12 Best Charlie Hunnam Movies And TV Shows, Ranked

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Charlie Hunnam has been carving out a name for himself in Hollywood since he was a young Brit looking for his big break. While he might be best known for his role as Jax Teller in “Sons of Anarchy” or for playing Raleigh Beckett in “Pacific Rim,” he’s managed to launch a solid career for himself that has only gotten more interesting as he’s extended his résumé beyond those characters. The actor has been in everything from rock ’em-sock ’em action pictures to thoughtful historical dramas and gothic horror films. He hasn’t just focused solely on huge studio movies, either, as some of his best work has been in independent productions and various television projects. From cult-favorite shows to big-screen blockbusters, Hunnam has worked hard to show people he can do more than ride a motorcycle, shoot a gun, and talk tough.

But which of the actor’s projects should you go out of your way to watch, where should you start your streaming adventure, and which of the actor’s films and shows are the very best ones for you to spend a Friday night with? Here’s a list of Hunnum’s best onscreen work, ranked from least interesting to best, the order of which has been determined by author opinion.

A single-season spanning Fox sitcom about life in college in the early aughts, “Undeclared” launched a lot of famous faces into the show business stratosphere. Creator Judd Apatow’s follow-up sitcom to “Freaks and Geeks,” the show fittingly shifted the focus from high school to a California university where no one has it together. Charlie Hunnam plays Lloyd Haythe, an obnoxious theater major who has a habit of constantly hooking up with girls and then kicking his roommate, Steven (Jay Baruchel), out of their room in order to complete his trysts. In spite of this, Lloyd and Steven forge an actual friendship with the ladies man becoming a romantic advisor to Steven and the rest of their friends.

“Undeclared” was Hunnam’s next stepping stone after “Queer as Folk” broke his career wide open in America, and the sitcom has gained a huge cult following since Apatow’s career blew up. But despite the show’s enduring popularity, the actor has since expressed a disinterest in returning to the world of comedy, even turning down the part of Aldous Snow in Apatow’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

• Cast: Jay Baruchel, Charlie Hunnam, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Monica Keegan
• Director: various
• Rating: TV-PG
• Runtime: 30 Minutes per episode (total number of episodes: 17)
• Where to watch: Prime Video

Charlie Hunnam has become a member of Guy Ritchie’s stable of actors, and this gritty take on the King Arthur mythos was the first time he played a lead for the flashy action director. While the epic fantasy film didn’t quite set the world on fire — it failed to even earn its budget back at the box office and put something of a crimp in Hunnam’s attempt at becoming a big action star — it’s retroactively become looked at as a perfectly serviceable take on an old myth, even if Hunnam wishes he could film it all over again. Call it a historical flop if you must, but it’s a good time — and it definitely feels like an underrated movie in Hunnam’s resumé at this point.

In this version of the tale, Arthur (Hunnam) is the son of Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), king of Britain. When Uther is killed and loses his crown in a siege on Camelot, Arthur flees to the safety of Londinium. While he gains respect as a minor chieftain, he soon realizes the ghosts of the past will never rest until he reclaims the crown for his family — a task that means defeating his own uncle, the brutal Vortigern (Jude Law). To achieve this, Arthur sets about leading a resistance movement, one that may cost him his own head. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a good, fast-paced action flick.

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou
• Director: Guy Ritchie
• Rating: PG-13
• Runtime: 121 minutes
• Where to watch: Prime Video, Google Play

Remaking a popular film is always a dangerous prospect, but director Michael Noer managed to pull off a watchable flick that audiences enjoyed with “Papillon,” a new take on the Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman prison flick from 1973. Charlie Hunnam plays the titular role, Henri “Papillon” Charrière, and while he can’t quite hold a candle to McQueen’s firepower in the original, the movie overall is a solid, engrossing action piece that leaves you rooting for its heroes.

Papillon — so nicknamed because of the butterfly tattoo on his chest — has been sentenced to a lifetime stretch in the Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guiana after he’s accused of murder. Though he’s actually a humble safecracker and hasn’t killed anyone, that matters not to the authorities. Henri makes a friend on the ride to detention hell — forger Louis Dega (Rami Malek). The two inmates forge a close bond while trying to escape to freedom and avoid all of the horrors the penal colony has to offer.

A classic Guy Ritchie ensemble caper picture, filled with guns, explosions and gangsters, “The Gentlemen” is a good, solid, beery fun time. It’s fast-paced, quick-witted, and violent — in short, everything you’d expect from the genre, from Hunnam, and from Ritchie.

Michael “Mickey” Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) is a marijuana kingpin who plans on getting out of the drug trade when Britain legalizes the plant. And so, he decides to sell the business off to a moral person with clean hands. His plan is to turn the business into a legal dispensary while he retires from the trade to enjoy life with his wife. This awakens a hive of colorful low lives who come out of the woodwork to get both Pearson’s specially-grown strain of marijuana and his empire. Failed YouTubers, Chinese gangsters and all sorts of weirdos make trouble for Pearson, who tries to escape with his ill-gotten gains intact. In the thick of it is Hunnam as Raymond, Pearson’s right-hand man.

• Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam
• Director: Guy Ritchie
• Rating: R
• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Where to watch: Netflix

A lush historical epic with roots in a real-life story, “The Lost City of Z” takes a look into the search for lost Amazonian lands and places long forgotten — an irony since the film itself has become something of a forgotten treasure in Prime Video’s archives. Hunnam stars as a talented man whose social position keeps stymying him and who gets eaten alive by his obsession as he delves deep into a primal world, begetting consequences he can’t immediately fathom.

Hunnam plays Percy Fawcett, a real-life archeologist and geographer who is snubbed by the upper-crust social circles in which he runs. After the Royal Geographical Society sends him into the Amazon rainforest to help with a boundary dispute between Brazil and Bolivia, the surveying party is successful, and Fawcett soon hears tales about a lost city deep in the jungle. He decides to mount an expedition to find it and secures financial backing from James Murray (Angus Macfadyen). Dubbing it “The Lost City of Z,” Fawcett soon sets out to find his quarry, but as time goes on and his fame grows, so does the danger.

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson
• Director: James Gray
• Rating: PG-13
• Runtime: 141 minutes
• Where to watch: Amazon’s Prime Video

“Shantaram” marked Charlie Hunnam’s return to American television in the wake of “Sons of Anarchy.” This show, too, planted him on the wrong side of the law as he portrays Dale Conti, a real-life man who had been imprisoned in Australia for a series of armed robberies while trying to work as a medical intern. After escaping from prison and managing to make it to Bombay, Conti begins practicing medicine under the name Lindsay “Linbaba” Ford. But in spite of his fresh start, Lindsay/Dale finds himself suffocating in his paranoid fear that he’ll be found out as a fugitive — paranoia that proves justified as trouble soon finds him.

Though the show was axed after only one season, Hunnam managed to depict Conti as a man worth rooting for while creating a suspenseful, tense atmosphere. The show does a great job of setting things up and making you care about how everything will turn out, though it unfortunately ends on a dangling cliffhanger.

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson
• Director: Various
• Rating: TV-MA
• Runtime: 1 hour each (total number of episodes: 12)
• Where to watch: Apple TV +

Charlie Hunnam’s big breakthrough in the UK came when he starred in the British version of “Queer as Folk” when he was eighteen. He played Nathan Maloney, a schoolboy grappling with his sexuality and trying to figure out how love works as he plunges into the Manchester gay scene. While Nathan has plenty of self-confidence, he’s an innocent young man who doesn’t understand how one-night stands work. He also suffers the misfortune of initially falling for Stuart Alan Jones (Aidan Gillen), a playboy advertising executive.

Viewers may not be familiar with the UK series since the US version aired for a much longer time and served as a cultural breakthrough for gay characters in the States. But the original version of the series is just as bare-souled (and bare-skinned) about its characters, and Hunnam proves his mettle as a dramatic actor in its episodes.

• Cast: Aidan Gillen, Craig Kelly, Charlie Hunnam, Denise Black
• Director: various
• Rating: TV-MA
• Runtime: Episode lengths vary (total number of episodes: 10)
• Where to watch: Tubi, Pluto, Roku Channel, Prime Video

A touching tale of two siblings, boxing, and the loyalty that binds them together, “Jungleland” proves that Charlie Hunnam has a quiet, subtle side that shines through in this film. An unjustly ignored picture when it was released, fans of the actor should definitely make this a stop on their tour through his filmography. 

Walter “Lion” Kaminski (Jack O’Connell) and his brother, Stanley (Hunnam), have some major problems. Stanley is an ex-con turned Walter’s boxing manager, and Walter’s star has dimmed to the point that he’s working underground boxing matches. By day, they work side-by-side, sewing in a Massachusetts factory and always accompanied by their pet dog, Ash. Stanley is in deep with Pepper (Jonathan Majors), a gangster who pressures Stanley into allowing bets on Walter’s matches. When Walter responds by throwing a fight in disgust, Pepper is furious, but he sees enough of Walter’s skills to know he has potential. He lets the brothers pay off the debt by driving a girl named Sky (Jessica Barden) to Reno, then places Walter in a high-stakes underground fight. Through it all, the brothers’ bonds stay strong in spite of their incredibly and increasingly dire situations.

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Jack O’Connell
• Director: Max Winkler
• Rating: R
• Runtime: 90 minutes
• Where to watch: Pluto

Modern movie fans likely know about this cult horror classic, whether they’re a Charlie Hunnam fan or not. A beautiful little mixture of Victorian madness, incest, and romance, it’s a swoon of a movie filled with monsters and mayhem, one where the true enemy is less a shambling creature than greed and cowardice. It’s delicious fun that gives Hunnam plenty of room to play the good guy while also letting him project depth.

Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is a wealthy heiress and writer who is dazzled by Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a baronet who approached her father looking for money to fund a project of his. When her father — who hated Thomas and had him investigated for his atrocious behavior back in England — is brutally murdered, Thomas and Edith marry, and he carries her away to the family’s literally moldering estate, Allerdale Hall. There, Edith learns about all of the (sometimes literal) skeletons in Thomas’ closet, his hinky relationship with his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), and that the siblings’ intentions toward her may not be pure. With her life in danger, can she figure out whom to trust and learn whether, perhaps, her childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael (Hunnam), was the wiser romantic bet?

• Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam
• Director: Guillermo del Toro
• Rating: R
• Runtime: 119 minutes
• Where to watch: Google Play, Amazon Prime

If your average joe knows Charlie Hunnam from anything besides “Sons of Anarchy,” it’s probably “Pacific Rim,” the mech-suit-filled science fiction epic that helped make his reputation as a movie actor. And that’s as it should be, because it’s a hugely entertaining epic about partnership, love triumphing over evil, and the importance of human connections. It’s become a modern classic, making it a must-watch for sci-fi fans, cult film fans, and those who simply love Hunnam.

Raleigh Becket (Hunnam) is a member of the crew of the Jaeger — a gigantic robot used to defend the country from enormous alien monsters called Kaiju — known as Gipsy Danger. His brother, Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff), died in the line of duty, leaving Raleigh traumatized and injured. While Jaegers may be captained solo, the strain is better taken on by at least two people who have a strong emotional affinity for one another and are able to meet in the Drift — a mental process that allows two Jaeger captains to find harmony with one another and lets them control their robot as one. Whether that affinity be paternal, sibling, friendship-based, or romantic, it’s a fundamental part of helming the enormous machines.

Raleigh is taken in by Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), a military leader who sees potential in Raleigh after he quits being a pilot. In Hong Kong, Raleigh meets Pentecost’s adopted daughter, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), with whom Raleigh realizes he’s drift compatible. But Pentecost is protective of his daughter, and Mako and Raleigh are very new to piloting a Jaeger in tandem. Will they manage to put down the Kaiju menace for good?

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi
• Director: Guillermo del Toro
• Rating: PG-13
• Runtime: 132 minutes
• Where to watch: Netflix

Jaxson “Jax” Teller is a truly complicated creature. Haunted by his loyalty to a father he can’t remember and a biker club he was born into, Jax often finds himself stuck between his tough-as-nails mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal); the notion of living freely and happily with his true love, Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff); and the ideals of Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman), his stepfather and head of SAM-CRO, and those of his late father.

“Sons of Anarchy” features a convoluted, lengthy timeline, loaded with twisted family feelings and complicated notions of love, loyalty, brotherhood, and fatherhood. It’s a long, tough show to watch and a true dive into tragedy, but in the end, it’s beautifully heartbreaking in the best of ways. Since it’s based on “Hamlet,” you know it won’t end well, but Hunnam and company take you on a twisted and twisting ride that’s well worth making the time to watch. 

• Cast: Ron Perlman, Katey Sagal, Charlie Hunnam
• Director: various
• Rating: TV-MA
• Runtime: Episode lengths vary (total number of episodes: 92)
• Where to watch: Hulu, Disney+

The very best production that Charlie Hunnam has been in is ironically one of his very first acting gigs. “Nicholas Nickleby” put him at the forefront of a film at the ripe age of only 22. In this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, Hunnam is excellent as a young man who seeks out a better life for his family. The end result is a film that’s a charmer that offers something many of his other projects don’t — a lot of fun for viewers of all ages.

The titular Nickleby (Hunnam) was raised wealthy in the country, but when his father dies, the family is left penniless. Nicholas, his sister, Kate (Romola Garai), and their mother (Stella Gonet) are at the mercy of Nicholas and Kate’s cold-hearted uncle (Christopher Plummer). He gets the kids jobs, with Kate working as a seamstress while Nicholas tutors young gentlemen at Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire. When he discovers how abusive the school’s atmosphere is, he hies off with a servant boy named Smike (Jamie Bell), and, together, they head to London to rescue Kate. Here, Nicholas learns to stand up for himself, find his destiny, and also manage to find true love.

• Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Nathan Lane, Jim Broadbent
• Director: Douglas McGrath
• Rating: G
• Runtime: 132 minutes
• Where to watch: Pluto, Roku Channel, Tubi