Brad Pitt's Highest-Rated Movie Role On Rotten Tomatoes Was Just A Cameo

Steve McQueen's 2013 historical biography "12 Years a Slave" came about when the director ran into screenwriter John Ridley at an agency event in 2008. They liked each other's styles and resolved to make a film together, specifically about slavery in the United States in the 19th century. McQueen's longtime partner, Bianca Stigter, was the one to find Solomon Northrup's 1853 memoir "12 Years a Slave." Thanks to the popularity of McQueen's film, everyone knows the tragedy of Northrup's life. Born a free man in New York, he was visiting Washington D.C. in 1841 where he was drugged and kidnapped and taken to Louisiana. There, he was enslaved by a planter, and it took 12 years for him to get help to free himself. Racism and slavery were worse than you think.

Ridley and McQueen developed the film together for many years, and it wasn't until about 2011 that Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, became involved. With Pitt's clout driving the production, more investors became interested. Michael Fassbender, who worked with McQueen on the movies "Hunger" and "Shame," joined the cast, as did Chiwetel Ejiofor (who plays Northrup in the film) and Lupita Nyong'o. Thereafter, several notable stars also signed on, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, and Sarah Paulson. Pitt himself, who is credited as an executive producer, also took on a small role. He plays the Canadian abolitionist Samuel Bass, who openly expresses his anti-slavery values to Northrup. As in real life, Bass ultimately proves to be instrumental in Northrup's eventual release from slavery.

"12 Years a Slave" came out in Fall 2013, and it was a gigantic critical and financial success. It made over $187 million at the global box office against a $20 million budget and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It has a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 377 reviews. It's widely beloved and admired for its unflinching look at the U.S.' dark past.

It also remains the highest-rated film on RT that Pitt has acted in.

When it comes to the films that Pitt has executive produced (and there have been many), "12 Years a Slave" still has a lower approval rating than movies like "Selma," "Moonlight," and "Minari." Pitt's Plan B Entertainment vacillates between outsize studio productions that he can star in (it also backed his 2025 racing flick "F1") and smaller, lower-budgeted dramas that get a lot of critical attention (like 2024's Best Picture nominee "Nickel Boys"). Indeed, Pitt has been an executive producer on 10 Best Picture nominees and two winners to date ("Moonlight" being the other one). Moreover, many of Plan B's films directly address the concerns and stories of Black Americans.

As an actor, though, "12 Years a Slave" remains Pitt's most acclaimed film, at least by Rotten Tomatoes' standards. Only slightly below it, with a 94% approval rating, is Bennett Miller's 2011 true story baseball drama "Moneyball." That movie, which was daring for dramatizing how unimportant romance and instincts are when assembling a baseball team, featured Pitt as its lead character (unlike "12 Years a Slave"). The third highest-rated Pitt movie on RT is Tony Scott's 1993 crime film "True Romance," which boasts a 93% approval rating. Pitt, however, only has a few lines in that movie, playing a perpetually stoned wastoid. Meanwhile, he has a slightly larger role in the 2015 satirical financial crisis dramedy "The Big Short," which he also produced. That film has an 89% approval rating and is tied on RT with the ultra-violent 2009 WWII actioner "Inglourious Basterds" (itself directed by Quentin Tarantino, who, as it were, also wrote "True Romance").

Pitt, of course, has also starred in his share of stinkers. They include director Ralph Bakshi's 1992 semi-animated crime flick "Cool World," which only has a 4% RT rating based on 51 reviews. The Pitt-starring 1989 horror-comedy "Cutting Class" is also poorly regarded and only has a 14% approval rating on the site. Pitt's lowest rated film as a producer, meanwhile, is the 2006 coming-of-age dramedy "Running with Scissors," which only 32% of critics liked.