960s housewife who makes a drastic change in her life when she leaves her family in order to follow her dreams of becoming a journalist. While pursuing her new path, she becomes obsessed with the unsolved murders of a teenage girl, Tessie (Bianca Belle), and a Black woman, Cleo (Moses Ingram) — two crimes that seem unrelated, but to Maddie at least are somehow intertwined. Maddie has a real self-destructive streak, and her fascination with these cases is just one example of her willingness to burn her life to the ground.

Normally, David Corenswet plays nice guys, but ... well, that's not so much the case with his role in "Lady in the Lake." He's Allan, the grieving father of Tessie, but he's also the man who years earlier was responsible for Maddie's first sexual encounter, which was not a consensual experience. It's an unflattering role for the all-American actor, but one that he handles with aplomb. Although some criticized the film for being slow, ponderous, and too visually dark, it's an ambitious effort from Apple TV+ to weave together an intriguing crime mystery that tackles the legacy of racism and the evolving role of women in mid-20th century America.

Stand aside, "The Wire" — there's a new kid in town. "We Own This City" revolves around the Baltimore Police Department, specifically the Gun Trace Task Force and the allegations of corruption and abuse that followed it for years. The gritty HBO miniseries explores not just the police officers who were booked on corruption charges, but the federal law enforcement operatives who investigated their crimes, the state police, and various civilians who crossed their paths. 

It stars Jon Bernthal as Wayne Jenkins, one of the key officers on the Gun Trace Task Force who was targeted in this investigation, while David Corenswet plays David McDougall, who works on the Harford County Narcotics Task Force. His office is intrinsically connected to the Gun Trace team, since they're often working on cases involving drug dealers, for whom narcotics and guns go hand in hand. In his review of "We Own This City" for SlashFilm, Josh Spiegel made the inevitable comparison between it and "The Wire," citing the high expectations surrounding the new HBO series. But ultimately, he considered it "a successful, unflinching, depressing tragedy of American proportions."

Coming on the heels of Ti West's incredibly successful "X," "Pearl" took a look into the past, giving us a glimpse of that film's elderly villain (Pearl, played by Mia Goth) as a young woman who dreams of stardom. Worn down by the harsh realities of her life on the farm, Pearl gets only brief moments of escape when she goes to the local cinema and immerses herself in the extravagent musicals on screen. There, she meets the Projectionist (he doesn't get an actual name), a young man with movie star good looks who seems to offer another option for escapism. 

He sees in Pearl a naive country girl who he can easily guide into a sexual relationship, showing her old-timey porn and sleeping with her at the theater, but it isn't long before he realizes that Pearl isn't quite what she seems. He's a predator who doesn't realize that he's stumbled into the web of an unhinged barn spider until it's too late. The Projectionist is played by none other than David Corenswet, and even though he meets a brutal end, "Pearl" gives him the opportunity to show off his classic Hollywood charm, a perfect fit for Pearl's Technicolor dreams.

And here we are: "Superman" is probably the main film that David Corenswet is going to be known for when we look back on his career in a decade or two. The actor plays the newest iteration of the Man of Steel in James Gunn's "Superman," and can we just say what a breath of fresh air it is for a movie to have a little bit of light and hope for a change? Corenswet's performance as both Clark Kent and Superman is probably one of the best interpretations of the character ever, bringing a folksy charm to the corn-fed superhero. In this crowd-pleasing version of "Superman," the Last Son of Krypton is dealing with a little bit of negative press after dipping a toe into international relations, getting involved in the growing tensions between Boravia and Jarhanpur. 

But you know what makes matters worse? Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) publicly airing Clark's dirty laundry, broadcasting to the world the lost second half of his only message from his Kryptonian parents that makes it seem like he has plans to subjugate the planet and spawn endless Krypto-babies via a secret harem. But the power of this Superman is that he's not only able to overcome the considerable challenges he faces through brute strength, but with his generally well-adjusted attitude that sees him through his darkest moments. 

"Superman" was the film that put Corenswet on the map, and with his winning performance, he proved why he was cast in the role. Our review of "Superman" praised his work in particular, with Chris Evangelista writing, "Corenswet has oodles of charisma here, and it's easy to buy him as a superhero." We would go further and say that he's the best Superman and Clark Kent since Christopher Reeve.