The bestJim Caviezelmovies and TV shows include some great and underrated films, a cult favorite TV show, and some more recent faith-based films. Caviezel got his start working in theater before finally getting a chance to appear in movies, with his first minor role coming in the Gus Van Sant independent dramaMy Own Private Idaho, a landmark of New Queer Cinema which starred Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix. He soon began finding leading roles in movies likeFrequencyandThe Count of Monte Cristo.
He then found massive success on the small screen when he picked up the leading role in the CBS seriesPerson of Interestalongside Taraji P. Henson and Michael Emerson. However, the real turning point in his career came whenMel Gibson cast him as Jesus Christ inThe Passion of the Christ, which ended up being the highest-grossing independent film of all time. Since then, Caviezel has moved mostly out of mainstream acting roles and has become amainstay of the faith-based Christian film industry.
Pay It Forwardwas a movie released in 2000 that has been both praised by some fans and accused of being emotionally manipulative by others. The movie stars Haley Joel Osment as Trevor, a seventh-grade student in Las Vegas. His social studies teacher, Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey),assigns Trevor and his classmates to start a “pay it forward” plan, where when someone is the recipient of a favor, they will not pay it back, but instead do favors for three other people to pay it forward.
The entire movie set up a real-world situation where people began to emulate the film’s message, making it more memorable than its disappointing box office might suggest. As for Jim Caviezel, he played an unhoused man named Jerry, whom Trevor wanted to help as part of his pay-it-forward mission. While he thought he had failed, it turned out that Jerry had paid it forward himself when he saved a woman who was contemplating suicide.
Sound of Freedomwas one of the most controversial movie releases of 2023. The movie was a monster success, but it based its entire marketing campaign on insulting other movies in theaters (such asIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) as well as accusations of people buying mass tickets and having empty theaters considered “sell-outs” (viaThe Guardian).The film also tells the “true story” of Tim Ballard, although since the film’s release, he has fallen from grace and his accomplishments have been questioned.
Is Sound Of Freedom Based On A True Story?
Sound of Freedom was a Christian thriller movie about sex trafficking based on a controversial true story.
Regardless of all that, Caviezel, who played Tim Ballard, was part of a film that made over $251 million at the box office and has as many fans as it has detractors, and it has an amazing 99% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the audience, with over 10,000 reviewers. In the film’s story, Tim is a former Homeland Security investigator who goes rogue to help rescue children from a human trafficking ring when the government orders that military forces should leave them behind.
The 2013 action thriller is most famous for itsArnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone team-up— the first time the ’80s action legends ever worked together as co-leads. In the film, Stallone is Ray, a man who founded a company that tests supermax prisons to ensure any escape possibilities are erased. He is sent to a new test but is then locked away, where no one knows where he is. His only chance to escape means joining forces with another inmate named Emil (Schwarzenegger).
Caviezel is one of the main villains ofEscape Plan. While not the main big bad of the film, he is the most ruthless.Caviezel is Warden Willard Hobbes, the man who runs The Tomb prison facility and who is a ruthless and malicious manwho would rather hurt the prisoners than just run the prison properly. The movie was a box office success and spawned two sequels, although Caviezel wasn’t back for the second movie thanks to his fate from this first one.
Two movies came out in 1994 thatwere about legendary gunfighter Wyatt Earp. The most successful of the two movies wasTombstone, which remains a cult favorite to this day. However, the other was amore traditional Western directed by Lawrence Kasdan(The Empire Strikes Back) and starring Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp. This film follows all of Earp’s life, rather than just the incident at Tombstone, Arizona. This also means there was just as much attention to his brothers - Virgil and Morgan.
WhileTombstoneshowcased those three brothers, there were two more brothers, and they were both inWyatt Earp. They were James (played by David Andrews) and Warren (played by Jim Caviezel). While those two Earp brothers were not in the Tombstone gunfight, Warren did show up to help hunt down the outlaws who murdered Morgan.Wyatt Earpwas a box-office failure but earned an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography.
In 1998,Terrence Malick directed a World War II movie calledThe Thin Red Line. The film was mostly overshadowed thanks to it coming out at the same time as Steven Spielberg’sSaving Private Ryan. While Spielberg’s film was a box office success and finished with several award nominations, Malick’s movie was more about the horrors of war and a character study of the men involved in the Pacific Theater. The cast was just as star-studded asSaving Private Ryan, if not as well remembered.
Two Of The Best War Movies Of All Time Released Just 5 Months Apart, 26 Years Ago
In 1998, two war movies came out within just a few months of each other, and they ended up being two of the best war movies of all time.
The cast included everyone from George Clooney, Sean Penn, and Adrien Brody to John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Jim Caviezel, and more. Caviezel plays Pvt. Robert E. Lee Witt. What is most impressive is that, with the talented cast on hand, it was Caviezel’s character who was the main protagonist, although he was often overshadowed by the star power around him. The film picked up seven Oscar nominations, although it didn’t win any of them.
While Jim Caviezel is best known on television for his starring role onPerson of Interest, it wasn’t his first big TV show. In 2009,Caviezel had the lead role in the miniseries remake of the classic 1960s TV seriesThe Prisoner. The original series saw Patrick McGoohan star as a British intelligence agent abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village. In the miniseries remake, Caviezel is a man who has no memories of his past, or how he arrived at this community in the desert.
Along with Caviezel, the miniseries also starred Ian McKellen and Ruth Wilson. The main change here is that it really dives into the psychological aspects of what is real and what isn’t, more so than the original series. This helped and hurt the remake, although it was successful when it aired and actually picked up two Emmy Award nominations (including one for Ian McKellen).
The Count of Monte Cristohas been adapted many times over the years, but the 2002 version might be one of the best. Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, the story follows a man falsely accused of treason by a friend and imprisoned. It isn’t until he escapes that he realizes his friend betrayed him to steal his fiancée and take over his place in the community. He then finds treasure after his escape,reinvents himself with an assumed name, and returns seeking revenge.
Jim Caviezel plays the man imprisoned for treason, Edmond Dantes, and Guy Pearce stars as his friend who betrays him. Both actors received critical acclaim for their performances, and Kevin Reynolds' (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) direction allowed for an exciting swashbuckling story. It was a box office success and earned a 74% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics. This movie helped catapult Caviezel into the Hollywood spotlight and eventually led to his career-defining role two years later.
In 2004, Jim Caviezel starred in the movie he remains most known for to this day.He played Jesus Christ in the Mel Gibson-directed feature film,The Passion of the Christ. The story ofThe Passion of the Christ's production is almost more known than the actual movie’s plot and performances. Gibson wanted to make the story of Jesus’s crucifixion and was willing to pay for it himself when no one would finance the film. He spent $30 million of his own money to make the movie, which went on to gross $612 million at the box office.
Why Passion Of The Christ Was So Controversial
Nearly two decades after its release, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of The Christ, remains one of the most controversial movies of all time.
The Passion of the Christhas Caviezel as Jesus as the film follows his path to his crucifixion and his hanging on the cross. It is the highest-grossing faith-based film of all time, even though it was released with a hard R-rating. It was also the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, a record it held for 20 years untilDeadpool & Wolverineovertook it in 2024.The Passion of the Christalso earned three Oscar nominations (Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, Best Original Score).
One of the earliest movies that showed Jim Caviezel’s talent as the solo lead of a movie arrived in 2000 withFrequency. The movie is a sci-fi thriller that takes the idea of alternate worlds and creates a touching story about family and changing one’s fate. Caviezel plays a police detective, John Sullivan, a man who is emotionally shut off from the world,thanks partially to his father, Frank, dying in a fire when he was six. However, when John finds an old ham radio his father once used, things change.
He finds he can talk to his dad in the past and decides he can keep him from dying and change his life. However, like most movies playing with time, things never work out the way they expect. The movie received positive reviews and finished with a successful box office run, making $68.1 million on a $31 million budget. There was even a TV remake that came out in 2014, although that only lasted for one season.
Person of Interestwas the most successful TV show that Jim Caviezel has ever been part of. It is also the most popular mainstream production he has been part of, as it didn’t have the same polarizing reaction thatThe Passion of the Christended up getting. The series has Caviezel starring as John Reese, a former special ops soldier and CIA operative who is presumed dead, but soon meets Harold Finch, a billionaire whocreated software after 9-11 that can predict future terrorist attacksbefore they happen.
He then uses Reese to help stop the terrorist acts before they have a chance to pull them off. However, this puts Reese in the crosshairs of a police detective (Taraji P. Henson), who believes that Reese himself might be a terrorist, before finally becoming his ally. TheJim Caviezelseries lasted five seasons and the series received positive reviews and remains a cult favorite. It also earned several awards nominations, winning several, including Henson winning at the NAACP Image Awards.
