Just when you think the true meaning of “movie star,” is dead, Ryan Gosling always shows up with something up his sleeve. From getaway car chases to tap-dancing musical numbers, Ryan Gosling’s star power and mass appeal are known to men and women (and anyone in between) alike. But which movie moments are actually Ryan Gosling’s greatest?
Originating as a child performer on shows like The Mickey Mouse Club (where he shared the stage with future pop stars like Britney Spears and NSYNC), Ryan Gosling has grown to become a major Hollywood movie star, thanks to his killer combination of leading man looks and chameleonic charisma. Even when he plays antisocial losers and abusive husbands, you can’t help but recognize Gosling as the main character of whatever story he’s in.
With arthouse thrillers and big-budget blockbusters across his body of work, Ryan Gosling has naturally been a part of several iconic moments in cinema. Here are just 32 of the greatest Ryan Gosling movie moments of all time.
32. The Ides of March – Flirting with the Intern
It is never, ever, a good idea to flirt with the intern. But only Ryan Gosling can weather that storm. In the political thriller The Ides of March, Gosling’s Stephen, an idealistic political consultant, willingly gets involved with a pretty intern (Evan Rachel Wood), whom he later finds out is not only the daughter of the head of the Democratic National Committee but has had a scandalous secret relationship with rising politician Mike Morris (George Clooney). Their first “meet cute” is quite cute, the kind of witty banter and teasing that only exists in Hollywood.
31. First Man – Bracelet on the Moon
Damien Chazelle’s majestic space drama First Man sees Ryan Gosling play astronaut Neil Armstrong in the years leading up to the historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Chazelle’s unique direction gives the movie a heartfelt spiritual quality to the story, a film that dispels the nostalgic heroism of America’s past and unearths a riveting drama about the calculated risks one takes to make history. Later in the First Man, Gosling’s Armstrong pays tribute to his late daughter, who died of a tumor in 1962, by leaving her bracelet in a crater of the Moon. (Did Armstrong actually leave his daughter’s bracelet on the Moon? No. But don’t let facts get in the way of a good story here.)
30. Lars and the Real Girl – Touch Therapy
Ryan Gosling may be a magazine heartthrob, but in a handful of movies, he’s anything but a stud. Case in point: The 2007 indie dramedy Lars and the Real Girl casts Gosling as Lars, a kind but lonesome young man whose years of emotional neglect have rendered him unable to feel, well, much of anything. When he falls in love with an anatomically correct sex doll, it’s a cry for help. For a while, Gosling’s Lars becomes a patient of a physician and psychologist (Patricia Clarkson), who takes it upon herself to treat Lars slowly. A session involving their first “touch therapy” allows Gosling to show range that makes him more than a handsome face on a glossy tabloid.
29. Remember the Titans – “Put Petey In, He’s Better”
Who can forget Remember the Titans? The inspirational sports drama about a racially integrated high school football team in the early 1970s features, among other young talents, an 18-year-old Ryan Gosling, who enjoys a supporting role as one of the team’s best players. After a long journey of team bonding and breaking down racial barriers, Gosling’s character analyzes the field and gives up his spot to another player, Donald Faison’s Petey, because he knows enough that Petey is the better player. The act of selflessness pays off, creating a feel-good ending that made the movie a rousing success at the box office.
28. The Gray Man – Meeting Lloyd
After Chris Evans hung up his shield as Captain America, he turned heel to play the villain Lloyd in the Russo Brothers’ Netflix project The Gray Man. Starring opposite Evans is Ryan Gosling, (who plays the agent Sierra Six) who is tasked with taking Lloyd down. Their first meeting subverts typical hero-villain meet-cutes conventions, with a smarmy Evans hamming up the screen while keeping a loaded gun fixed on a knocked-out Gosling. But just because Evans’ Lloyd has the upper hand doesn’t mean Gosling can’t get a few jabs in. “The white pants, the trash ‘stache, it leans Lloyd,” quips Sierra Six, before dropping a bomb – literally.
27. Blade Runner 2049 – Domestic Bliss
After a long day at the office, there’s nothing better than coming home to a happy wife and a happy life. In a tremendously sad way, that’s the life Ryan Gosling’s K has made for himself in Blade Runner 2049. After the movie’s riveting opening, the cop-replicant K comes home to an awfully lonely apartment where his “wife,” a virtual companion named Joi (Ana de Armas) prepares him “dinner” (a hologram dish). The whole thing seems pleasant, but the hollow artifice and K’s pitiful desire for something authentic and human underscores the deafening sounds of K’s inner melancholy. And it’s only the tee-up for an even more devastating spike later on.
26. The Notebook – “I Wrote You Every Day”
Not since The Bridges of Madison County has there been a heartbreak romance that made getting caught in the rain so devastating. Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling shine in Nick Cassavetes” The Notebook, which includes an iconic reunion and passionate kiss in the pouring rain. When an infuriated Allie (McAdams) questions why Noah (Gosling) never wrote to her while he was serving in World War 2, he says he did in fact write to her. Every. Single. Day. (She’ll later find the letters kept from her by her vindictive mother.) There’s still a lot ahead for these two, but this midpoint in the story is everything why people love The Notebook in the first place – an image so good, it’s the movie’s now-iconic DVD cover.
25. The Ides of March – The Negotiation
When a meeting with your boss feels like a mob negotiation, you know things are serious. In The Ides of March, Ryan Gosling’s protagonist confronts his boss, a rising star left-wing politician (George Clooney) about the illicit affair he had with a pretty intern (Evan Rachel Wood) and the secret she took with her to the grave. In the dark kitchen of an empty restaurant, Gosling blackmails his boss for job security, to which he reluctantly accepts. But mere minutes later at the very end of the movie, we’re left wondering exactly how much loyalty he’s really owed. Only an actor like Gosling can inspire questions with a single glare.
24. The Fall Guy – “Is This About the Stunt?”
You have to hand it to Ryan Gosling: Taking punishment from his director ex-girlfriend (Emily Blunt) is the stuff legends are made of. In The Fall Guy, Gosling is thrown around like a ragdoll on the set of a big-budget science fiction movie, as a form of punishment for ghosting his ex. As Blunt brags about having a slamming body thanks to pilates and resentment, the entire set pities Gosling who gets lit on fire and thrown around to Blunt’s delight. While this might be a violation of SAG rules, it sure is hilarious. The things you do for love…
23. Blue Valentine – Ukulele Serenade
There are a lot of devastating moments in Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance’s romantic drama about a married couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) whose love life is autopsied to find out where it all went wrong. Flashing back to when things were going right, Gosling serenades Williams with his ukelele outside of a gown and suit shop; Williams, in turn, dances an impromptu jig, impressed by his strumming and ability to hold a tune. You never know what awaits on the road to love, and if these two could see what’s ahead they might probably go their separate ways. But the raw intimacy of meeting someone special can be so intoxicating, you can’t help but want to go down that road anyway.
22. The Nice Guys – Breaking His Arm
Shane Black’s criminally overlooked crime comedy The Nice Guys pairs Ryan Gosling with Russell Crowe, the two playing Los Angeles private eyes who learn their latest assignments have something in common. Upon first meeting, things are hostile as Crowe threatens – and succeeds – in breaking Gosling’s arm. But it’s the little things that make their first scene together so memorable. From Gosling’s ability to take a punch to his witty quips to his panicked “No!” when Crowe reaches for his arm, Gosling’s masterful comic timing has never been better than here. There’s multiple reasons why The Nice Guys is one of the best comedy movies of all time, and this moment is one of them.
21. All Good Things – Husband From Hell
Lots of people would love to be married to Ryan Gosling. But Kirsten Dunst gets more than she bargained for in All Good Things, a drama heavily inspired by the real-life convicted murderer Robert Durst. All Good Things renders the story of Durst’s marriage to wife Kathleen McCormack, renamed Katie McCarthy (Dunst) into a pretty standard domestic abuse thriller with touches of horror. That nod is most apparent when, at one point in the movie, Katie comes home to find her husband waiting for her in the darkness of their living room.
20. The Place Beyond the Pines – His First Ice Cream
Not long after starring in Drive, Ryan Gosling starred in another crime thriller that interrogates masculinity and memory: Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines. The movie sees Gosling play a motorcycle stunt rider who begins robbing banks. Partway through the film, Gosling reconnects with a former love (Eva Mendes), who, unbeknownst to him, has mothered his child. In one of the movie’s more tender moments, Gosling takes his son out for his first ice cream cone – a little bit of safety and innocence in a story teeming with violence.
19. Lars and the Real Girl – “I Have a Visitor”
In many ways, the whole movie hinges on this very moment. In Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling’s Lars falls for an anatomically correct sex doll named Bianca, who arrives at his house delivered in a box. On the day of Bianca’s arrival, Lars excitedly introduces “her” to his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), who are both bewildered and speechless over Lars’ new, um, girlfriend. The rest of the movie surprises audiences by telling a sympathetic story about mental illness and the manifestation of emotional neglect, but the first “meeting” with Bianca is quietly hilarious.
18. Barbie – “Sublime!”
After years of being “just Ken”, one of the best moments in Greta Gerwig’s hit comedy Barbie is Ryan Gosling’s Ken finally getting his ultimate wish: Barbie (Margot Robbie) to be his girlfriend. Right before the movie’s climax, Barbie comes hat in hand to the doorstep – or more correctly, saloon doors – of Ken’s Dojo Mojo Casa House (aka Barbie’s stolen Dream House) to “accept” his feelings. Of course, Barbie has ulterior motives to get the now-patriarchal Kens to turn on one another. But in the moment, Ken is clueless as to what Barbie actually wants. So when he hears that Barbie wants to be his girlfriend, he can’t help but let out a passionate “Sublime!” from the gut. (Fun fact: The line was improvised by Gosling.)
17. Blue Valentine – Arranging Walter’s New Room
Being nice wasn’t in Ryan Gosling’s job description. In Blue Valentine, audiences get a glimpse of who his character really is when he takes his job as a mere mover one step further, choosing to arrange and decorate the new nursing home room of his moving company’s client, an elderly war veteran and widower. Even when his coworkers press him to just collect his money and leave, Gosling chooses to stay to make sure that elderly Walter feels at home. The kind gesture leads him to lock in eyes with a pretty stranger from across the hallway (Michelle Williams).
16. The Fall Guy – Karaoke Car Chase
When a movie like The Fall Guy bills itself as a love letter to Hollywood stunts, it better have some cool stunts. Indeed, The Fall Guy delivers, with one standout set-piece involving a car chase through Los Angeles. Upping the ante from all the other best action movie car chases you’ve seen before is a loyal German shepherd and a giant crate that functions as a mini, moving arena for Gosling to throw down against some bad guys. On top of that, the whole scene is scored to karaoke, with Emily Blunt’s character singing her heart out while Gosling loses a few teeth. It may not be the fastest car chase you’ve ever seen, but Gosling still glows as the action hero we all secretly wish we could be.
15. La La Land – “A Lovely Night”
If, while watching La La Land, you find yourself considering tap lessons, that’s the magnetic appeal of Ryan Gosling and co-star Emma Stone at work. In Damien Chazelle’s acclaimed musical about love and dreams in the city of stars, Gosling and Stone’s characters finally meet after a swanky house party and seize on their shared attraction over a lightning musical number. “A Lovely Night” toys with the audience as both characters verbally acknowledge they’ve got “no shot” and they “could never be,” which foreshadows the movie’s heart-wrenching ending. Well, what a waste of a lovely night.
While the selection of slim-fit shirts, skinny ties, and tailored suits reek of early 2010s fashion, Steve Carrell’s (expensive) wardrobe reboot by Ryan Gosling in the film Crazy, Stupid, Love is still timeless. In this acclaimed romantic comedy, a middle-aged family man (Carrell) studies under a handsome womanizer (Gosling) to get back into the dating scene. Gosling’s mentorship includes a day trip to the mall, where Carrell re-learns how to dress like a man. But it’s not easy for either of the duo, as the ear-bleeding velcro of Carrell’s wallet sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
13. The Nice Guys – Bathroom
The brilliance of writer/director Shane Black is how the hyper-specifics of any situation can subvert expectations. Take, for example, Russell Crowe cornering Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys. With Gosling caught in a bathroom stall, the annoyances of a stall door, his lit cigarette, his broken arm, and his loaded pistol all create a storm of hilarious chaos that compounds when Murphy’s Law kicks in. Gosling is a hilarious actor, but the scene is proof that his physical comedy chops are second to none.
12. Blade Runner 2049 – Truth in Memories
Never mind if you’ve come across a screenshot of this scene on an Instagram meme page – it’s still a stirring moment by Gosling. In Blade Runner 2049, Ryan Gosling’s K visits Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), a Replicant “memory maker” whom K consults over a memory that might be real. Upon learning the memory is verifiably real and that his own existence may be a lie, Gosling’s reaction as K – a guttural scream of anger – is something to behold. For most of the movie K is stoic, almost expressionless, which makes this explosion of emotion all the louder.
11. Only God Forgives – Wanna Fight?
Only God Forgives didn’t live up to Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn’s previous collaboration, the 2011 slow burner Drive, but it still has a few cool moments up its sleeve. Perhaps the most memorable is Gosling’s one-on-one bare-knuckle brawl against Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), a ruthless police lieutenant. With just a simple invitation – “Wanna fight?” – Gosling finds himself in the lion’s den, with an utterly sick synth soundtrack pulsating his match against the “Angel of Vengeance.”
10. Blade Runner 2049 – “Because You’ve Never Seen a Miracle”
It’s Ryan Gosling versus Dave Bautista in a no-holds-barred brawl as the jaw-dropping opening to Blade Runner 2049. Stemming from the original short story by Philip K. Dick and written for, and then cut from, the 1982 movie, Gosling’s K is on the clock when he meets the gorilla-sized Sapper Morton (Bautista), a rogue Replicant who refuses to go down without swinging first. Between both men putting on an acting clinic, Sapper’s insult that K has “never seen a miracle” – a notion that will drive K throughout the movie – and Denis Villeneuve directing the hell out of the scene overall, Blade Runner 2049 starts with a bang and never quiets down.
9. The Nice Guys – “And Stuff”
Shane Black’s The Nice Guys gives audiences something they never thought they wanted to see: Ryan Gosling being a weird dad. In The Nice Guy, Angourie Rice plays Gosling’s adolescent daughter, who gets involved in his case involving a missing teenager (Margaret Qualley). At a swanky L.A. party, Rice’s Holly stows away in her dad’s car by hiding in the trunk. Every moment of the scene is the definition of iconic, from Gosling casually trying to give away the keys to a valet to his stern reminder about proper grammar. Remember, never say “and stuff.”
8. The Fall Guy – The Last Stunt
Lights, camera… and a ton of action! The Fall Guy pays tribute to Hollywood’s hard-working stuntmen (and stuntwomen) in a movie where the stunt double saves the day. Towards the end of the movie, the story climaxes as Gosling’s Colt Seavers rides on a giant camera crane, which is being driven on a speeding pick-up truck, in order to jump and catch himself onto a helicopter – all to retrieve a recording containing a confession. The Fall Guy is classic Hollywood-saves-the-day stuff, and Gosling makes a meal out of a killer climax.
7. Drive – The Elevator
Nicolas Winding Refn’s simmering noir stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. But over the course of the movie, Gosling’s nameless protagonist learns to get his own hands dirty in order to protect a pretty neighbor (Carey Mulligan) and her family. When a hitman is dispatched after them, Gosling kisses Mulligan’s Irene before violently getting rid of their would-be assailant. It’s the effortless transition from a tender kiss to the burst of violence that makes the moment, and all of Drive, so darn special.
6. Crazy, Stupid, Love – “It’s Like You’re Photoshopped”
If you heard someone quoting this line before, it’s because Emma Stone was right: Ryan Gosling does look like he’s Photoshopped. In Crazy, Stupid, Love, Gosling’s Jacob Palmer starts getting really close to Emma Stone’s Hannah, with their night ending up at Jacob’s sleek bachelor pad. When Jacob takes off his shirt to reveal Ryan Gosling’s washboard abs, Hannah is in disbelief – as are all of us. It doesn’t end there. When Hannah eggs him on about his “big move,” he reveals that he can recreate the big lift in Dirty Dancing. Don’t we all just want to be held by Ryan Gosling?
5. The Big Short – The Pitch/”I Smell Money”
Adam McKay’s The Big Short should be commended. It’s not easy to explain the wildly complicated 2008 financial crisis for people with the reading comprehension of a coloring book. It helps that the charismatic Ryan Gosling serves as the movie’s main narrator, who is also the character Jared, a slimy hedge-fund manager who clues in the film’s other characters on the riches to be had. As untrustworthy as Gosling’s Jarret seems to be, his pitch makes a convincing argument – one that quite literally pays off dividends down the road. Certainly, we all wish we could have been at this meeting.
4. La La Land – A Hollywood Ending
We all just want happily ever afters. In La La Land, both Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s characters get what they want and become exactly who they want… only without each other. In what is easily one of the most bittersweet endings of all time, Gosling and Stone recognize how their love for each other made them better people and better dreamers. Still, they would never actually achieve said dreams if they stayed tethered together. Over an elaborate dance and musical dream sequence, the two imagine the roads not taken and the paths not seen before arriving at their present reality: together in the same room, worlds apart.
3. Barbie – “I’m Just Ken”
Anywhere else, he’d be a ten. In the mega-hit from summer 2023, Barbie, Ryan Gosling’s Ken steals the show from Margot Robbie’s Barbie, playing a hapless dweeb with unrequited affections for Barbie even when Barbie doesn’t feel the same way. Ken gets a surprising amount of attention from writer/director Greta Gerwig, being a character on a long journey trying to understand his own self-worth (and almost being misled by toxic masculinity). This includes his anthem, “I’m Just Ken,” where Ken pleads to the universe to be more than “blonde fragility.”
2. Blade Runner 2049 – “You Look Lonely, Joe”
Ever seen the face of a man who literally loses everything? In Blade Runner 2049, the neon lights of a JOI advertisement light up the bruised face of Ryan Gosling’s K, who stands in the rain realizing that nothing of his life and existence has been authentic – not even the “woman” he loved so dearly. Heartbreaking but not hopeless, bleak but not without a light at the end of the tunnel, Blade Runner 2049 masterfully depicts death and rebirth in a single, awe-inspiring moment.
1. Drive – Nightcall
The greatest title sequence of all time? If it isn’t this scene, it’s definitely in the conversation. Defying expectations as an off-brand Fast & Furious, Drive – a crime thriller where Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver –lets loose a sudden needle-drop: the cool synth-wave track “Nightcall” by Kavinsky, which perfectly sets the tone for the muscular throwback noir atmosphere that Drive is going for. And Ryan Gosling simply looks unstoppable, his silver moto jacket looking like both battle armor and a superhero’s uniform as he rips through Los Angeles streets with purpose. Gosling barely says a word, except for disembodied narration, and he doesn’t need to. His actions speak volumes.
