Ranking Jordan Peele's Movies

Greetings, reader!

Nope (2022), the third and newest film by acclaimed director Jordan Peele, was recently released and is still playing in theaters. I figured I'd review this artistic, opinion-splitting horror movie by placing it in my ranking of Peele's films. Naturally, doing a 'Top 3' instead of the usual 'Top 10' (or occasional 'Top 48') could've been a lazy day off for me, but instead I got excited and utilized the shortness of the list to really dive into it and write slightly longer reviews than usual. So, here is my ranking of the three films Jordan Peele has directed thus far, with an in-depth review of each one!

3. Us (2019)

"Once upon a time, there was a girl and the girl had a shadow. The two were connected, tethered together. And the girl ate, her food was given to her warm and tasty. But when the shadow was hungry, he had to eat rabbit raw and bloody"

Out of the three films Peele has made, Us is quite clearly my least favorite, as it has elements I didn't care for and thus feels more flawed than its predecessor and successor in the director's filmography. It's still an overall thrilling and successful film, with much more positives than negatives - I do like all three Jordan Peele films quite a bit, after all.

To start off with the negatives, I found this to be the only film where Peele's signature blend of seriousness and comedy fell a bit flat. With Get Out, I was in awe of how well he blended creepy horror, dark societal criticism and entertaining humor (an impossible-seeming mixture), and while the same elements are strongly present in his sophomore production as well, they don't blend quite as well. Throughout Us, I found the comedy element to be a bit forced and unnecessary, and the transitions from thoroughly dark and serious moments into random bursts of slapstick comedy felt a bit clunky.

That's the main reason for Us being below Peele's other two films in my ranking - but that one negative is outweighed by the many things the film does right, meaning that it's still a damn good horror flick. The social commentary is just as poignant as in his other films, with most of the messages being subtle enough that they call for a lot of thought and analysis in order to come through instead of hitting you right away, yet clear enough to feel powerful and present instead of being too cryptic to make any sense. The narrative of the doppelgängers is creative enough to impress as a mere fantasy-horror storytelling device, but what really gets to you are the metaphors for race relations in the U.S. (a nice double meaning for the film's title US as well), with lines drawn to slavery and its continuous impact on the African-American community.

Oh, and the film's ambiguous twist ending? Possibly the creepiest individual moment in Jordan Peele's filmography, highlighting how solid the overall quality of his movies is as even his least-good offering is the best at something.

2. Nope (2022)

"This dream you're chasing...where you end up at the top of the mountain...it's the one you never wake up from"

I saw Peele's newest film Nope just a few weeks ago in the cinema, and it certainly caught me off guard - I don't know what I was expecting, but this certainly wasn't it. Of course, Peele's two earlier films had been artistic and creative enough that I definitely didn't expect a standard horror film of any sorts, but what surprised me was how different Nope was from the two earlier Peele films, as Get Out and Us have many shared qualities and I just assumed that Nope would continue the pattern. Was I right? The answer can be found in the film's title.

Mind you, that's a good thing - I like filmmakers who try out new things and evolve, instead of repeating the same shtick. And while the film stood out from Peele's earlier works in many ways, it still ends up feeling like classic Peele at heart. It accomplishes many of the same things as Get Out and Us, but through different means. The horror is a different brand of horror (less dark shadow-lurking and humane mysteries/secrets, more otherworldly elements and creepiness in plain daylight), but it ends up creeping you out just the same. The humor isn't nearly as plentiful and present as in the other films, yet there are sparse individual lines of Peele-esque humor to balance out some of the seriousness, and the subtlety and rareness of comedy feels like a fresh change after the slight overdose we got with Us.

And the social criticism - brilliantly woven between the lines. During the film and even after it, I was scratching my head thinking that the film didn't seem to have nearly as much to say about race relations and other cultural issues as the previous Jordan Peele films, and wasn't sure whether this film really was less political or I had just missed things. After reading up and doing some analysis of my own, I started to realize just how much the film did say about these topics, but simply in a manner even less obvious than the already quite subtle material in Get Out and Us. Nope truly is a thinking man's movie, as the interpreting one does after the credits have rolled is an essential part of the viewing experience.

One realization that helped me wrap my head around the film's cryptic and interpretational nature was the presence of exploitation in the media being the film's central theme. In addition to wondering what political and cultural statements I was missing, I was also initially a bit confused about the importance of the Gordy subplot that seemingly didn't figure into the main story very much - but this realization immediately answered both of those questions.

And when you make those connections, things really start to make sense in a mind-boggling fashion: the ape Gordy is exploited for entertainment until he snaps and goes on a violent rampage, while the main characters come from a long line of media exploitation victims as their lineage draws from the original Black jockey from the Horse in Motion (1878) motion picture but their family has been cheated out of success by Hollywood. Yet they themselves engage in a different form of the same act, exploiting the sight of an alien lifeform for media attention instead of leaving it alone, with other characters doing so even more with their ambition getting in the way of safety and common sense.

The acting performances compliment all of this, with Daniel Kaluuya's lead performance best described as "low-key, even uncharismatic, in the best way possible" while Keke Palmer bursts with enough energy for both of them in her delightfully colorful role. The Walking Dead (2010-2022) alumnus Steven Yeun is also brilliant as Ricky 'Jupe' Park, an ambitious showman with a layer of fear and even PTSD bubbling under the surface.

Nope is a visually staggering, delightfully creepy film that has a lot to say throughout its initially cryptic yet ultimately poignant social messages and themes. The cinematography is the best I've seen in Jordan Peele's films, with the scariest scenes being the ones where the camera lingers in odd angles and leaves the viewer waiting and guessing, before something happens. All in all, one of 2022's finest cinematic offerings thus far.

1. Get Out (2017)

"Now, sink into the floor"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait"

"Sink. Now, you're in the sunken place"

As much as I liked Nope, it simply doesn't reach the level of Peele's magnificent debut picture. The atmosphere of uncomfortable creepiness escalating into a frantic sense of chaos, combined with the film's layered commentary on race and history in America, not to mention the unique nature of Jordan Peele's humor bringing its own twist into the mix, is just jaw-dropping stuff. You'd think that such an odd combination couldn't possibly work, and imagine at least one of the horror/politics/comedy elements falling a bit flat (as the comedy element would end up doing in Peele's sophomore movie), but weirdly enough it all works in a perfect balance. The horror is suspenseful and genuine, the social commentary is smart and powerful, and the comedy is well-timed and entertaining, with all three elements complimenting each other in a bizarre fashion.

It's not every day that a horror flick wins the Academy Award for Best Screenwriting (with nominations for best Picture, Director and Leading Actor as well), but this acclaim was thoroughly deserved. Get Out is a unique film, the very setting of which has a lot to say about the United States and the world, and the places the script goes from there are quite mind-blowing. I love how Peele juxtaposes the everyday fear of subtle racism rearing its head in American life (the case in this film being the Black boyfriend meeting his white girlfriend's family for the first time, and feeling uncomfortable despite the family insisting that they're not racist in a slightly off-putting way) with more outlandish sci-fi/fantasy horror elements, as it takes the viewer time to realize just what the threat is and what levels you should be afraid on.

This escalates in a well-built fashion: at first, the family and their house seems nice but just a bit strange. Then, there are individual lines and interactions that make you slightly uncomfortable, first in a merely awkward sense. Then, this discomfort grows into something more pressing, as very gradually you start to realize how screwed-up the family and their home really is, just as the more conventional horror elements start to rear their head amidst the racial tensions. Peele's Oscar-winning script tackles topics like white privilege, structural racism, phony activism and America's failure to learn from its history in a variety of out-of-the-box ways, bound to leave the viewer speechless.

And the cast? Oh boy. Daniel Kaluuya's unconventionally genius lead performance has been rightfully praised a lot, as has Brad Whitford's supporting performance where his character Dean Armitage slowly regresses from well-intentioned family man to nefarious villain. But not enough praise has been shown towards LaKeith Stanfield, who I consider to be perhaps the most underrated actor in Hollywood. As was the case with Selma (2014), Straight Outta Compton (2015) and The Harder They Fall (2021), Stanfield once again plays a role with little screen time, but massive importance, with his one-of-a-kind style of acting giving some serious gusto to the character Andre Logan King, who speaks the film's title words to the main character in a panic-ridden fashion.

So, there you have it - while I appreciate all three of Peele's films and was positively surprised by the things his newest outing did differently, I still can't help but put the uniquely creative and staggeringly powerful Get Out at first place. I wouldn't be surprised if the filmmaker one day made a movie that outdoes his initial feature film, as he has clearly demonstrated a willingness to grow and try out new things, but that day has not yet dawned. In any case, I'll be very curious to see what his next feature film will be all about, and how it will figure into this ranking when the time comes.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for my list on the Top 10 movies to watch on a Sunday night or an airplane.