Game of Thrones has been a triumph for HBO. The series has recently concluded its seventh season with the world holding its breath for the concluding eighth chapter. Based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series published by Bantam Books, the fantasy epic has become a brand recognisable the world over.
Game of Thrones is a massive draw for audiences and just having that label will get something talked about. The planned HBO spin-off shows have it and it is seen in other forms of media too. There are podcasts like Acast’s A Cast of Kings and Storm of Spoilers, video games like the Telltale series, the Game of Thrones online slot game from Micro Gamingת but it’s not limited to media. Actors have it too with “Game of Thrones star…” acting as a great cast intro to help a movie draw attention, for better or worse.
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Some of the cast are established actors who have been working in Hollywood for decades, others are relatively new. Almost all the main on-screen actors have starred in movies. Here are the best and worst.
The 5 Best
5)Detroit – Hannah Murray
Detroit tells the story of the 1967 Detroit Riots in which a group of violent and oppressive police officers react exactly as expected to unease in the city. Director Kathryn Bigelow shines once again in this film distributed by Annapurna Pictures with an impressive cast of young talent. John Boyega and Algee Smith steal the show but GoT’s own Hannah Murray puts in a good performance as Julie Ann, a naive out-of-towner who gets thrown in way over her head.
4)Dredd – Lena Headey
What a good movie. For all the hits of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and th e slightly fewer hits in the DC Extended Universe, the best comic book movie of the last ten years was Dredd. Karl Urban as the titular character who judges his way through a drugged-up tower block run by the evil Ma-Ma, Lena Headey.
3) John Wick – Alfie Allen
Few expected John Wick to be as successful as it has been. The first film by stuntman-turned-director, Chad Stahelski is a head-shotting revenge thriller featuring Keanu Reeves at his very best. Theon Greyjoy himself also makes an appearance with Alfie Allen starring as Iosef, the pampered son of a Russian mobster with even more daddy issues than his character on Game of Thrones.
2) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Sean Bean
This one almost feels like cheating. Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings are the two great onscreen fantasy epics of our lifetime and Sean Bean died in both of them. When he wasn’t getting murdered by an evil goblin, he was getting killed off in Lord of the Rings too. Both Boromir and Ned Stark are wonderfully deep characters with legacies living on long after their deaths.
1) Hot Fuzz – Rory McCann
Yarp. Game of Thrones’ The Hound had a memorable cameo as Michael, a simple shelf-stacking henchman in Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz. Rory McCann’s character in Game of Thrones probably knows a few more words than his one in the 2007 action comedy although, exclude the swear words and it’s about the same.
5)Dracula Untold – Charles Dance
Charles Dance is undoubtedly one of the best actors in all of Game of Thrones but he has been in some stinkers over the years. Despite his roles in films like Ali G Indahouse and Your Highness, Dance’s worst movie is probably Dracula Untold. It’s almost impressive how bad they could make a big budget action movie about vampires.
4) Terminator: Genisys – Emilia Clarke
There have been some terrible Terminator movies down the years but Genisys was the only one which was so bad it got James Cameron out of retirement just to try and erase it from existence. Emilia Clarke stars as Sarah Connor in this star-studded flop from director Alan Taylor. Clarke was the second Game of Thrones actor to play Connor behind Lena Headey but, unfortunately, neither was quite as good as Linda Hamilton.
3) Pompeii – Kit Harrington
Another star who has been his fair share of stinkers, it seems that Jon Snow’s agent is actually the one who knows nothing. Seventh Son, Silent Hill: Revelation and Spooks: The Greater Good were all bad but Kit Harrington’s worst film is Pompeii. The 2014 film Pearl Harbours the eruption of Mount Vesuvius with its half-baked love story in the middle of a disaster.
2) Pixels – Peter Dinklage
Aliens invade 1980s arcade games, leaving the old nerds as humanity’s last hope in this film distributed by Columbia Pictures. It’s actually a pretty fun idea for a movie but, sadly, it did not pay off. Adam Sandler made yet another Adam Sandler movie which did incredibly well at the box office despite almost everyone seemingly full of hate about it. Peter Dinklage plays Eddie, a former arcade gamer who has to band together with Sandler’s ragtag group of heroes. You’re better than this, Dinklage.
1) Gods of Egypt – Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Jaime Lannister himself starred in what is honestly, the worst film ever made. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was the central character in 2016’s Gods of Egypt, the story of ten-foot gods who bleed gold and transform into animals to fight each other for the throne of Ancient Greece. Coster-Waldau plays Horus, the God of Air and does about as much as he can with this…optimistic film.
