Sharon Stone is one of the most talented and luminous screen beauties Hollywood has seen in the past 40 years. After making her screen debut in 1980 via a cameo appearance in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Stone has gone on to work with some of the finest directors in the film business. She's worked with Wes Craven, Paul Verhoeven, Phillip Noyce, Sami Raimi, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, and plenty more.
Most recently, Stone has enjoyed a busy career resurgence on the small screen. After giving a tremendous performance in the HBO limited series Mosaic, Stone is set to play a key role in Ratched, FX's television spinoff of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest airing this September. To get us prepared, here are Stone's 5 best and 5 worst movies, according to IMDb!
Catwoman (2004) 3.4/10
The mockable cinematic low-point of Stone's career, not to mention Halle Berry's, comes as no surprise to be that of Catwoman. Unfortunately, you don't get nine lives in Hollywood!
Directed by French visual FX artist Pitof, the film amounts to one big, dumb, fluffy, neutered, clawless mess. Bolstered by its paltry 27/100 Metascore and a #41 ranking on IMDb's Bottom 100 movies of all time, the origin story of Patience Phillips (not Selina Kyle?) makes Berry's Gothika look good by comparison!
Border Run (2012) 4.2/10
Not only has the 2012 human trafficking drama Border Run been lambasted for its overall inferiority, but Stone's central performance has also been drubbed by the few who saw it.
Co-starring Billy Zane, the film follows American journalist, Sofie Talbert (Stone), as she searches for her missing brother along the U.S./Mexico border. The closer she gets to finding him, the deeper she falls into the dangerous environment of violent drug-running and human trafficking. Not even Stone's brunette curls can rescue her from an overwrought performance.
Basic Instinct 2 (2006) 4.3/10
It sure seemed like a good idea for Stone to reprise her most luridly iconic screen role of all-time in Basic Instinct 2. Of course, then the movie came out!
Through no real fault of her own, the lackluster sequel failed to resonate beyond a parodic mockery of the 1992 original. Stone is sexy as ever in the film as Catherine Tramell, leaving the failure of the film squarely on the shoulders of director Michael Caton-Jones, a capable filmmaker but ersatz replacement for Paul Verhoeven. The film earned Razzie Awards for Worst Sequel and Worst Actress for Stone.
A Warrior's Tail (2015) 4.4/10
Stone lent her voice to the English-dubbed version of A Warrior's Tail, aka Savva, a wildly expensive Russian/Ukranian animated film that failed to translate overseas.
The film tracks the harrowing travails of a 10-year-old boy named Savva, a young warrior out to protect his mother and village from a ferocious hyena incursion. Stone joins Joe Pesci and Whoopi Goldberg in the English language version. Even so, the film only grossed roughly $5 million against a pricey $30 million budget. More like a Warrior's Tail between its legs!
Cold Steel (1987) 4.5/10
Cold Steel just sounds like a late-night 80s cable action joint, does it not? Indeed it is, and one co-starring Stone and Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks. It can't be all bad then, right?
When his dad gets murdered by a ruthless serial killer on Christmas Eve, a hardened cop named Johnny Modine (Brad Davis) vows vigilante vengeance. When he's taken off the case, Brad goes to further extremes to find the killer and doll out his own brand of street punishment. Stone plays Kathy Connors, a sultry femme fatale with a few tricks up her sleeve.
Basic Instinct (1992) 7.0/10
Stone's most famous moment on-screen has become the stuff of cinematic legend. During one integral scene in Paul Verhoeven's steamy Basic Instinct, Stone uses her peerless sexuality as an act of female empowerment to utterly disarm a suspicious detective.
Plot-wise, the film plays a Hitchcockian thriller about a San Francisco homicide detective assigned to solve the brutal murder of a one-time rock star. When Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) interrogates the dead man's girlfriend, crime novelist Catherine Tramell (Stone), he's sucked into a sticky web of deceit.
The Disaster Artist (2017) 7.4/10
For all the terrible movies James Franco has directed, he struck critical gold in 2017 with the Oscar-nominated Disaster Artist. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day!
The film attempts to recreate, with great earnestness, arguably the worst movie ever made in Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Stone joins the star-studded cast as Iris Burton, cutthroat Hollywood agent of z-grade movie actor Greg Sestero (Dave Franco). All jokes aside, Franco does a nice job of both making fun of and truly honoring the spirit of Tommy Wiseau's vision.
Broken Flowers (2005) 7.2/10
Bill Murray gives one of his all-time greatest performances in Broken Flowers, Jim Jarmusch's hilariously heartfelt rumination on aging, courtship, fatherhood, monogamy, and sober soul-searching.
When ladies man Don Johnston (Murray) receives a mysterious pink letter informing him that he's the father of an unknown woman's child, he sets out on a road trip to visit his former flames. Stone absolutely glows as Laura, a warmhearted woman, happy to see Don after several years.
Total Recall (1990) 7.5/10
In her first time working with Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, Stone got to show her brawny side in conjunction with her abject sensuality. The point is, without Total Recall, there'd be no Basic Instinct!
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, Total Recall follows Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) on a virtual vacation to Mars. However, when the memory implantation goes awry, Doug is sent to the planet for real. Once there, he navigates a complex web of criminality led by Cohaagen (Ronny Cox). Stone plays Laura, a badass martial artist and femme fatale who poses as Quaid's Martian wife.
Casino (1995) 8.2/10
There's something truly satisfying to see Stone's all-time finest performance also be recognized as the best movie of her career. IMDb, you got this one right!
In Marty Scorsese's dazzling tale of Las Vegas mobsters, Stone won a Golden Globe and earned the only Oscar nod of her career as Ginger in Casino. The stunning trophy wife of Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro) could have easily been a caricature, but Stone gives such a commanding and heart-shattering turn as a drug-addled, gold-digging backstabber that she deserved all the plaudits in the world. No doubt, Stone hit the jackpot!