Exploring Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Best Roles – A Filmography

What was the last film you saw with Joseph Gordon in the lead role? We think its been quite a while.

Let’s go back in 2012, Gangnam style is the hottest song, and you just came back from watching “The Dark Knight Rises” in theatres. While watching you notice hey it’s that guy from inception, playing the officer that befriends batman. Joseph Gordon Levitt is his name, and you’ll soon start to see him everywhere that year. 

A few months later you see him as the lead in “Looper”, then soon after that in Spielberg’s “Lincoln”. But you may have not seen him in “Premium Rush” as it flopped at the box office.

Gordon Levitt was taking over Hollywood and we were all excited to see where he’d go next but it didn’t work out the way we were expecting it to otherwise we wouldn’t be asking where Joseph disappeared.

There were a few factors that led to downfall of his filmography, if you can even call it that.

Early Days of Joseph Gordon’s Films

Joseph’s grandfather Michael Gordon was a film director born in Baltimore to Jewish parents in 1909. Okay, maybe we shouldn’t start that far back. 

Joseph Gordon Levitt was born in Los Angeles, California in 1981. His acting career began at the age of four when he played the scarecrow in the theater production of “The Wizard of Oz.” 

After that, he was approached by an agent and began appearing in many commercials and made for TV movies. His notable appearances included cocoa puffs and pop tarts commercials. He also starred in the 1991 “Dark Shadows” show. 

Some major films Joseph has been in include “Holy Matrimony” with Patricia Arquette, “Angels in the Outfield “with Danny Glover, and “The Juror.” 

None of these movies were good and this brings us to his biggest role yet the TV show “3^rd Rock from The Sun” where he plays Tommy Solomon who is part of a group of aliens pretending to be human. The show went on for six seasons from 1996 to 2001 and during this time he also starred in one of my favorite movies of his “10 Things I Hate About You” with Heath Ledger and Julia Styles. 

In the year 2000 he attended Columbia university, and this is when he kicked his career up a notch with titles like “Manic”, “Treasure Planet”, “Mysterious Skin”, and Ryan Johnson’s “Brick” he was on a hot streak as the lead with all of these movies getting good reviews. 

Gordon dropped out of Colombia in 2004 to focus on acting saying that he wanted to be in good movies upon his return. However, the next few years wouldn’t be all he hoped for because he was mostly starring in mediocre films. 

Peak Time of Gordon’s Film Career

Nonetheless, his performance in 2007 “The Lookout” still received a lot of praise. In 2009 he comes out swinging with “500 Days of Summer” where his acting was a highlight of the film. His performance in “500 Days of Summer” also got him a golden globe nomination. In the same year, he also starred as a villain in the “G.I. Joe” movie. 

Joseph Gordon Levitt started the 2010s very well, but we are not talking about the movie “Hesher” which he was good in, we are talking about the blockbuster juggernaut “Inception”. 

Although it was hard to stand out being surrounded by so many great actors, this was his most mainstream film to date. The year after he was in “50/50” with Seth Rogen which got him his second golden globe nomination for acting. 

Without a doubt, 2012 was the best year of his career. “The Dark Knight Rises”, “Premium Rush”, “Looper”, and “Lincoln” all of these did well with critics and three of them were box office hits. “Looper” would be his third film with Ryan Johnson in the director’s chair. 

He’d work with him again in a smaller role by getting a voice cameo in “The Last Jedi” and “Knives Out”. 

Joseph even had his directorial debut the year after with “Don Jon” in which he starred in himself alongside Scarlett Johansson. It did well at the box office and pretty well with the critics getting an unexpected a-plus from Chris Stuckmann.

Related: Vanna Johansson – The Scarlet Sister

What Brought Joseph’s Career Down?

Joseph Gordon Levitt easily had one of the best starts to that decade. So, how did it get to us wondering what happened to him? 

1. Reason #1: Bad Run of Movies

Getting a bad run of movies in a row has got many actors. It’s usually a mixture of both critically bad and box office bad that puts the nail in the coffin. Because if you aren’t bringing in money for the studios you won’t get cast often. 

It’s unfortunate because it often takes only a few unlucky years of unsuccessful films to kill your career. During this time, he was actually a frontrunner with Paul Rudd for the role of Ant-man in the MCU. 

it’s crazy how completely different his career would have been if he got that role. He would have had at least a handful more blockbusters to his name which would have improved his ability to land roles for the latter half of the decade. 

In 2014 he starred in the “Sin City” sequel which didn’t fare well with the critics and did horribly at the box office. It earned under $40 million on a $65 million budget movie. It was quite the opposite of the original which excelled in both. 

The year after he’d be in “The Walk” a film that was a great theater experience and did pretty well with the critics and box office with a budget of $30 Million and earning $52.4 Million. However, it was ultimately a letdown for Robert Zemeckis’ standards. 

Joseph Gordon then reunited with the director of “50/50 “and Seth Rogen for 2015 “The Night Before” which did okay enough at the box office. After that, he took another shot at the lead in 2016 “Snowden” which was an okay movie but still a flop at the box office.

His run of movies wasn’t even that bad, but it was enough for Hollywood to lose interest and realize that his name wasn’t able to bring in the audiences. During his rise in the 2000s he still received praise for his performance in mediocre films but now they have gone quiet. 

2. Reason #2: Changes in Personal Life & Hit Record

Being nowhere near the level of popularity Joseph Gordon had in 2012 would be one factor that caused him to take a break. The other factor would be changes in his personal life that coincided with his bad run of films. In 2014, he got married and would have a son in 2015 and another in 2001. In an interview leading up to his return he mentioned:

“Stopping wasn’t because I wanted to stop acting or stop working it was because I wanted to spend time with my kids.”

Joseph also said that he used to shoot three movies a year but now he shoots one a year as it provides a better work-life balance. Before we get to his return, we need to rewind a bit to go over a major part of his career. 

In 2010 when Joseph’s career slowed down a bit, he created Hit Record an online collaborative media platform for producing films mostly short films books and DVDs. It was technically created in 2005 alongside his brother Dan but it wasn’t until 2010 where it expanded to what it is now. The site would allow users to collectively collaborate on their own uploaded pieces of media. 

Hit Record would also pay contributing artists for their work. It was a hit at the 2010 Sundance Festival where it was first shown. By 2012, it had 80 000 plus members and about 1000 forms of media uploaded daily. 

On the creation of Hit Record joseph said: 

“I wanted to be creative, and no one was letting me, so I said OKAY I have to figure out something to do on my own.”

Hit Record went on to produce 13 short films a few books and even some albums within the first few years. All these publications were packed with user collaborations. It was also one of the production companies behind his film “Don Jon.” 

In 2014 Joseph and Hit Record would premiere the show “Hit Record on TV”. The show would be similar to the content of the website featuring short films, cartoons, live performances, and discussions. Each episode had a specific theme and had about $50,000 dollars set aside for compensating contributing artists. 

The first episode alone had 426 people contribute. Joseph Gordon Levitt would win a social tv experience prime time Emmy that year for it. The show would get a second season the following year. 

Joseph’s Return to Big Screen

Okay his break is over; Joseph Gordon Levitt is well rested and back to acting. So what has he done since? His most popular role was playing one of the lawyers in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” that released on Netflix in 2020. 

Despite being a minor part, this would be Joseph’s most mainstream role since his return, he only starred in two other films. The first being “7500” where he played a co-pilot whose plane is hijacked by terrorists. The film released on prime video in 2019 with ok reviews, but was not very popular. 

Joseph also starred alongside Jaime Fox in “Project Power” where they hunt together for the source of a superpower pill. The film released on Netflix in 2020 to mediocre reviews and was popular enough, but hard to tell if it was worth the budget of $85.1 million. 

Joseph went to go on to take another shot at a streaming giant but this time with a TV show he created with writing, directing, and starring in “Mr. Corman”. It was a comedy/drama show that released on Apple TV plus in 2021. 

The show “Mr. Conman” followed the life of a public-school teacher played by Joseph. The show would get ok reviews, but it didn’t do well enough for apple and it 

only lasted one season where cancellations were announced the day of the season finale.

In 2022 he played the CEO of uber in showtime “Super Pumped”. The show wasn’t too popular and it didn’t receive good reviews, but it did get renewed for a second season. Unfortunately, for Joseph, this is an anthology TV show where each season will focus on a different book by Mike Isaac. The second season will be about Facebook. So he most likely won’t be making a return for the next season. 

It hasn’t all been downhill since his return, he had a 14-episode podcast going from 2019 to 2020 called “Creative Processing”. The podcast was liked by many and focused on what creative people do in a variety of industries. 

In 2020, with Hit Record joseph created a YouTube series called “Create Together” for coping with the coveted pandemic by being creative. Similar to past Hit Record projects such as “Hit Record on TV” the series would have people collaborating online on different projects, but this time it was a way to help deal with isolation. 

“Create Together” was a six-episode series that won Joseph Gordon a prime-time Emmy for outstanding innovation in interactive programming. He went on to make a second season for the series getting him another Emmy nomination the following year. Although not very popular the most important part was that the series helped many people who were struggling with mental health get through these tougher times. 

Joseph Gordon’s Ongoing & Future Projects

So even though it wasn’t that exciting of a return, it’s still nice to see Joseph Gordon Levitt being active again. He’s got quite a few projects lined up. Joseph just reunited with Robert Zemeckis for the 2022 live-action adaptation of “Pinocchio”, where he voiced Jiminy Cricket. 

it was also recently announced that he’d be starring alongside Lily James in the dark comedy “Providence” which is currently in post-production. He’s also set to star alongside Chloe Grace Moretz in “White Knight”. It is a drama about the Jonestown massacre where he’ll be playing Jim Jones 

As for directing career of Joseph, there’s been talks back to 2017 about his next project titled “Wingmen” an R-rated musical starring himself and Channing Tatum. In this movie, they play two pilots who crash land in Las Vegas, this sounds like an awesome idea, and we love it. However, there hasn’t really been any recent news about it so let’s not get our hopes too high up. 

Most recently, in 204, we saw Joseph in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley” and “Greedy People“

It does seem like we’ll be seeing Joseph Gordon Levitt in more movies again soon, potentially being in some new films, like, and “Nobody Nothing Nowhere,” “Killer,” “Heat Wingmen,” and TV series “Seductive Poison.“
He seems to be balancing his work and life better and maybe these new films will do well enough to give him that resurgence in his career. 

What we are also interested in seeing is what else Joseph will do with Hit Record. So, we hope that answered the question as to what happened to Joseph Gordon Levitt filming career. We are excited to see where his career goes from here.

Sources

The Daily Beast. “Joseph Gordon-Levitt on ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and ‘Looper.’” The Daily Beast, 28 January 2012, https://www.thedailybeast.com/joseph-gordon-levitt-on-the-dark-knight-rises.

YouTube. “Joseph Gordon-Levitt Interview: Robin in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Premium Rush.” YouTube, 23 August 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjM_p7r9qd8.

Collider Staff. “What Happened to Joseph Gordon-Levitt?” Collider, https://collider.com/batman-robin-spin-off-update-joseph-gordon-levitt/

HitRecord. “Official Website of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Collaborative Platform.” HitRecord, https://hitrecord.org.