35 Best Jake Gyllenhaal Movies: List of Rated Films From the Actor's Filmography

Good guy, ex-military, ruthless reporter, heroic cop, cunning supervillain, arrogant art critic and many other characters who got life thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal, always arouse interest and empathy. Multifaceted, talented and one of the most sought-after Hollywood actors was born in 1980 and already at the age of 11 played his first rather significant role in the movie “City Dudes”.

We have carefully selected for you the best movies with Jake Gyllenhaal, among which there are both independent works and unsurpassed masterpieces of world cinema.

Table of contents

The Covenant

IMDB Rating – 7.5
Genre: Action, Thriller, Military, History, Drama
Production: UK, Spain, USA / 2022
Budget: $55,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $21,681,368
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Saleem, Jonny Lee Miller, Alexander Ludwig, Anthony Starr, Emily Beacham, Jason Wong, Sean Sagar, Reese Yates, Christian Ochoa.

Finally Guy Ritchie has grown up a bit and shot a serious drama on the theme of the military conflict in Afghanistan with Gyllenhaal in the lead role. His hero is Special Forces master sergeant John Kinley, whose translator was killed in a Taliban ambush in 2018.

Taking his place, Ahmed, a Taliban defector, makes John very suspicious. But they soon disappear after Ahmed, risking himself, saves the sergeant’s life. A few years later, after the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, John learns that Ahmed is not given a visa to leave, although both he and his family are in mortal danger in a country where the Taliban now rule. John returns to Afghanistan to do his duty and save his friend.

Guy Ritchie not only directed the movie, but also co-wrote the script. Filming took place in the Spanish city of Alicante.

Ambulance

IMDB Rating – 6.1
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Production: USA, Japan / 2022
Budget: $40,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $52,300,984
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eisa Gonzalez, Garrett Dillahunt, Keir O’Donnell, Jackson White, Olivia Stambulia, Moses Ingram, Colin Woodell, Cedric Sanders.

Desperate for a large sum of money for his wife’s operation, ex-soldier Will Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal) turns to his criminal brother. The latter talks Will into a bank robbery.

Everything seems to go according to plan – without blood and without calling the cops, but at the last moment police officer Zack, who is courting a local teller, wanders into the bank and Will accidentally shoots him. The brothers have no choice but to hijack an ambulance with a paramedic on board to get away from the police and try to save Zack’s life, because killing the cop will be a real disaster for both of them.

Jake Gyllenhaal had to hold the camera himself in several scenes inside the ambulance due to limited space.

The Guilty

IMDB Rating – 6.3
Genre: Thriller, Crime
Production: USA / 2021
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Riley Keough, Peter Sarsgaard, Cristina Vidal, Eli Gorey, Ethan Hawke, Davine Joy Randolph, Christiana Montoya, David Castaneda, Adrian Martinez.

A great thriller from Netflix that keeps you in suspense from start to finish, an interesting movie with a great performance by Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. The plot moves vigorously on a looping path, and at every turn the viewer is waiting for a new stunning surprise.

Joe Baylor is a delinquent cop who accidentally shoots a suspect. While his case is being tried, he is sent to a sedentary job at an emergency call center. Joe receives a call from Emily Leighton, who claims she has been kidnapped and is being taken to an unknown location in a white van. Of course, the policeman raises the ears of all special services, trying to help the woman, but soon the case takes an unexpected and threatening turn.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake’s own sister, is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, who played Henry Fisher.

Velvet Buzzsaw

IMDB Rating – 5.7
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Detective, Comedy
Production: USA / 2019
Budget: $21,000,000
Director: Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zavi Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Toni Collette, Natalia Dyer, David Diggs, John Malkovich, Billy Magnussen, Alan Mandell

A horror comedy that assembled an abundance of stars and art symbolism, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. His character is Morph Vandewalt, an art historian whose assessments are based solely on the monetary value of paintings.

One day he is approached by the owner of the gallery Rodora Hayes, in whose hands fell a priceless collection of masterpieces of the deceased artist Deese. His terrible fate, filled with tragedies, he poured in the canvases, which bequeathed to destroy after his death. But greedy people working in the museum and gallery art industry have decided to appraise and sell the paintings, which suddenly start killing their “appraisers”.

According to director Gilroy, Gyllenhaal himself created his character, having only a rough script in hand. The actor thought of everything, from clothing to manner of speaking, from housing to the habits of Morph Vandewalt.

Spider-Man: Far from Home

IMDB Rating – 7.4
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Comedy, Adventure
Production: USA / 2019
Budget: $160,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $1,131,927,996
Director: Jon Watts
Starring: Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Cobie Smulders, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Engauri Rice

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jake Gyllenhaal played the role of the conniving Quentin Beck, the supervillain Mysterio, appearing in only one movie.

The unstable Beck worked for Tony Stark until the latter appropriated his invention and fired Beck. Then the offended Quentin pretends to be Mysterio, a hero who came from another dimension to fight the Elementals, and frames Peter Parker, making Spider-Man a villain in the eyes of the public and revealing his incognito to the world. He himself, however, is killed in the process.

Jake Gyllenhaal liked his superhero costume so much that he hardly ever took it off on set. The only time you can see his character in regular clothes is around the 18th minute of the movie, when Beck spies Parker buying a necklace.

Wildlife

IMDB Rating – 6.8
Genre: Drama
Production: USA / 2017
Worldwide Box Office: $3,321,367
Director: Paul Dano
Starring: Ed Oxenbould, Jake Gyllenhaal, Carey Mulligan, Travis Brewer, Zoe Margaret Colletti, Tom Houston Orr, Bill Camp, Darryl Cox, Ginger Gilmartin, Michael Gibbons

Based on the novel by Richard Ford, this family drama is set in a small Montana town in the 1960s and concerns three outwardly connected but emotionally distant lives. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the role of Jerry, who moved here with his wife Jeanette and teenage son Joe several years ago.

One bleak day, Jerry gets fired from his job and decides to volunteer for the local fire department. Jeannette leaves her role as a housewife and goes to work, and Joe quits soccer, which he never liked. The family splits off in different directions, finally free from their boring coexistence.

This movie is the directorial debut of actor Paul Dano, with whom Jake Gyllenhaal starred in 2017’s Okja and 2013’s Prisoners.

The Sisters Brothers

IMDB Rating – 6.9
Genre: Drama, Western
Production: France, Spain, Romania, Belgium, USA / 2018
Budget: $38,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $13,143,056
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed, Rebecca Root, Allison Tolman, Rutger Hauer, Carol Kane, Patrice Cossono, Zach Abbott

Mid-nineteenth century. A time and land that will one day be the subject of westerns. There are skirmishes with Indians, pale-faced people are looking for gold, and new settlements are growing like mushrooms after rain.

A couple of brothers with the ironic last name of Sisters are partners and mercenaries, shallow bandits working for a greedy man who calls himself the Commander. He sends the brothers to track down a certain Warm, an inventor who has come up with a cool new way to mine gold and dreams of building a socialist community in the Wild West.

Warm’s assistant, educated aristocrat John Morris, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, leaves markers for the brothers by which they can catch up with their prey. It’s not quite that simple, however. Warm’s ideas, as well as his invention, will change the lives of both Morris and the brothers.

This is French director Jacques Audiard’s first English-language movie, and despite the setting, not a single scene was filmed in America, only in Romania, Spain and France.

Life

IMDB Rating – 6.6
Genre: Horror, sci-fi
Production: USA, UK / 2017
Budget: $58,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $100,541,806
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dykhovichnaya, Erion Bacare, Jesus Del Orden, Allen McLean, Leila Grace, Marie Gwelesiani

Sci-fi space epic with horror elements, a movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, with the latter playing the role of one of a group of explorers on the ISS, medic David Jordan.

The team encounters a module from Mars that has brought back rock samples from there, which, according to preliminary analysis, have life in them. The single-celled creature found is named Calvin and they prepare to celebrate the great discovery. However, the extraterrestrial life turns out to be extremely hostile and virtually indestructible, and soon the researchers face the difficult task of preventing the Martian aggressor from coming to Earth.

Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal are close friends in real life.

Okja

IMDB Rating – 7.3
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Drama, Adventure
Production: Korea South, USA / 2017
Budget: $50,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $2,049,823
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Ahn So-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito, Yoon Jae-moon, Stephen Yang, Lily Collins, Daniel Henschell, Devon Bostick

Okcha is a huge, friendly creature, one of several modified pigs artificially bred by Mirando geneticists and given to farmers for the sake of a breeding experiment. This particular pig was taken in by a family with little Mija, who named her pet and fell in love with her.

When Mirando culls the pigs and takes them to New York to exhibit their accomplishments, Mija follows to save Okcha from the slaughterhouse. A wonderful sci-fi satire on modern society, the movie starring Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal playing the role of TV host Johnny Wilcox.

This is the first Netflix original movie from South Korea.

Stronger

IMDB Rating – 6.9
Genre: Drama, Biography
Production: USA / 2017
Budget: $30,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $8,503,658
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany, Miranda Richardson, Rick Lane, Nate Richman, Lenny Clarke, Patty O’Neal, Clancy Brown, Kate Fitzgerald, Danny McCarthy

A strong performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as legless marathon runner Jeff Bauman in this biographical drama about perseverance and overcoming.

Jeff Bauman is a young Bostonian from a dysfunctional family. One day he decides to run a marathon to prove to the girl Erin, who he likes, that he can do a lot. Having overtaken Erin in the race, he waits for her at the finish line, and then there is a bomb blast, which deprives Jeff of both legs …

The movie is based on Jeff Bauman’s own memoir, which he co-wrote with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Nocturnal Animals

IMDB Rating – 7.5
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Production: USA, China / 2016
Budget: $22,500,000
Worldwide Box Office: $30,311,857
Director: Tom Ford
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Carl Glusman, Robert Aramayo, Laura Linney

A neo-noir psychological thriller that won numerous awards. Alas, not a single award or even a nomination went to Gyllenhaal, who played one of the main roles – Edward Sheffield, the author of the novel featured in the film, and at the same time the central character of the novel itself, Tony Hastings.

The events jump from reality to the pages of Sheffield’s brutal novel, the manuscript of which Edward sent to his ex-wife Susan (Amy Adams) to remind her of the secrets hidden in the past and to restore their relationship, recklessly destroyed by Susan herself.

While filming this movie, Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal were together in the Ezekiel Moss project directed by Hoffman. The project was shut down after the director’s death.

Southpaw

IMDB Rating – 7.3
Genre: Drama, Sports
Production: USA, Hong Kong / 2015
Budget: $30,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $91,970,827
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Forest Whitaker, Una Lawrence, Fifty Saint, Skylan Brooks, Naomie Harris, Victor Ortiz, Bo Napp, Miguel Gomez

An evocative boxing movie starring Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope, an arrogant star boxer whose life is irreparably changed by an accidental tragedy.

Billy revels in his success, leading a lavish life but paying too little attention to his family. At the height of his fame, he decides to leave the ring handsomely, devoting himself to his wife Maureen and daughter Leila. However, at a party to mark the occasion, Maureen is tragically killed. It turns out that this woman was the cornerstone of Billy’s destiny, and after her loss everything falls apart. The only way to rebuild his life is to return to sports and try to become a different, better person.

At first, the role of Hope was supposed to call Eminem, but he did not want to distract from his music, and the role went to Gyllenhaal.

Everest

IMDB Rating – 7.1
Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Drama, Biography
Production: UK, USA, Iceland / 2015
Budget: $55,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $203,427,584
Director: Balthasar Kormákur
Starring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Worthington, John Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, Robin Wright

A very beautiful and disturbing movie by Icelandic Baltazar Kormákur based on the real events of May 1996, when 8 people died while climbing Jomolungma (Everest).

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Scott Fisher, the leader of the mountaineering group Mountain Madness. At the suggestion of professional climber and guide Rob Hall, Scott teams up with his group for another conquest of the highest point on the planet. The uncoordinated actions of the two groups and a blizzard turn the ascent into a cruel game of survival, from which not everyone will be able to escape.

Jake Gyllenhaal prepared for the role in the Santa Monica Mountains, actively engaged in mountaineering.

Demolition

IMDB Rating – 7.0
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Production: USA / 2015
Budget: $10,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $4,366,460
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis, S.J. Wilson, Polly Draper, Malachy Cleary, Debra Monk, Heather Lind, Wass M. Stevens

Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an apathetic yuppie with a bad temper, indifferent to everything in the world. The death of his wife in a car accident leaves Davis alone with a world he is unable to communicate with.

Angered by a broken vending machine at the hospital, he writes letters to the company complaining about the faulty machine, and at the same time, for the first time, finds an opportunity to tell about his pain and despair to the company’s employee, the sensitive and sympathetic Karen. As Davis’s life falls apart before his eyes, he finds a special relationship with Karen and her son, and help that will benefit both of them.

Actor Chris Cooper plays Jake Gyllenhaal’s father-in-law in this movie. In “October Sky,” Cooper played his father.

Nightcrawler

IMDB Rating – 7.8
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Crime
Production: USA / 2013
Budget: $8,500,000
Worldwide Box Office: $47,426,517
Director: Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton, Michael Papajohn, Marco Rodriguez, James Huang, Kent Shockneck, Pat Harvey, Sharon Tay.

In this movie, evil triumphs over good, revealing its predatory marauding nature in a brilliant performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, who embodies the most disgusting character of his career, former thief Louis Bloom.

A perpetual loser, one day he witnesses reporters filming an accident, which then ends up on the morning news. That’s when it hits Bloom. He buys a camera and becomes a nighttime sensation hunter. Blood, dirt, crime, accidents, accidents, agony and suffering – he obsessively searches for it all, and then sells it to news outlets without even trying to help the victims of the incidents he covers.

To get into character, Gyllenhaal worked out a lot, lost weight and spent time with late-night reporters.

Prisoners

IMDB Rating – 8.1
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Crime, Detective
Production: USA / 2013
Budget: $46,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $122,126,687
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Dylan Minnette, Zoey Soule, Erin Gerasimovich

Denis Villeneuve’s shocking and confusing detective thriller, a movie starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The two youngest daughters of the Dover and Birch families go missing. Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) takes over the investigation and quickly finds the first suspect, driver Alex Jones. However, it turns out that the man is not involved in the crime, and he is released.

The father of one of the girls, Keller Dover (Jackman) decides to take justice into his own hands and kidnaps Jones in order to torture him for the truth. Meanwhile, Loki discovers new details about the case that leave him stunned.

Denis Villeneuve chose Jake Gyllenhaal for the role without an audition, impressed by his work with him in Enemy.

Enemy

IMDB Rating – 6.9
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Detective
Production: Canada, France, Spain / 2013
Worldwide Box Office: $3,468,224
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini, Joshua Pease, Tim Post, Kedar Brown, Darryl Deanne, Misha Haystead, Megan Mayne.

Psychological detective with elements of horror, in which Jake Gyllenhaal played two roles: history teacher Adam Bell and his doppelganger Anthony Clare. The movie is based on the book “The Double” by José Saramago.

Adam leads a rather boring life in which every day is similar to the previous one. One day someone advises him to watch a certain movie. Adam takes a disk in the rental and is bored in front of the screen, until in one of the episodes does not see a man like two drops of water similar to him. This is where the main story begins. Adam searches for his doppelganger, who lives nearby, and after that strange and unpredictable events in the lives of both men begin.

When director Denis Villeneuve was looking for an actor for the lead role, he himself wrote a letter to Gyllenhaal, in which he outlined his thoughts on the future movie and invited Jake to meet for a couple of glasses of wine.

End of Watch

IMDB Rating – 7.6
Genre: Drama, Crime, Action, Thriller
Production: USA / 2012
Budget: $7,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $55,078,146
Director: David Eyre
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, Frank Grillo, David Harbour, America Ferrera, Cody Horn, Shondrella Avery, Cle Sloan.

A crime action movie, naturalistically reflecting the daily work of Los Angeles patrolmen. Police partners Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala were played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña.

Brian and Mike are good guys and friends. They have an award for saving kids from a fire, each has a great family, and the two of them patrol one of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, risking their lives every day. Then one day they are ambushed by Mexican drug dealers, determined to kill an annoying pair of cops….

Both of the movie’s lead actors were out on duty with LAPD officers for nearly six months.

Source Code

IMDB Rating – 7.5
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Drama
Production: USA, Canada, France, Germany / 2011
Budget: $32,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $147,332,697
Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Arden, Cas Anwar, Russell Peters, Brent Sagford, Craig Thomas, Gordon Masten.

An intriguing to the last moments gripping technothriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stevens, a U.S. Air Force pilot who becomes part of the experimental program “Source Code”.

The program takes Colter back in time to a train that was destroyed by a bomb blast. Through this displacement, by communicating with program operator Colleen Goodwin, Colter is able to figure out who made the bomb and smuggled it onto the train to prevent a future, even more devastating terrorist attack. Gradually, Colter begins to realize that he is not being told everything and tries to gain more autonomy within the program.

It was Jake Gyllenhaal, who signed up for this project before many others, suggested Duncan Jones for the director’s seat. By the way, there are persistent rumors in Hollywood about the creation of a sequel to this film, but so far no one has taken on the project.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

IMDB Rating – 6.6
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Production: USA / 2010
Budget: $150,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $336,365,676
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Steve Toussaint, Toby Kebbell, Richard Coyle, Ronald Pickup, Rhys Ritchie, Gisli Orn Gardarsson.

A colorful oriental fairy tale, a fantasy film based on the computer game of the same name. The role of the protagonist, Prince Dastan, was played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Dastan, the adopted son of King Shahraman, grew up a skillful and brave warrior, but was slandered by his half-brothers and fled Persia to save his life. Now he has to pass many tests and make a real journey through time to reunite with his beloved and prove his innocence.

Jake Gyllenhaal worked out hard and gained 5 pounds of muscle for the role of the prince.

Love & Other Drugs

IMDB Rating – 6.7
Genre: Drama, Melodrama, Comedy
Production: USA / 2010
Budget: $30,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $102,820,008
Director: Edward Zwick
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad, Gabriel Macht, Judy Greer, George Segal, Jill Clayburgh, Kate Jennings Grant.

Cute romantic movie with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal playing two lonely people in search of true love.

Jamie Randall is looking for his place in life and becomes a pharmaceutical sales agent, training under Dr. Knight. At one of the doctor’s medical appointments, he meets Maggie, a wonderful beauty suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease.

He falls in love, but Maggie, with her illness and disappointing prospects, doesn’t want a one-night stand. She wants to find someone to share everything with. Jamie has to make the hardest decision of his life….

To loosen up Ann and Jake, who were restrained at the beginning of filming, director Edward Zwick took a nude picture of them, which is used in the poster. Zwick was digitally removed from the image.

Brothers

IMDB Rating – 7.1
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Military
Production: USA / 2009
Budget: $26,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $43,318,349
Director: Jim Sheridan
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Mayor Winningham, Bailey Madison, Taylor Gere, Patrick Pflueger, Clifton Collins Jr.

Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal star as Sam and Tommy Cahill, brothers whose lives are irreparably scarred by war in this hard-hitting military-family drama.

Sam Cahill has always been the pride of the family, unlike bully Tommy. A young officer, adored by his wife Grace and daughters, one day he is sent to Afghanistan where his helicopter is shot down. Grace receives a funeral, and Tommy becomes her support in her grief. And then Sam, who has been through hell and forgotten what normal life is like, unexpectedly returns home.

During the filming of this movie Gyllenhaal learned of the death of his friend Heath Ledger (Jake is the godfather of his daughter), and filming had to be interrupted for a while so that the actor could support his friend’s family and see him off.

Zodiac

IMDB Rating – 7.7
Genre: Thriller, Detective, Drama, Crime
Production: USA / 2007
Budget: $65,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $84,785,914
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr., Chloe Sevigny, John Carroll Lynch, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue.

To this day, the identity of “Zodiac”, an American serial killer of the 60s and 70s, has not been established. But his gruesome activities and encrypted letters gave rise to many versions and assumptions, one of which turned into a thrilling literary thriller “Zodiac” by Robert Graysmith.

Based on this book and created a movie of the same name, in which Jake Gyllenhaal acts as the writer and cartoonist Graysmith, who publishes encrypted messages of the killer in his newspaper. He invites readers to solve this puzzle and then begins his own investigation, ruining his life and wandering into the increasingly dangerous maze of this dark case.

Close-ups of Jake Gyllenhaal’s hands have had finger hair added using digital effects, as director David Finch thought the actor’s hands were “too beautiful and hairless” for his character.

Rendition

IMDB Rating – 6.8
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Production: USA / 2007
Budget: $27,500,000
Worldwide Box Office: $27,038,732
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard, Omar Methualli, Igal Naor, Hadar Ratson Rotem, J.K. Simmons, Simone Abkarian.

After the unfortunate September 11, U.S. intelligence agencies acted tough and decisive, developing many versions of the crime and sometimes making mistakes. One such mistake was the capture of an Egyptian civilian, Khaled al-Masri, who was suspected of being linked to terrorists. This story and was the basis of the movie “Version”, where Gyllenhaal plays CIA analyst Douglas Freeman, doubting the guilt of the suspect.

Anwar El-Ibrahimi, an engineer living in Chicago, disappears without a trace from Cape Town International Airport, leaving no trace. Records of his flight are erased and his family goes crazy trying to get the government to get the truth. Meanwhile, he is held at a secret facility in Africa, being interrogated under torture…..

None of the African countries are mentioned in the movie as a place of action, so as not to inadvertently offend the states there.

Proof

IMDB Rating – 6.7
Genre: Drama, Detective
Production: USA / 2004
Budget: $20,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $14,189,860
Director: John Madden
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Danny McCarthy, Hope Davis, Tobias Daszkiewicz, Gary Huston, Anne Wittman, Lee Zimmerman, Colin Stinton.

A dramatic movie about scientists with a good cast and an original story. Anthony Hopkins plays a brilliant mathematician Robert, who has gone mad in his old age. He is cared for by his daughter Katherine (played by Gwyneth Paltrow).

After Robert’s death, his best student, Harold Dops (Jake Gyllenhaal), tries to find in the deceased’s papers the solution to a math problem that Robert has been working on in recent years. Katherine gives him the solution, but claims that the proof is hers, which everyone around her refuses to believe.

The movie is based on a play by David Auburn, and judging by Gyllenhaal’s character’s lines, it’s about solving the Riemann Hypothesis.

Brokeback Mountain

IMDB Rating – 7.7
Genre: Western, melodrama, drama
Production: USA, Canada / 2005
Budget: $14,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $178,062,759
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, David Harbour, Kate Mara, Graham Beckel.

This melodramatic western, for which Jake Gyllenhaal received an Oscar nomination, tells the story of two close friends who meet in the ’60s while taking a seasonal job in Wyoming.

Their frank relationship brightens the lives of both, but then they part ways to start families, experience many events and try to fulfill their dreams. But then fate brings them back together.

Director Ang Lee organized a cowboy camp to train the actors. Jake Gyllenhaal spent a month there, but his friend and movie partner Heath Ledger refused because he grew up on a ranch.

Jarhead

IMDB Rating – 7.0
Genre: Drama, Military, Biography
Production: USA, UK, Germany / 2005
Budget: $72,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $96,889,998
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, Brian Geraty, Jacob Vargas, Las Alonso, Ewen Jones, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert.

An artistic depiction of the everyday life of Marines during the Gulf War, the third movie directed by Sam Mendes. The author of the book on which the movie is based, as well as the narrator of the story and its main character – Anthony “Swoff” Swofford, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Events begin at a Marine boot camp, where Suoff becomes the object of a mean joke and faints. Later, he enrolls in a sniper course, and is soon on his way to the Persian Gulf to take part in the military operation “Desert Storm”…

Jake Gyllenhaal himself asked to play the lead role, and at first he was convinced that he failed the audition, as he waited for Mendes’ response for several months. And then, in preparation for the role, Jake brought some weights to the set of “Brokeback Mountain”, where he swung between takes.

The Day After Tomorrow

IMDB Rating – 6.5
Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, Drama, Adventure
Production: USA / 2004
Budget: $125,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $542,771,772
Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mayock, Jay O. Sanders, Sela Ward, Ian Holm, Kenneth Welch, Glenn Plummer, Adrian Lester.

An impressive disaster movie with beautiful effects and a great family drama at the center of the story. Jake Gyllenhaal, 24, successfully played the 17-year-old teenager Sam, son of the main character Jack Hall played by Dennis Quaid.

Jack Hall is a climatologist who warns the U.S. government of a rapidly approaching glaciation. Few people want to believe him, but a wave of cataclysmic events is hitting the Earth along with rapidly expanding areas of critically low temperatures. While the world is trying to save lives, Jack himself sets off with a couple of assistants from Los Angeles to an already icy New York City, on a rescue expedition for his son.

In 2008, The Day After Tomorrow was on the top ten list of scientifically inaccurate movies, pundits called it “enjoyable nonsense,” and Roland Emmerich changed the script, in which Sam was only 11 years old, making him a 17-year-old.

The Good Girl

IMDB Rating – 6.4
Genre: Drama, melodrama
Production: USA, Germany, Netherlands / 2001
Budget: $8,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $16,856,124
Director: Miguel Arteta
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Deborah Rush, Mike White, John Carroll Lynch, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zooey Deschanel, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson, Jacqui Barnbrook, Annie O’Donnell.

A charming comedy-romance movie starring Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal. Justine Last is a 30-year-old department store clerk from a small Texas town. Hard work and TV in the evening is all that fills her life. Oh yes, and then there’s her husband Phil, the kind of pathetic loser who is hard to leave but impossible to respect.

And then one day Justine suddenly catches the eye of a new cashier at a department store, 22-year-old weirdo Tom Worter, and soon they begin to meet in a cheap hotel outside the city. This is the beginning of a tumultuous adventure that revolves around the unscrupulous and devious Tom, whom Justine naively trusts.

Jake Gyllenhaal admitted that Aniston used to put a pillow between them during bed scenes so their bodies in intimate places wouldn’t even touch.

Highway

IMDB Rating – 6.1
Genre: Drama, Crime
Production: USA / 2001
Budget: $14,000,000
Director: James Cox
Starring: Jared Leto, Jake Gyllenhaal, Selma Blair, John C. McGinley, Jeremy Piven, Arden Myrin, Kimberly Cates, Mark Ralston, Jarrett Thomas, Stephen Shellen.

Jack Hayes (Leto), a young horse groomer, gets involved in a foul-smelling affair with the wife of a local gangster. His best friend, bored bum Pylot Kelson (Gyllenhaal) suggests they leave town to get away from the vengeance of a gangster known for breaking the legs of people who have annoyed him.

In their old car, the buddies head off to nowhere. Already on the road they decide to go to Seattle to visit the memorial of Kurt Cobain, who has just committed suicide. Of course, amazing adventures, unexpected and rather dubious meetings and controversial situations await them.

This movie has been called by some critics as Gyllenhaal’s weakest performance, but not because of the actor, but because of the inarticulate script that offers nothing to the viewer but nostalgia for the grunge-obsessed 90s.

Moonlight Mile

IMDB Rating – 6.6
Genre: Drama, melodrama
Production: USA / 2002
Budget: $21,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $10,011,050
Director: Brad Silberling
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Ellen Pompeo, Holly Hunter, Debney Coleman, Richard T. Jones, Alexia Lando, Roxanne Hart, Karina Melia

A sad melodrama named after the song of the same name by The Rolling Stones. Jake Gyllenhaal embodied the image of the main character, Joe Nast, trying to continue his life after the loss of his beloved.

The action unfolds in the 70s. Joe decides to stay with the parents of his murdered fiancée Diane Floss to help them cope with the loss. He does a lot of grief work – picking up wedding invitations from the post office, accepting condolences and gradually becoming interested in Bertie, Diane’s friend. However, Joe still has a few things to confess to Diane’s parents before he can commit his life to another man.

Joe says in the movie that he was born in December. Jake Gyllenhaal’s real birthday is December 19.

Donnie Darko

IMDB Rating – 8.0
Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, Drama, Detective
Production: USA / 2001
Budget: $6,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $3,023,926
Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wiley, Drew Barrymore, James Duvall, Katharine Ross.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s magnificent benefit that opened his way into big movies – the lead role in the cult teen sci-fi drama Donnie Darko, a puzzle movie whose meaning is still debated today. If you haven’t seen this masterpiece yet, be sure to give it a try. You won’t be able to forget it.

In early October 1988, troubled teenager Donnie Darko receives a message from the infernal satanic rabbit Frank that the world will end on October 30th. This is the beginning of a month of destruction in which Donnie will encounter the most unusual things as he tries to fight for his sanity, struggling with sleepwalking and experiencing hallucinations. The ending is going to be just crazy. And unexpected.

Elizabeth, Donnie’s older sister, was played by Maggie, Jake Gyllenhaal’s real-life sister.

Bubble Boy

IMDB Rating – 5.7
Genre: Fantasy, Melodrama, Comedy, Adventure
Production: USA / 2001
Budget: $13,000,000
US box office receipts: $5,007,898
Director: Blair Hayes
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Swoosie Kurtz, Marley Shelton, Danny Trejo, John Carroll Lynch, Vern Troyer, Dave Sheridan, Brian George, Patrick Cranshaw, Steven Spinella.

A romantic teen movie filled with oddballs in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays his first adult role, the unusual kid Jimmy Livingston. He was born with no immunity at all and was placed in a plastic bubble with a sterile environment.

The boy’s childhood was quite joyless, but the real difficulties began when he fell in love with his neighbor Chloe as a teenager. The girl reciprocated his feelings, but eventually chose another, more prosperous guy. Having learned that Chloe has a wedding in Niagara in 3 days, Jimmy decides on a real feat for him – constructs a mobile bubble and goes after his beloved to disrupt her wedding.

Jake Gyllenhaal loved his plastic bubble and loved falling in it at unexpected moments during filming.

October Sky

IMDB Rating – 7.8
Genre: Drama, Family, Biography
Production: USA / 1999
Budget: $25,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $34,698,685
Director: Joe Johnston
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Chris Owen, William Lee Scott, Chad Lindbergh, Natalie Canerday, Scott Thomas, Randy Stripling, Chris Ellis.

A well-rounded and very sweet highly rated biopic about the childhood of Homer Hickam, a NASA aerospace engineer. The movie is based on his autobiography, and the role of little Homer is played incredibly vividly and truthfully by Jake Gyllenhaal. This is an extremely inspiring movie about realizing a dream.

The action unfolds in the late 50s. The Soviet Union launches the first satellite and the United States enters the space race. These events shake the imagination of 17-year-old Homer from a small town, who writes letters to the American space designer Wernher von Braun, and then gathers his friends and builds his own rocket.

At the time of filming Gyllenhaal was 17 years old, and he had to do his homework right on the set. This, by the way, is his first starring role.

City Slickers

IMDB Rating – 6.8
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Adventure, Western
Production: USA / 1991
Budget: $27,000,000
Worldwide Box Office: $179,033,791
Director: Ron Underwood
Starring: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Patricia Wettig, Helen Slater, Jack Palance, Noble Willingham, Tracy Walter, Josh Mostel, David Paymer, Jake Gyllenhaal.

Ron Underwood’s light comedy western, featuring the debut of 11-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal as Danny Robbins, one of the two children of protagonist Mitch Robbins.

Mitch and his two friends, Ed and Phil, live in New York City, trying to occasionally escape the city’s tiresome routine for any outdoor activity. And then one day they go on a two-week cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado, where they experience many curios adventures and finally find their place in life.

This movie was a box office hit and earned many awards, including one Oscar. Of course, it was a great start for young Gyllenhaal.