Add Decider on Google Where to Stream: MobLand Powered by Reelgood More On: Guy Ritchie Where To Watch ‘MobLand’ Season 2 For Free: Release Date, What To Know About Season 2 ‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2 Loses 500,000 UK Viewers Amid Meghan Markle Casting Rumors ‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2 Ending Explained: Does Eddie Get His Revenge? ‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2 Episode 8 (Season Finale) Recap: Head Of The Family Guy Ritchie is the rare filmmaker who became more interesting when he pushed into the realm of studio journeyman.
In his early years, he was known for a highly specific type of British gangster comedy, then for branching out for more serious crime movies and the remake (and massive flop) Swept Away. After that, he seemed eager to start a Hollywood franchise with the Sherlock Holmes movies, a stab at King Arthur, and even a Disney remake.
Since Aladdin’s billion-dollar success in 2019, Ritchie has returned to smaller-scale projects — and has seemingly doubled his productivity. He’s on course to direct a movie a year for the entirety of the 2020s, and at this point he’s been involved with five TV series (three of which were based on his films).
With one of his signature shows, MobLand, returning to Paramount+ today, viewers may be in the mood to catch up with his past projects.
Here’s a chronological rundown of the Guy Ritchie movies and shows currently available to stream on various subscription services.
Ritchie rocketed out of the gate with a pair of beloved British crime comedies: His flashy debut Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and its companion piece Snatch. Lock Stock, as its fans affectionately refer to it, doesn’t turn up that often on streaming, but honestly, Snatch is the better movie, with an international cast of hooligans (including Brad Pitt playing an unintelligible boxer) and a kickass soundtrack (a great Oasis instrumental figures prominently). As far as Ritchie’s original formula of quarrelsome lads, labyrinthine mix-ups, and occasional gunplay, it’s the best of the lot.
At the moment, movies from Ritchie’s blockbuster period are mostly available just to rent. Among those, The Man From U.N.C.L.E is by far the best: fleet, stylish, fun, and slightly unfortunately, co-starring Armie Hammer. I’m also partial to the ridiculousness of his attempted King Arthur reboot. But even the lesser Ritchie blockbusters like his version of Aladdin have their charms. While adapting a G-rated cartoon necessitates sanding off some of his most welcome edges, Ritchie still delivers more energy than most of his fellow cursed-remake shepherds. Plus, it’s just about the only Guy Ritchie movie you could watch with a five-year-old.
A story so nice, he made it twice in quick succession: After The Gentlemen worked as Ritchie’s post-Disney reset movie, he spun off a TV series set in the same universe with new characters (and, of course, a less starry cast). The entire Gentlemen saga is available on Netflix, and while the film doesn’t quite capture the full glory of his best crime comedies, the expansiveness of the TV show is fun for aficionados of this subgenre.
Ritchie’s reunion with Jason Statham after many years apart is far less lighthearted than its follow-up collabo Operation Fortune. It’s one of Ritchie’s more hard-boiled crime pictures, a Los Angeles-set neo-noir revenge story with a bit of macho comic relief. It’s also an impressive bit of B-picture craftsmanship, and one of Statham’s better recent roles. He plays an armored-car driver with a hidden agenda.
Perhaps Ritchie’s most underrated film is this recent James Bond/Mission: Impossible knockoff with his frequent collaborator Jason Statham, his occasional collaborators Hugh Grant and Josh Hartnett, and his one-time but spectacular collaborator Aubrey Plaza. This is a very silly caper movie, but it’s one of the most charming and breezy of Ritchie’s career.
The only movie where Guy Ritchie is awarded a possessive credit in the style of John Carpenter or, if you will, Lee Cronin, presumably having something to do with the existence of a boy-witch movie also called The Covenant. Anyway, this movie introduced Ritchie to his boy Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays a military man determined to single-handedly rescue his imperiled translator from war-torn Afghanistan. It feels a bit more like a Peter Berg joint that a slick Ritchie undertaking, which is impressive for his range but not necessarily for its quality.
Ritchie made a play for dad-movie royalty with this World War II thriller based on a true story. It’s essentially a poor man’s Inglourious Basterds, but that’s not such a bad thing to be, especially with a cast full of hot people (Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Henry Golding), plus Reacher himself, Alan Ritchson.
Not one of Ritchie’s better recent capers, to be honest, but it’s mostly down to John Krasinski not having the right energy for a wiseass Indiana Jones knockoff. Natalie Portman has some fun as his annoyed sister, while Ritchie’s apparent gal Friday Eiza González makes an appealing antagonist. It’s not quite National Treasure, but on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it might do the trick.
Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Paddy Considine are high-level enough to star in a Ritchie movie, but somehow he convinced them all to do his streaming crime drama show instead. It’s become one of Paramount’s biggest hits and returns for a second season this month.
Confusingly, this is not a prequel to Ritchie’s two-movie series of films starring Robert Downey Jr. as the famous fictional detective. That experience must have simply convinced studios that Ritchie is the world’s foremost Holmes whisperer. The show follows a young Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) befriending co-ed James Moriarty (Dónal Finn) at Oxford in the 1870s. The Ritchie empire continues to expand!
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.
