PETE DAVIDSON: His Best Movies
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
If you had told me ten years ago that a gangly, tattoo-covered, bleach-blond stand-up from Staten Island with hollow, sunken eyes and a truly chaotic personal life would one day become a bonafide movie star, I might’ve laughed. But here we are—and Pete Davidson is that guy.
Born in 1993, Pete Davidson has lived more life than most people twice his age. His father, a firefighter, died on 9/11, an unimaginable loss that deeply shaped who Pete would become.
It made him raw. Honest. And darkly funny. He turned trauma into comedy, and comedy into connection. That thread, the “laugh or you’ll cry” mentality, runs through everything he does, from his stand-up to his movie work, and it’s part of what makes him so compelling to watch.
Davidson cut his teeth in clubs and on MTV, doing bits on Guy Code, Wild 'N Out, and other shows before landing a life-changing gig at Saturday Night Live in 2014. At 20 years old, he was the first cast member born in the ‘90s, and one of the youngest ever.
But Pete wasn’t your typical SNL performer. He wasn’t a master impressionist or a chameleon like Bill Hader or Kate McKinnon. Nah. Pete played...Pete. He was always kinda Pete.
Whether he was playing a clueless rapper with Timothée Chalamet, doing those brilliantly awkward “Chad” sketches, or popping up at the Weekend Update desk to deliver twisted monologues ripped straight from his real life, he had a voice. A weird, unique, honest voice. And it worked.
What I always appreciated about Pete on SNL, and what made him stand out, is that he didn’t fake it. He brought his baggage on stage with him: mental health struggles, drug use, relationships (a few of which, by the way, were with very famous and very beautiful women—seriously, what is his secret?!).
He turned his life into material. And even when the sketches bombed or the audience didn’t get it, Pete never flinched. He just kept doing him. And that authenticity? That made him bulletproof.
And then, somehow, he became a movie star.
It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly, he started popping up in more films. At first, he was the weird best friend. The stoner sidekick. The punk with one funny line. But as the projects got bigger, and more personal, Pete proved he could carry a film.
And now? He’s voiced Transformers, appeared in Fast X, and even dipped into horror with The Home. He’s got romantic comedies, superhero flicks, prestige indies, and straight-up genre madness on his résumé. He’s worked with Judd Apatow, James Gunn, John Turturro, and Machine Gun Kelly. He's about to co-star in a movie with SNL legend Eddie Murphy!
And he’s only 31.
My girlfriend Julie and I saw him do stand-up a while back, and it just confirmed what I already knew: this dude is funny, smart, unfiltered, and still riding the razor-thin line between charming and chaos. He’s a punk poet for the Instagram generation. A post-millennial Andy Kaufman with vape smoke instead of milk.
So I’ve gone through his ever-growing filmography and picked the ones that really matter, the ones that showcase who Pete Davidson is at his best.
These are the performances that prove he’s not just a tabloid magnet or an SNL curiosity. He’s the real deal. An actual, legit, deeply watchable actor with something to say.
So without further ado—here are the five best Pete Davidson movies. Ranked. Because of course they are.
TOP 5 BEST PETE DAVIDSON MOVIES (in order of preference):
Directed by Craig Gillespie
Dumb Money is one of the most tragically underseen, underrated, and underappreciated movies of the last 15 years. I am not exaggerating. This is an absolutely glorious, incredibly entertaining, very funny, and sharply made movie about the GameStop stock short squeeze in January of 2021.
Based on the book The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich, the film chronicles the David-versus-Goliath story of how average, everyday people used Reddit and Robinhood to flip the financial world on its head.
The cast is a murderer’s row of talent: Paul Dano, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Ramos, Shailene Woodley, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Seth Rogen.
And Pete Davidson? He’s brilliant. He plays the stoner screw-up brother of Keith Gill (played beautifully by Dano). Pete smokes weed, drives DoorDash, gives his brother grief, and steals every scene he’s in. He brings comic relief, but also warmth and grit. It’s one of his best performances ever.
This movie covers the financial world better than The Big Short and captures the weird COVID-era reality better than anything I’ve seen since, especially the awful Eddington. Pete deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this. Seriously. Dumb Money is essential viewing, and Davidson is right at the center of why it works so well.
Directed by Halina Reijn
This is one of the most savage, hilarious, and sharply written satirical horror films of the last decade. Bodies Bodies Bodies takes a group of rich, clueless, brainless 20-somethings (pure Gen Z chaos agents) and throws them into a storm-ravaged house party where someone turns up dead. It’s Clue meets Scream meets Instagram Live, and it is brilliant.
Pete plays one of the goofball boyfriends, and he’s hysterical. He’s also kind of an elder statesman among the cast, which includes Rachel Sennott, Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Chase Sui Wonders, and Lee Pace.
It’s an A24 murder mystery/slasher hybrid that’s also a searing roast of Gen Z social dynamics. TikTok politics, weaponized victimhood, faux-wokeness—it’s all on blast.
Pete fits perfectly in this world. He’s funny, clueless, slightly pathetic, and totally magnetic. And if you want to see where some of today’s best indie actors got their start, this is your movie. It’s a horror flick, a comedy, and a generational takedown rolled into one. Pete is in on the joke and sells every second of it....oh, it also has one of the absolute funniest final scenes in movie history.
Directed by Judd Apatow
This is the big one. The one that really proved Pete Davidson was more than just a punchline on Weekend Update. Co-written by Pete, Judd Apatow, and Dave Sirus, The King of Staten Island is a semi-autobiographical film that pulls heavily from Pete’s real life. He plays a directionless young man whose firefighter father died years earlier, a tragic mirror of Pete’s real-life loss on 9/11.
Pete is fantastic in this movie. Sure, he’s basically playing himself, but there’s honesty here, raw, vulnerable, and deeply personal. The pain is real. The comedy is real. The awkward moments with his mom (played by the amazing Marisa Tomei), the resentment of her new boyfriend (played wonderfully by Bill Burr), the attempts at self-sabotage, and the eventual growth, and it all feels earned.
Judd Apatow directs with his usual warmth and a bit too much runtime (it’s long, as all Judd Apatow movies are), but it works. Pete’s performance opened a lot of doors and made people finally say, “Wait, maybe this guy can act.” It’s his most personal film, and probably his most important one too.
Directed by Peter Hastings
I had to include at least one animated film on this list because Pete Davidson has actually done some really great voice work in the past few years. And Dog Man, based on the beloved books by Dav Pilkey, is hands down his best animated role yet.
He plays Petey, the world’s most arrogant, evil orange cat and the self-declared “evilest cat alive.” And man, he has a blast doing it. The movie captures the wonderfully weird, offbeat, satirical vibe of Pilkey’s books, which also include Captain Underpants, and Pete dives in head-first. His voice is perfect for the role, he's quick-witted, sarcastic, and full of attitude.
The film is packed with great voice talent (Lil Rel Howery, Ricky Gervais, LaKeith Stanfield), but Pete steals it. He gives Petey layers, yeah, he’s a villain, but he’s a funny, slightly tragic, oddly likable one. It’s a great example of how Davidson’s unique energy can translate beautifully into animation. Also, it’s just a really fun movie, whether you’re 8 or 48.
Directed by Jason Orley
Before King of Staten Island made people take him seriously, Big Time Adolescence was the movie that put Pete Davidson on the map as a legitimate screen presence.
He plays Zeke, a charming but aimless college dropout who becomes a mentor of sorts to a suburban 16-year-old (played by Griffin Gluck). It’s a dynamic we’ve seen before, sure—bad influence corrupts good kid—but Pete brings something new to it.
His chemistry with Gluck is effortless. Zeke is a loser, yes, but he’s also weirdly charismatic and believable as someone a kid might idolize. Pete straddles the line between likable and pathetic, and that balance is hard to pull off. He’s funny, but also a little sad. You can feel the stunted adolescence bubbling underneath.
The supporting cast is great too: Sydney Sweeney, Jon Cryer, Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), but this is Pete’s movie. He proves he can carry a film, even in a smaller indie setting. It’s sweet, it’s funny, it’s messy, and it showed the world that Pete Davidson wasn’t just a background player. He could lead. And he could lead well.
So There You Have It…
Five movies that prove Pete Davidson isn’t just the punchline, he’s the setup, the delivery, and everything in between. He’s gone from SNL oddball to genuine movie star, and while his path has been anything but conventional, it’s been fascinating. He can do indie charm, ensemble comedy, animation, even horror.
And if this list is any indication, he’s only just getting started.
Stay tuned… and stay weird, Pete.
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