Jamie Dornan has taken on fewer roles since finishing out his tenure in the role of Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey films. However, he continues to work, while fans remain flustered over his performances as Grey. One of Dornan's latest gigs proves he hasn't lost of bit of the sex appeal that made Christian so enticing either. Dornan just showed that he still has those flawless Fifty Shades abs and, believe it or not, we can attribute that revelation to none other than a Diet Coke ad.

Celebrities have long appeared in soda commercials, and they usually end up being entertaining. Michael Jackson's iconic Pepsi commercial of the '80s or Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Pink's Gladiator Pepsi ad from 2004 are just a few of the spots that are forever etched in TV history. Now, Jamie Dornan is bringing his sensual vibes as a spokesperson for Diet Coke via a new commercial. His chiseled Christian Grey abs certainly don’t lie in the bloopers for his ad, which he posted to his Instagram stories:

So, if anyone asks what this Hollywood star/model has been up to, they should know that he's just making fans swoon while shirtless and casually sipping a Diet Coke. With Jamie Dornan captioning about his “unique taste,” I can’t help but say that the actor himself is the real refreshing view here, and he may exude a very “unique taste” for anyone watching.

It’s hard to believe that back in 2018, the Irish Film and Television Award winner described himself as shy in real life. Today, his confidence, as he reveals his six-pack seems to tell a different story. See Jamie Dornan show off his “perfect taste” again below:

Ooh, baby! Those push-ups the Northern Irishman did in between takes of playing Christian Grey sure did wonders for him. If an actor is going to have to go shirtless for a role and look chiseled, I'd say they should certainly try to find out what Dornan did to get swole.

Aside from seeing The Tourist star’s pecks while sipping a Diet Coke, I love the British humor that's exuded in his commercial. As onlookers watch the Hugo Boss actor cold-swimming in the lake, why not take a little Diet Coke break? On that note, watch the humorous, but sexy, soda ad for yourself below. Also, make sure to watch the end bloopers if you really want to glare at Dornan’s impressive abs:

Is it getting hot in here? But, seriously, this is fun work from Jamie Dornan, and I'm also excited to see what he has on the horizon. Dornan has projects that are set to hit streaming schedule. He'll play identical twins in the Netflix series The Undertow, and he's co-leading the heist series 12 12 12, which will eventually be available for Apple TV+ subscription holders. As his career goes on, though, it's likely that fans won't forget Dornan's performances as Christian Grey and, given his portrayal (and abs), it's not hard to understand why

Honestly, I would've never guessed that a Diet Coke ad would serve as living proof that Jamie Dornan's still got those timeless abs of his. Yet believe me when I say that I'm not mad about it. Those who'd like to relive the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise should know that the films are available to rent or buy on digital platforms.

Coming off of Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan took some unexpected roles. He danced in Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar. He starred opposite Emily Blunt in a movie with a very unexpected bee ending. He was robbed of an Academy Award nod for Belfast and then he hopped, skipped and jumped to TV for The Tourist. In short, he’s been around, but we haven’t seen him in a ton of roles in the seven years since Fifty Shades Freed released. Turns out, there’s a reason for that.

The frequent leading man recently opened up about his career after his trilogy of Fifty movies wrapped. The topic of what he values most came up, and his answer was really succinct: ‘time.”

Dornan’s lost both his mom and dad at this point. His mother tragically passed away when he was just a teenager. His dad, Jim, was getting into the acting game himself when he tragically died from Covid complications in the spring of 2021. Dornan’s a husband to Amelia Warner and a father to three girls, and spending spending time with those he loves is important. He also told El Pais in the interview he tries to get back to Belfast and spend time with friends there as much as possible, too.

When it comes to the roles he wants to take, though, he seemingly grew a thick skin after he failed early (and often) in he career. Now, he says he’s always looking forward and going with his “gut” when a new project comes up. It’s meant his resume is unexpected, eclectic, and sometimes even delightful.

It’s also meant he has no expectation that each project will surpass the last.

Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed, for example, were certainly amongst his most popular roles, but they were not well-received by critics, despite their large fanbase. Dornan has previously spoken of the "brutal review" that has stuck with him since release.

In the years thereafter, some of his roles have seemed to be for fun while others have felt like projects that tipped into the realm of award-winning fare. Belfast landed him a Golden Globe nomination, for example. His latest quotes, however, highlight the work is secondary to the things that are most important to the actor.

All in all, it sounds like Jamie Dornan has a good grip on his life and his career and knows what direction he wants to take it in. Even if his most ardent fans would probably love to see him in another role or two a year.

Now--can I please just vote for that Barb and Star sequel?

There have been a lot of bad movies made in the last half-century and many of those have been nominated for and won the Golden Raspberry Award (or "Razzie") for "Worst Picture." The dubious "honor" has been bestowed on such stinkers as Gigli and Battlefield Earth, for example. It's also gone to some movies that might not deserve the moniker of "worst" even if they aren't the best. Either way, here is our list of just some of the movies that have won the unceremonious trophy for Worst Picture at The Razzies.

Gigli (2003)

Decades after Gigli was released, little is remembered about the actual movie. Sure, people remember that it was a huge box office bomb and we certainly remember the gossip surrounding the film's two stars, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. It's been a wild ride over the two over the last couple of decades for Lopez and Affleck. Gigli "won" the Golden Raspberry in 2004.

Showgirls

Where to start with Showgirls? There is a lot to unpack about this Paul Verhoeven-directed film starring Elizabeth Berkeley. It was eviscerated by critics and audiences alike when it was released in 1995. In the years since, many have re-evaluated the movie, and it's become a minor cult flick. In the moment, however, it was considered one of the worst movies ever made. It was nominated for a record 13 Razzies and "winning" a then-record seven, including Worst Picture and Worst Director for Verhoeven. To his credit, Verhoeven accepted his award in person, one of the few to do so.

Can't Stop the Music (1980)

Can't Stop the Music is a wild ride. It's sort of, kinda, loosely based on the formation and career of the Th Village People, but it's so completely all over the place, it's easy to see why it was the inspiration for the organizers of the Razzies to invent the awards. As such, it was the first movie to win the Golden Raspberry in 1981.

Swept Away (2002)

2002's Swept Away, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring his then-wife Madonna is, in theory, a romantic comedy. The problem is that both the humor and the romance don't have any heart at all. It's a stilted movie, and in the end, seems pretty much just like an excuse for Ritchie and Madonna to work together and little more. It won the Razzie for Worst Picture in 2003.

Cats (2019)

The critical reviews of Cats when it was released in 2019 were wild. It almost became a sport for critics to out-snark each other with their reviews of the universally panned film. Cinemablend wrote some gems in response to the movie. It was hardly a surprise when it won the Worst Movie award in 2020.

Freddy Got Fingered (2000)

One of the few people to accept their award in person was Tom Green for Worst Director and Worst Actor for Freddy Got Fingered at the 2001 awards. It's perfectly subversive for Green to attend, and really, is the best part of the movie that won 8 Razzies in total, including Worst Picture. Frankly, it's amazing that a movie with this bad title even got made.

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

In the late 1980s, Andrew Dice Clay became the idol of teenage boys all over America. His raunchy stand up act was wildly popular, and that all led to his first starring role in a movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Of course, the movie, while loved by those teenage fans, was despised by critics, leading to its win in 1991.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Will all due respect to Transformers fans, none of the movies are all that good. Some are worse than others and even strident fans have Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ranked at the bottom of the series. It won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture in 2009.

Blonde

There was a lot of hype leading to the release of Blonde starring Ana de Armas in a biopic of Marilyn Monroe. When it did come out, critics and audiences didn't quite know what to make of the bizarre approach to the subject matter and while de Armas was praised, the movie was panned. It took home the Razzie at the 2022 ceremony.

The Emoji Movie (2016)

The producers of the 2017 Golden Raspberry winner for Worst Picture, The Emoji Movie, got the last laugh as the movie made over $200 million at the box office and crushed it on streaming. It's wild that the movie ever got made, and even wilder that made so much money.

Striptease (1996)

Striptease is one of the more unfair winners of the Golden Raspberry. The movie, based a hilarious book by Carl Hiaasen, is pretty funny at times with wonderful performances from Burt Reynolds, Ving Rhames, and Robert Patrick especially. It got wrapped up in the blood in the water for Showgirls and never recovered.

Catwoman

With a Rotten Tomatoes rating somewhere in the single digits, Catwoman is consider one of the worst, if not the worst, superhero movies ever. Halle Berry took a lot of flack for her performance as the movie's protagonist, but she took it in stride, appearing at the Razzies to accept her award for Worst Actress, bringing her Oscar for Monster’s Ball along with her.

Fantastic Four (2015)

Miles Teller, who played Reid Richards in 2015's Fantastic Four, has acknowledged that is was no fun to be part of a box-office bomb, but that's what this movie was. It was also panned by critics and audiences alike, including by winning the Razzie for Worst Picture.

Cocktail (1988)

The Tom Cruise movie Cocktail was a huge hit in the '80s that has not stood the test of time. The movie, and it's soundtrack, were huge hits, but critics hated it then, and they seem to hate it even more today.

Shining Through (1992)

To be fair, Shining Through is not the worst movie on this list. In a lot of ways, it may the best movie on the list. It's frankly unfair that it "won" the Worst Movie award when it was released the same year as Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, which was nominated and should have been the "winner."

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2011)

When The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 won the Razzie in 2012, it felt like the awards were celebrating the entire series. It was the third Twilight movie to be nominated in successive years, but the first to take home Worst Picture.

Mommie Dearest (1981)

Before Mommie Dearest became something of a cult hit on cable TV in the 1980s, it was mostly panned by critics upon its release in 1981, with Faye Dunaway taking the most heat for her portrayal of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford. The movie won was the second winner of the Golden Raspberry in 1981.

Howard The Duck (1986)

Like a few other movies on this list, Howard the Duck was a hit with a certain demographic of mostly teenage boys when it was released in 1986. The special effects, especially of the duck, were pretty terrible and you have to feel bad for Lea Thompson, who had to act her way through a love scene with the puppet. Howard the Duck tied with Prince's Under The Cherry Moon for the Razzie.

Wild Wild West

In concept, Wild Wild West might have been a good idea, but on the screen the movie, starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline doesn't work on any level. It's a movie that truly deserves its spot on this list.

Diana (The Musical)

Sometimes you have to ask why this was even a thing. Diana, a Broadway musical based on the life of Princess Diana, is, on paper and in practice, a terrible idea. It may not deserve to be on this list, as the "movie" is actually the original Broadway show that was filmed for Netflix. Either way, it's a bad idea.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

There does seem to be a theme in the earliest years of the Razzies - they really didn't like movies that appealed to teenagers. Take, for example, Rambo: First Blood Part II. Wildly popular with some, enough to continue the franchise for decades, but despised by critics. It won in 1985.

Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015)

Based on the wildly popular erotic novels, Fifty Shades Of Grey was sure to be a box office hit when it was released in 2015. It made a ton of money, but critics panned it. It won the Worst Movie Razzie, but had to share the award with Fantastic Four. Honestly, they both pretty much deserve it.

Jack And Jill (2011)

Adam Sandler's Jack And Jill is a great example of an actor playing multiple roles in the same movie, but it's a pretty terrible example of comedy and filmmaking. Like a lot of the Sand Man's movies, it crushed at the box office, but it bombed in every other way, including when it won the Razzie in 2011.

Battlefield Earth

John Travolta's passion project Battlefield Earth is often mentioned among the worst movies ever made. It's hard to argue against that notion, as it doesn't even work in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way. It's not even unintentionally funny, it's just bad. It took home seven Razzies in 2000, including Worst Picture.

Indecent Proposal (1993)

Though it made a ton of money and has an all-star cast of Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, and Robert Redford, Indecent Proposal was a critical disaster and as such, took home the Razzie in 1993. Some would argue that one of the nominees, Body of Evidence, starring Madonna, should have been the "winner" however. Madonna did manage to win Worst Actress though.

Hudson Hawk (1991)

The winner for Worst Picture in 1991 is another one of those movies that you have to question why anyone would greenlight the idea. Hudson Hawk is, frankly, a bizarre movie that is theoretically supposed to be a slapstick/surrealist comedy, but it just doesn't work on any level.

The Postman (1997)

In total, Kevin Costner's The Postman won all five Golden Raspberry awards for which it was nominated, including Worst Actor and Worst Director for Costner, and Worst Picture. While Waterworld was a similarly panned post-apocalyptic movie starring Costner, at least that movie has been re-evaluated in more recent years. The Postman still stinks.

Leonard Part 6 (1987)

The Bill Cosby vehicle Leonard Part 6 was terrible when it was released and time has not been kind to it, either. The Golden Raspberry committee got this 100% correct and the movie should remain in the dustbin of history.

The Last Airbender (2010)

Director M. Night Shyamalan stepped out of his comfort zone with 2010's The Last Airbender bast on the wildly popular cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. Unfortunately for Shyamalan and audiences, the movie was hated by fans of the show. That displeasure translated to a Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

With the exception of Star Trey II: The Wrath of Khan, all of the theatrical released starring the original cast of Star Trek have been flawed movies. The fifth release, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, is the biggest miss of the series and it was reward with a Worst Picture award in 1989.

The Love Guru

It took years for Mike Myers' career to recover from 2008's The Love Guru. It's that bad of a movie. It won three Razzies, including Worst Actor for the Austin Powers star and Worst Picture. Myers didn't really recover until working on 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

Just because a classic tale enters the public domain, as Winnie The Pooh did recently, doesn't mean production companies should immediately start trying to exploit it, especially with a horror movie like Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. On paper, it might be a fun idea, but it should have remained on paper, that way it wouldn't have won the Worst Picture Razzie in 2023.

Fifty Shades of Grey notoriously has been one of the most NSFW movies on Netflix for a while, but if you haven’t watched it in a hot minute, let me just remind you there are a lot of sex scenes in a lot of locations across the three movies. Like in the Red Room. Or the bathtub. So, when Dornan recently admitted to his own special bath time routine, of course the first thing that came to mind was “it’s giving Fifty Shades.”

All you need are some speakers, some suds and maybe some M&Ms (or, you know, the candy of your choice). Per Jamie Dornan, his pal shared with him the absolute best way to relax after a hard day of filming and it’s something he refers to as the “opera bath.” It sounds pretty great, at least as the actor related to Vogue.

This is a bit wild because less than a year ago Dornan’s co-star Dakota Johnson also admitted to loving a good bath. Of course, in the actor’s case, his take on what to do in the bath is a little more “indulgent” than her take, which is just being open to jumping into a tub whenever, wherever. I’d probably call his version both indulgent and elaborate, but there’s something nice about taking the time to pamper yourself on occasion and if that means some suds and some soprano vocals at the same time, so be it.

While we see Christian Grey in the tub in Fifty Shades, this is not the only time Jamie Dornan has indulged in the public eye, to note.

Jamie Dornan has been quite frank in the past about how Fifty Shades sex scenes weren’t a picnic to film, so who knows if a relaxing bath came at the end of a long night slathering ice cream on Dakota Johnson? (Certainly seems like it would have been a good idea given the sticky situation.) Regardless, it does seem like this “opera bath” phenomenon may have been a concept that came to the actor later, as the final two Fifty Shades movies filmed back-to-back, wrapping filming in April of 2016 for theatrical releases in 2017 for Darker and 2018 for Freed.

In the time since, Dornan has said he would not like to inhabit a role like Christian Grey again, and has instead embarked upon an eclectic collection of roles in projects like Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, Wild Mountain Thyme (with its wild ending) and the TV series The Tourist. His trajectory reminds me a lot of what Daniel Radcliffe did after Harry Potter or what Robert Pattinson did after Twilight ended. While some of his pastimes might fit in with what his most famous character, his career is definitely going in a very different direction these days.

Fifty Shades of Grey and its subsequent sequels are among Netflix’s notable sexually explicit films right now. I was watching the third movie recently and I was reminded of the fervor online when series lead Jamie Dornan didn’t go full-frontal nude. So I sleuthed around to answer the question fans may still be wondering: Was the Christian Grey actor really going to be paid more to show off his man parts in the trilogy?

The Full-Frontal Nudity Rumor And What Really Happened

Thank goodness I wasn’t the only one wondering about this. Back in the day, a rumor ran around the Fifty Shades cast would be paid more to go fully nude. Like significantly more. I'm talking allegedly getting paid $1.5 million more to see Christian Grey in full glory. This would have meant Jamie Dornan would have left the dreaded “wee bag” in the dressing room on at least one particular day of filming, but despite rumors coming out ahead of not just Fifty Shades of Grey but also Fifty Shades Freed, it never happened. Here’s why.

When asked about the prospect, the actor (who is funny in real life and not just in Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar) joked the $1.5 million that was listed was actually quite low. But then he revealed the real truth about the rumors, telling Elle:

There’s a reason the Fifty Shades movies never took the extra step cut out scenes and be less graphic than E.L. James novels. They “wanted to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.”

Why Jamie Dornan And Dakota Johnson Only Got Semi-Nude For Fifty Shades

Speaking further on the subject, the actor got candid about his memories from the time filming as Christian Grey. He spoke about showing off his butt in the process and why he feels it makes sense the movies never took things a step further.

It’s worth pointing out, too, that at the time the first movie was coming together, Fifty Shades of Grey was largely filming in order to avoid an NC-17 rating. Ultimately that first movie and its subsequent sequels would be Rated R by the MPAA. At the time, Jamie Dornan also confirmed there were procedures in place to avoid full frontal, noting in the same interview years ago that his contract avoided it, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he was opposed to the idea. Contractually, it just wasn't going to happen.

So, if you’ve been operating off the assumption Jamie Dornan turned down money to appear fully nude in the Fifty Shades movies, it's a little more complicated then that. Still, who knows if they would have made different choices about nudity if all of these considerations hadn’t been in place?

There’s something so comforting about a good rom-com, where you know two people are going to end up together, and you just get to watch how it happens. The best romantic comedies can cause butterflies in your stomach, or you might even shed a tear at whatever inevitable grand gesture proves one’s love for another. This only works, however, if the stars of said movie have good chemistry, because otherwise watching the characters’ love story can be quite painful. Below are some of those couples who had absolutely zero chemistry.  

Ashton Kutcher And Reese Witherspoon (Your Place Or Mine)

The minimal amount of time that Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon actually spent together in 2023’s Your Place or Mine didn’t help these two well-known actors convince moviegoers of any romantic interest in each other whatsoever. It also didn’t help that Witherspoon’s Debbie did have great chemistry with Theo (Jesse Williams). 

Jennifer Lopez And Ralph Fiennes (Maid In Manhattan)

Maid in Manhattan may be among Jennifer Lopez’s best romantic comedies, but the chemistry between Marisa and Chris was not the strongest. Ralph Fiennes has taken the blame for that, admitting that the “light, comic” thing doesn’t play to his strengths as an actor. 

Lauren London And Jonah Hill (You People) 

The relationship between Ezra (Jonah Hill) and Amira (Lauren London) in You People was a stretch, to begin with, but you guys, there was so little connection between these two actors that their lone kiss, which comes at the end of the movie, was apparently done with CGI. Wild! 

Patrick Dempsey And Michelle Monaghan (Made Of Honor)

The only thing less believable than the romance between Patrick Dempsey’s Tom and Michelle Monaghan’s Hannah in Made of Honor was the scene where they started making out at her bachelorette party in front of everyone, and no one noticed.  

Lindsay Lohan And Chord Overstreet (Falling For Christmas) 

Who doesn’t love Lindsay Lohan, am I right? It was wonderful to see her return to acting in the 2022 holiday rom-com Falling for Christmas. The story was perfectly pleasant — with a killer Mean Girls reference to boot — and Chord Overstreet was truly a sweetheart as single dad Jake Russell as he cared for the injured Sierra (Lohan). It was all very charming, but my goodness there wasn’t an ounce of romantic interest between those two. 

Constance Wu And Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) 

The success of the novel Crazy Rich Asians translated to the screen in 2018, as we got to see the love story between Nick Young (Henry Golding) and Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) come to life. However, audiences were disappointed in how underdeveloped Wu and Golding’s characters were, even in comparison to their co-stars. 

Jennifer Lopez And Owen Wilson (Marry Me)

The unlikelihood that Jennifer Lopez’s Kat would have any interest whatsoever in Owen Wilson’s Charlie in the 2022 film Marry Me is a hurdle even these talented leading actors couldn’t overcome.  

Tina Fey And Steve Carell (Date Night) 

It should come as no surprise that Tina Fey and Steve Carell had comedic chemistry in spades in the 2010 flick Date Night. Romantic chemistry? Not so much, as their marriage was largely played for jokes. 

Ashley Greene And Jackson Rathbone (Twilight)

Don’t come for me, Twi-hards, but does anybody else have trouble remembering that Twilight’s Alice (Ashley Greene) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) AREN’T brother and sister? It was possibly Jasper’s discomfort, which prevented him from relaxing even just a little bit, on top of Alice’s almost maternal concern for him that did that. 

Ashton Kutcher And Lea Michele (New Year's Eve)

Two of the romantic leads of the 2011 ensemble rom-com New Year’s Eve were Lea Michele and Ashton Kutcher, who played Elise and Randy, respectively. The neighbors clashed immediately when they found themselves stuck in an elevator, and due to the actors’ nonexistent chemistry and having to share screen time with dozens of other actors, it was never really believable that they’d be together by the end of the night. 

Michelle Pfeiffer And Maxwell Caulfield (Grease 2)

In a gender reversal of the first movie, Grease 2 features Michelle Pfeiffer’s Stephanie wanting a whole lot more than the boy next door, aka Maxwell Caulfield’s Michael. In fact, she wouldn’t give him the time of day until he put on a leather jacket and became the mysterious motorcycleman. Their performances did little to elevate a painfully shallow premise. 

Dakota Johnson And Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey)

With a movie as intimate as Fifty Shades of Grey, you’d hope there would be an emphasis on making the leads as comfortable as possible on set. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened, as director Sam Taylor-Johnson and the book’s author E.L. James butted heads and even got into “screaming matches” with each other. Dakota Johnson has talked about the “battles” she had, so it’s really no wonder why her character’s spicy trysts with Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey came off as more awkward than romantic. 

Mila Kunis And Channing Tatum (Jupiter Ascending)

The 2015 space opera Jupiter Ascending has been largely panned by critics, and though it maintains something of a cult following, the romance between Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) and human-canine hybrid Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) simply doesn’t work. 

Hayden Christensen And Emma Roberts (Little Italy)

Audiences bristled at the on-screen love between Hayden Christensen’s Leo and Emma Roberts’ Nikki in the 2018 flick Little Italy, in which the characters are star-crossed lovers from rival pizzeria-owning families. The lack of a spark is strange, though, as an inappropriate relationship between the two was blamed for Christensen’s breakup with longtime girlfriend Rachel Bilson. 

Justin Guarini And Kelly Clarkson (From Justin To Kelly)

Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini can hardly be blamed for what a mess From Justin to Kelly was. For one thing, the winner and runner-up of American Idol’s first season were not actors, and Clarkson has spoken multiple times about how miserable she was during filming and how hard she tried to get out of the contractual obligation.  

Mackenzie Davis And Kristen Stewart (Happiest Season)

There’s plenty to like about the LGBTQ+ holiday rom-com Happiest Season, but many fans would have preferred to see Abby (Kristen Stewart) end up with Riley (Aubrey Plaza) rather than stay with girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis). Stewart shared an amazing spark with Plaza that wasn’t there with Davis. 

Freddie Prinze Jr. And Julia Stiles (Down To You)

Two powerhouses of the ‘90s romantic comedy, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Julia Stiles failed to bring the fireworks in the 2000 film Down to You. It stands as the worst-rated rom-com of all time on Rotten Tomatoes with a dire 3%. 

Lana Condor And Noah Centineo (To All the Boys: Always And Forever)

In the beginning of the To All the Boys trilogy, Lana Condor and Noah Centineo were oh-so-cute, but somehow all of that chemistry had fizzled by the third movie.

Jim Carrey And Zooey Deschanel (Yes Man)

Yes Man from 2008 wasn’t a total disaster, but many people weren’t buying the romance between 28-year-old Zooey Deschanel and 46-year-old Jim Carrey. 

Reese Witherspoon And Tom Hardy (This Means War)

In 2012’s This Means War, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine play CIA agents who literally go to war when they learn they’re both dating Lauren (Reese Witherspoon). However, there was never really an indication that she had such a strong connection with either of them — Hardy in particular — that would justify such actions. Hardy has admitted to being “miserable” on set, saying he is unlikely to dip into the romantic comedy genre again. 

Chris O’Donnell And Renee Zellweger (The Bachelor)

The Bachelor has a skeezy premise to begin with, and Chris O’Donnell’s Jimmie seems much less concerned about his breakup with Anne (Renée Zellweger) than he is about finding a woman to marry him in less than a day so he can inherit $100 million from his grandfather. Unfortunately, they’re not able to make their inevitable reunion very believable. 

Kumail Nanjiani And Issa Rae (The Lovebirds)

The Lovebirds starred Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani as Jibran and Leilani, a couple on the verge of a split. The breakup plot point, however, didn’t seem to be the reason that audiences couldn't connect with this duo. With the characters getting into ridiculous situations while on the run after witnessing a murder, this 2020 rom-com was heavy on comedy but light on romance. 

Hugh Grant And Drew Barrymore (Music And Lyrics)

This pairing’s lack of a spark was particularly disappointing, given that Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore each had several successful romantic comedies under their belts by 2007. Nonetheless, when Grant’s Alex and Barrymore’s Sophie teamed up in Music and Lyrics to write a song together, audiences felt no heat between the two. 

Leonardo DiCaprio And Carey Mulligan (The Great Gatsby)

Forbidden love movies can be the best for romance, but unfortunately for fans of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan failed to portray the passion in the complicated story of Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Mulligan has since admitted that she doesn't like her acting in the movie. 

Ben Affleck And Jennifer Lopez (Gigli)

Bennifer in the 2000s — and later Bennifer 2.0 — is one of the great love stories of our time, so it’s downright baffling why Ben Affleck and his would-be wife Jennifer Lopez have no chemistry in the 2003 box-office bomb Gigli. 

Angelina Jolie And Johnny Depp (The Tourist) 

Nobody’s questioning the acting skills of Angelina Jolie or Johnny Depp, but the stars of the 2010 film The Tourist seemed largely indifferent about each other when their characters were supposed to be falling in love. There were reports that the actors couldn’t stand each other on set; however, during Depp’s trial with Amber Heard, Jolie’s name was mentioned in a group of the actor’s “exes,” leading many to wonder if the two had been involved. Either way, the emotion didn’t translate to the screen. 

Zach Braff And Natalie Portman In (Garden State)

Manic Pixie Dream Girls like Natalie Portman’s Sam in Garden State sometimes don’t make the best romantic partners, and in this case, Zach Braff’s Andrew was also going through so much that this would have been a tough romance to pull off for any two actors. Still, even with the “happy ending,” there just wasn’t much to feel good about with this couple.  

Ryan Reynolds And Amy Smart In (Just Friends)

Just Friends in 2005 saw Chris (Ryan Reynolds) pining over longtime bestie Jamie (Amy Smart), despite her admission 10 years earlier that her feelings for her fat friend were merely platonic. That’s a pretty big obstacle to overcome, and there’s no way that happens if the energy between the two is as lackluster as this was. 

Natalie Portman And Hayden Christensen (Star Wars)

It’s been over two decades since Natalie Portman’s Padmé Amidala engaged in a relationship with Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones, and while some blame goes to the script, they remain one of the most notorious examples of co-stars with absolutely zero chemistry. 

Daniel Radcliffe And Bonnie Wright (Harry Potter)

Ginny Weasley was done a great disservice in the Harry Potter movies as one of several book characters who didn’t get enough screen time. There simply wasn’t an opportunity for Bonnie Wright to establish a palpable connection with Daniel Radcliffe in order to portray Ginny and Harry’s love the way we experienced it on the page. 

Bryce Dallas Howard And Chris Pratt (Jurassic World)

While this wasn’t a traditional rom-com, Jurassic World certainly featured a romantic storyline between Chris Pratt’s Owen and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire. Apart from that aspect of their stories feeling wholly unnecessary — what with all the dinos — it was simply hard to buy that they were even all that into each other. 

Kelly Marie Tran And John Boyega (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

Kelly Marie Tran sadly faced a lot of unfair criticism when she was cast as Rose Tico in 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, to the point where she had to delete social media to get away from the hate. John Boyega, as well, saw backlash from people who fought the idea of Stormtroopers being Black. Aside from that, though, many fans unfortunately just didn’t see any romantic spark between the actors either.  

It can be so much fun to watch characters fall in love on the big screen, but man is it a disappointment when the actors lack that oh-so-important chemistry.

A look back through the Academy Awards history shows that, in general, the Academy doesn’t make too many egregious mistakes. We all love to talk about Oscar snubs, and movies and performances that we think should have won, but even though they are far from perfect, usually the Academy doesn't nominate many truly bad movies. There are times, however, when the Academy goes off the rails. This is our list of the worst movies that have been nominated for Oscars. 

Batman Forever (1995)

For Batman Forever, Joel Schumaker took over as director in the 3rd film of the ‘90s Batman franchise from Tim Burton. Film critics and fans alike felt like the film was a big step back from the two previous, but it was still nominated for three Academy Awards. It lost Best Sound to Apollo 13, and lost both Best Cinematography and Sound Editing to Braveheart. 

102 Dalmatians (2000)

You can’t blame Disney for going back to well with 102 Dalmatians, after the huge success of 101 Dalmatians. The results were not good, however. The movie didn’t completely bomb at the box office, though it didn’t come close to its prequel’s numbers. Also unlike the first movie, it was a critical failure and it has not held up over time, at all. Still, it was nominated for Best Costume, which is not a ridiculous nomination, but it is a bad movie. It lost to Gladiator.

Norbit (2007)

Norbit provided Eddie Murphy with one in a string of Razzie nominations and awards when it came out in 2007 and with good reason, it’s terrible. Even Murphy recognizes that it is bad. Sure, the legendary funnyman plays multiple roles, naturally, but that doesn’t redeem the film. While Murphy wasn’t nominated for an award, his makeup artist, the legendary Rick Baker, was nominated. Though he lost to Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald for La Vie en Rose.

The Sting II

The Sting II is one of the worst sequels of all time. It takes all the charm from the original movie and trashes it. The one redeeming thing about the movie is that it employed a similar score to the first, based on the ragtime music that was such a hit in the first movie. It was nominated for that score, written by the great Lalo Schifrin by lost to Yentl. 

Click (2008)

There are two types of people in this world, those who love Adam Sandler movies and those who don’t. For those that don’t, they will never understand how a movie like Click made over $200 million at the box office. They will also never understand how it was nominated for an Academy Award, but it was. It lost Best Makeup to Pan’s Labyrinth at the 2009 ceremony. It is, to date, the only Sandler movie to ever be nominated for an Oscar, which is a shame, because the actor really did deserve one for Uncut Gems. 

The Lone Ranger (2013)

2013’s The Lone Ranger with Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp was a disaster with critics and at the box office. There really isn’t a lot to praise about the movie, but it did pick up two nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Those aren’t egregious nominations, but still, it’s not a good movie. It lost to Gravity and Dallas Buyers Club, respectively. 

Pearl Harbor (2001) 

Leave it to Michael Bay to make a movie based on one of the most consequential events in world history, throw most of the actual history out, wedge in an ill-conceived love triangle, and release it on the unsuspecting public. Pearl Harbor is rightfully trashed for its poor telling of the story of the bombing, but hey, explosions! It was nominated for an astonishing four Oscars and won one! It won for Best Sound Editing and lost Best Visual Effects (Black Hawk Down), Best Song (“If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc.”), and Best Visual Effects (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).

The Boss Baby (2017)

The Boss Baby isn’t the worst movie on the list, but Academy Award nomination-worthy? C’mon! Sure, it’s cute, and Alec Baldwin voicing a baby in a suit is inherently at least a little funny, but it’s not high art or even mid-level art. It made a ton of money but lost Best Animated Feature Film to Coco.

Angela’s Ashes (1999)

The biggest sin Angela’s Ashes commits, if we’re honest, is that it doesn’t live up to the book by Frank McCourt that it’s based on. The performances by the actors are good, and the score by John Williams, for which it was nominated, is very good too. The movie just falls flat. It doesn’t have the “life” that the book has. John Williams has won five Oscars in his legendary career, but he lost this one to John Corigliano for The Red Violin.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

The first Poltergeist movie scared everyone. It holds a vaunted place in Horror movie history for good reason. Poltergeist II, on the other hand, didn’t and doesn’t. Still, like its predecessor, Poltergeist II was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 59th Academy Awards, losing to Aliens. 

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Now it’s just getting ridiculous. With all apologies to people who actually enjoy the Transformer movies, even by that franchise’s low standards, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a terrible movie. It did garner a nomination, somehow, for Best Sound Mixing. Thankfully, it didn’t actually win anything, losing to The Hurt Locker. 

Cimarron (1931)

Generally thought of as one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time, Cimarron is a movie that simply hasn’t stood the test of time in any way. It’s most notable for being the first Western to ever win the award, and the only one to win for almost 60 years when Dances With Wolves won in 1990. It was also nominated for six other Oscars, winning an additional two. 

Alien 3 (1992)

David Fincher is well known for his distaste for Alien 3, his directorial debut. In the canon of the Alien franchise, it’s probably the worst of all the movies. Yet, it still managed to get nominated for an Oscar for Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, losing to Death Becomes Her in what was admittedly a pretty thin year for the award. 

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

Yes, wesa had to go there. There is no defense of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Of the nine movies that make up the core of the Star Wars franchise, The Phantom Menace is the worst. There can be no debate here. That said, it did set a new standard for CGI effects, for better or worse, and was rewarded with three nominations for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. It lost all three to The Matrix. 

The Wiz (1978)

The Wiz, despite a surprisingly good performance by Micheal Jackson, is a bit of a rambling mess. Sure, many Gen Xers have fond memories of watching it on cable, but if you revisit it, it doesn’t hold up. It was nominated for four Oscars, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Score. It lost in all four categories. Luckily, there is a new version on Broadway, and who knows, maybe it will inspire a better film in the future. 

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

You may need to read this twice: Fifty Shades of Grey is an Oscar-nominated film. More of a phenomenon than a good story, the book Fifty Shades of Grey took the world by storm and of course, Hollywood had to adapt it. But it’s a silly story, and it’s a bad movie. Still, the Weeknd was nominated for Best Song for “Earned It”, but lost to Sam Smith’s "Writing's on the Wall" from Spectre, which isn’t even the best Bond theme of the Daniel Craig era. 

Flashdance (1983)

Flashdance is certainly a relic of its time in the early 1980s. Part music video, part movie, it’s really remembered more for its soundtrack than anything that happens in the movie. That’s because it’s not really a good movie. The dance sequences are great and Jennifer Beals' performance is great, but the story is…kinda boring. Appropriately, the one nomination it did receive was for Best Song for “Flashdance... What a Feeling” by Irene Cara. It won. 

Country Strong (2010)

Remember that time Gwyneth Paltrow fancied herself a country singer? The truth is, she actually did a pretty great job in Country Strong, but her singing didn’t save this bad movie. One of those songs, "Coming Home"  was nominated for Best Song, however. It lost to “We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3.

Blonde (2022)

Ana De Armas’ performance as Marilyn Monroe deserves all the praise and nominations she received for it, but that doesn’t mean Blonde is a good movie. It’s a weird movie, to be sure, and it’s a bad movie. Despite that, De Armas did get nominated for Best Actress, as she should have been. She lost to Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Suicide Squad (2016)

It’s a little mindboggling that 2016’s Suicide Squad was nominated for as many awards as it was since it’s a pretty weak movie in the grand scheme of things. Sure, Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn and has reprised the role multiple times since and the music is great. So was the hair and makeup, according to the Academy, which bestowed an Oscar on the film in 2017 for it. 

W.E. (2011)

Did you forget that Madonna had a moment around 2010 when she tried her hand at film direction? The Material Girl didn’t exactly kill it in her two attempts, but the second, W.E., which wasn’t a good movie, did earn a nomination for costume designer Arianne Phillips, but lost to Mark Bridges for The Artist.

Vice (2018)

Let’s just get this out of the way – Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell are fantastic as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, respectively. Both were rightly nominated for acting awards for the film, as was Amy Adams. The film garnered a total of eight nominations in 2019, winning for best hair and makeup. The movie, despite all the awards, just doesn’t hold up. 

Thank God It's Friday (1978)

Thank God It's Friday is really just one big commercial for an admittedly great soundtrack. Riding on the heels of the monster success of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Thank God It's Friday features “Last Dance”, the Donna Summer disco banger that was nominated for, and won, the Oscar for Best Song. But just listen to the song, and don’t bother with the movie. 

The Swarm (1978)

When you have a cast that includes some of the greatest Hollywood stars of all time, including Michael Caine, Fred McMurray, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, and many others, you’d think you’d have a hit. Instead, it’s a movie about a swarm of bees terrifying those legends and is one of the worst movies ever made. It didn’t wasn’t a hit, but it did receive a nomination for Best Costume Design, losing to Death on the Nile.

Patch Adams (1998)

Patch Adams is a blockbuster that actually sucks. Somehow it still was nominated for Best Original Score, which is about all that can said for it. It lost to Shakespeare in Love. Okay, Robin Williams was pretty good too. 

The Affair of the Necklace (2001)

Anytime a movie makes less than $1 million on a $30 million budget, it’s easy to see why no one remembers it. The French Revolution-era film starring Hilary Swank is totally forgettable, but was nominated for Best Costume Design, losing to Moulin Rouge!

Hollow Man (2000)

Paul Verhoeven’s take on The Invisible Man, Hollow Man starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue chased the director out of Hollywood for years, and he himself didn’t even like it. It was good enough to earn a nomination for its special effects but lost to Gladiator in 2001.

The Blind Side (2009)

Even before the recent controversy over The Blind Side, it wasn’t a very good adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book. Sandra Bullock is a bright spot and for that, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her performance is not enough to save the movie, especially now after we’ve learned that the film’s subject, Michael Oher, says that he was cut out of the earnings. 

Anchors Aweigh (1945)

Anchors Aweigh is a movie of its time and place. It was released just a few weeks before the end of World War II, with patriotism at a fever pitch in the U.S. Linking Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly together in a musical about the U.S. Navy was a surefire way to produce a hit. It was a hit, garnering five Oscar nominations and winning for Best Score. But in the 21st Century, it’s just dated and silly. 

How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Ron Howard’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas is really only notable for Jim Carrey’s charm and its makeup and costumes. The movie won Best Makeup, which makes sense, and was nominated for two other awards. Still, it’s best to just stick with the cartoon from the 1960s. 

Dr. Doolittle (1967)

Dr. Doolittle is a charming movie for kids, but it’s not a great movie beyond that. It’s also quite dated. It’s one of the weakest movies to ever be nominated for Best Picture, plus it was nominated for an astounding eight other Oscars! It lost Best Picture to In the Heat of the Night, thankfully. 

The Godfather Part III (1990)

Okay, so The Godfather Part III’s only real crime is that it isn’t anywhere close to as good as the two legendary Godfather movies that preceded it. Is it the worst movie on the list? Of course not, but it still grabbed its nominations based on its lineage, not its merits. 

So there is it, our list of movies that really had no business being able to call themselves Oscar-nominated films. 

Jamie Dornan's got it pretty good these days: his popular Netflix series The Tourist is back for season two (you can catch up with a Netflix subscription) and we're already craving a third season. But before he became a famous, Golden Globe-nominated actor known for works like Belfast, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, the Fifty Shades franchise and the chilling TV series The Fall, he was just another desperate performer struggling during Hollywood pilot season.

The Northern Irish actor detailed those dismal early days of his acting career during a recent appearance on First We Feast's Hot Ones, relaying the most "soul-crushing memory" from that pilot-week era: 

Pilot season was the annual pilgrimage to Los Angeles for actors like Dornan, as each summer, the major American broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, NBC and so on—would receive hundreds of elevator pitches for new TV shows from writers and producers. Performers would audition and audition and audition again in the hopes that a pilot would get picked up for a full-season order on the TV premiere schedule. (All of this has, of course, changed in the streaming era, which is making things even harder for new actors.)

But competition is notoriously strong during the pilot process. (For example, TV legend has it that for the pilot of Friends, casting director Ellie Kanner reviewed more than 1,000 actors' head shots for each of the six main roles.) So Dornan's desperation and disappointment during the whole ordeal was pretty understandable, made hilariously worse by a surprise on his windshield: 

Thankfully, things clearly worked out for the actor. Season one of The Tourist—which stars Dornan as the victim of a car crash who wakes up in a hospital in Australia with amnesia and has to reckon with the awful things he's done—was the most-watched drama of 2022 in its native U.K., before getting even more viewers by streaming on Netflix. 

And season two, which dropped on the streamer on Thursday, February 29, is currently enjoying a cool 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not too shabby for a pilot season "failure" like Jamie Dornan. Here's hoping that the show gets picked up for a third edition—we still have questions we want answered!

Does tremendous success at the box office always mean a movie is actually good? No, not necessarily. Over the years, there have been countless releases that brought in a ton of cash but were nothing more than big stinkers in terms of cinematic quality. Below is just 32 box office blockbusters that actually suck. And while a lot of these duds are from the past decade or so (which is probably more of an indication of modern Hollywood), there are a few nostalgic ‘90s movies that aren’t that good looking back.

Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (1991)

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves features one of Alan Rickman’s best performances, but that’s about the only thing this 1991 historical drama has going for it. Robin Hood’s English accent is nowhere to be found, Morgan Freeman’s Azeem Edi Bashir Al Bakir is a poorly aged stereotype, and the pacing is all over the place. Yet, somehow, it made $390 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.

The Hangover Part III (2013)

The Hangover was a massive hit with audiences and critics alike, featured some iconic cinematic moments, and was all-around a good time. However, The Hangover III, the third and final entry in the franchise released in 2013, was a different story. It still made a ton of cash – $362 million per Box Office Mojo – but the movie straight-up stunk. Despite having a premise very similar to what came before, it lacked the charm, heart, and joy of the original movie.

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor was supposed to be the big summer blockbuster of 2001 (it was released on Memorial Day weekend), but this overstuffed, overlong, and outright boring romantic drama masquerading as a World War II epic was just not good. Sure, the actual Pearl Harbor sequence is cool, but the rest of the movie, not so much. However, it did bring in $449 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo, so what do I know?

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Jurassic World: Dominion made a cool $1 billion during its theatrical release, per Box Office Mojo, but let’s be real for a second… this movie sucks. Yeah, it was cool seeing OG cast team up with the Jurassic World characters, but everything else about the movie, especially the dinosaurs, felt like an afterthought. There’s talk of a new Jurassic World movie, but we should just let these dinos stay dead at this point.

Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015)

Okay, no one was walking into Fifty Shades of Grey expecting to see cinema at its finest back on Valentine’s Day weekend 2015, but let’s not act like this clumsy and awkward erotic thriller was great by any means. $569 million worldwide (per Box Office Mojo) is nothing to scoff at, but the best parts of this movie can be watched in a YouTube clip compilation.

The Last Airbender (2010)

Could The Last Airbender be the worst movie from 2010? Quite possibly despite some stiff competition. This live-action adaptation of the beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series made $319 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo, but the massive drop in receipts following opening weekend should be more than enough to tell you about the quality of this film.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Okay, The Matrix Reloaded does have a few cool scenes (the highway sequence is still great 20-plus years later), but this 2003 sequel was straight-up wack. All the promise of The Matrix was thrown out the window with this movie that seemed to only be around to set up the third entry in the franchise. But there was a lot of hype for it, which explains its absurd $741 million returns, per Box Office Mojo.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Take off those rose-tinted glasses because Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace is not a good movie, even if it gave us one of the best John Williams compositions (“Duel of the Fates”). Box Office Mojo has the first entry in the “Prequel Trilogy” bringing in a whopping $1 billion, but I wonder if those people knew they were about to learn more about trade alliances and blockades than Darth Vader.

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

X-Men was great. X2: X-Men United is one of the best superhero movies of all time. But X-Men: The Last Stand, which made the most money out of the original trilogy – $460 million, per Box Office Mojo, was a maddening, confusing, and hard-to-watch mess that ruined all the goodwill of the franchise until it was rebooted a half-decade later.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

The worst movie in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a movie that should be walked off the plank and sent to the bottom of the ocean. Despite lacking in all the qualities that made the first film such a delight, this 2011 sequel wasn’t impacted by franchise fatigue (at least with audiences), as Box Office Mojo has its total gross at over $1 billion worldwide.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Though not as successful as other superhero blockbusters, Ghost Rider did make an impressive $228 million worldwide back in 2007, per Box Office Mojo. But don’t let that success fool you, because this Nicolas Cage Marvel movie is bad. Sure, it's not as bad as its sequel, but it’s not good. Not at all.

Wild Wild West (1999)

Wild Wild West was a movie that should have worked, should have been a major blockbuster, and should have spawned a franchise. But this movie starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline as special agents trying to prevent a tyrannical madman from taking over the world was so bad that not even its target audience (young boys between the ages of 10 and 13) didn’t care for it. Yet, it still made $222 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016)

Despite the best efforts of director Zack Snyder, the cast, and pretty much everyone involved with the now-defunct DCEU, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn’t work and is now considered one of the worst superhero movies in recent memory. It was too long, too dark, and lacking much of the fun and joy that makes comic book movies fun to watch. Despite all of that, it made $874 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.

Godzilla (1998)

The 1998 Godzilla, despite being a steaming pile of trash, made a decent chunk of change during its theatrical run, with a total of $379 million in receipts, per Box Office Mojo. This movie, which is in the lower tier of Zilla films, was way too long, way too dark, and felt more like Jurassic Park in NYC than a proper kaiju epic.

Divergent (2014)

The Divergent movies, while not the worst YA film adaptations that came out in the wake of The Hunger Games, but this doesn't mean it’s a crowning cinematic achievement or anything like that. In fact, this movie is boring, trite, and overall just kind of blah. But hey, people must have liked it because it brought in $288 million worldwide per Box Office Mojo.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

This could apply to most of the movies in the Fast & Furious franchise (I’m a massive fan, by the way), but 2 Fast 2 Furious sucks. The second entry (the only one not to feature Vin Diesel) series is fun to watch all these years later, but boy, it’s not good. Taking what kind of worked with The Fast and the Furious and not adding anything new in terms of the plot or stunts, this movie is best remembered for introducing franchise mainstays Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej Park (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges). It did make $236 million, per Box Office Mojo, which wasn’t too terrible, unlike the movie itself.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Wait, The Da Vinci Code made $760 million during its theatrical run back in 2006? Box Office Mojo doesn’t lie, so I’ll have to try and accept that reality. What I won’t accept are the lies people spew when they say this Tom Hanks murder mystery is a good movie. The hair, the lack of chemistry between the actors, and a story with way too many twists and turns make this a maddening odyssey of suck.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)

Despite having Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, and Bruce Willis on screen, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is not a great movie. It’s not even a good movie. But don’t tell that to the folks who collectively forked out $375 million, per Box Office Mojo, to watch this overstuffed blockbuster.

Fantastic Four (2005)

The first Fantastic Four movie, though not as awful as the attempted reboot that followed a decade later, is corny beyond belief and is not necessarily a good movie. The cast seemed to get along well enough, but the story, action, and dated special effects are enough to make you turn off FX’s DVD on TV whenever it comes on. Despite those shortcomings, however, it did make $333 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

Planet Of The Apes (2001)

There were a lot of bad movies in 2001, and one of the biggest offenders was Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake. Released a decade before Rupert Wyatt retooled the franchise with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this movie managed to bring in $362 million, according to Box Office Mojo. But don’t let those figures fool you, this dated, campy, and boring summer blockbuster will put you to sleep.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)

There are a few good Transformers movies, but Revenge of the Fallen is not one of them. This 2009 sequel to Transformers brought in $836 million, according to Box Office Mojo, but that something isn’t good just because it makes a lot of money. There are plenty of reasons it’s considered one of the worst entries in the franchise.

Clash Of The Titans (2010)

Despite bringing in $439 million, per Box Office Mojo, the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans is not good, not in the slightest. Unlike the 1981 fantasy film of the same name which featured some nifty, albeit aged, special effects and human performances, this monstrosity is a CGI-filled mess that sees the cast act in front of one blue screen after another without a lot of tension or enjoyment.

Grown Ups (2010)

Though I’m sure Adam Sandler and the rest of the Grown Ups cast had fun working on this 2010 comedy, few who watched the movie shared in the joy experienced by these Saturday Night Live alums and Kevin James. But I could be wrong (not really), as the movie made $271 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

As hard as it is to believe, Alice in Wonderland, the 2010 Tim Burton fever dream, made an incomprehensible amount of money during its run. According to Box Office Mojo, this movie, which is a drag despite looking pretty cool, brought in $1 billion worldwide.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)

The worst Indiana Jones movie by far, 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a good time and should have been left in the warehouse under the supervision of “top men.” But people will try anything, even out of morbid curiosity, and that was the case here, as the lifeless and mind-boggling blockbuster made $790 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Patch Adams (1998)

Patch Adams, or “Oscar Bait: The Movie” is a movie that tries to teach the audience (which gave the 1998 biopic $202 million per Box Office Mojo) that you don’t need a medical license or proper procedures to treat patients. Instead, kindness and laughter and clown noses do the trick, or so they say.

2012 (2009)

Though it’s a fun disaster film, 2012 is not something you’d necessarily consider “good.” Though long, predictable, and a bore outside of the destruction scenes, this Roland Emmerich flick made $791 million, per Box Office Mojo.

Little Fockers (2010)

How Little Fockers made $310 million (per Box Office Mojo) upon its release in 2010 is beyond me because this movie, unlike Meet the Parents, is an absolute disaster. The jokes that hit were just retreads of what worked in the past and the new material was just downright awful.

Crocodile Dundee II (1988)

Though nowhere as bad as its successor, Crocodile Dundee II is a sequel that you’re better off skipping. Released just two years after the overnight sensation that was Crocodile Dundee, this safe and by-the-numbers sequel rehashes the same jokes and same situations but with diminishing returns. But it did make $239 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008)

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor somehow made $403 million back in 2008, according to Box Office Mojo. I’m not really sure how, because this movie lacked all the fun, heart, and soul of the first Mummy movie and is largely forgotten these days.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

A movie so bad Will Smith wanted nothing to do with it, Independence Day: Resurgence is something that should be avoided at all costs. Despite bringing in $389 million, per Box Office Mojo, lacks everything that made the 1996 summer blockbuster so much fun in the first place, especially Randy Quaid.

Van Helsing (2004)

It’s dark, it’s drab, it’s boring, it’s Van Helsing. Even if you disregard the poorly-aged CGI, terrible dialogue, and the rest of the film’s shortcomings, it’s hard to figure out how the Hugh Jackman-led monster flick made $300 million back in 2004, per Box Office Mojo. But it’s best to just let sleeping dogs, err, werewolves, lie.

Are these movies the worst of all time? No, not really. But they are very much in the “suck” range on the movie quality spectrum. Now I just need to figure out how they made so much money and try to replicate it.

An important quality that places a romance movie/romantic comedy as one of the best of all time is when the two leads have astounding chemistry. Flicks like The Notebook and Titanic would be my picks for having the strong sparks between two characters. Then there are love stories fans just aren’t buying due to the lack of on-screen chemistry portrayed. Movie fans have their own opinions on which romantic movies have leads with “zero chemistry," and I have to say that I'm in agreement with some of these picks.

There’s nothing that ruins a romance film more than when the film’s two leads aren’t making an impression showing they’re in love. On Reddit, one movie fan made their picks on romance films with "zero chemistry" such as You People, Fifty Shades of Grey, Ghosted, and more. This fan asked other Reddit users what their picks would be and they had plenty of their own choices. 

The first major pick was Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening playing a married couple battling the deadly toxins of plants and trees. One user gave a hilarious response to what they thought watching the two in the sci-fi thriller:

Talk about a major burn. That really says something if their relationship came out platonic-looking. I couldn’t even buy any of their emotional scenes together. 

Another comment spoke about Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon in Your Place or Mine (which can be found with your Netflix subscription). Fans found the duo to be “boring” with hardly any intimacy shown “through the first 10 minutes.” This rom-com pick doesn’t come off as surprising to me. Critics were split over the chemistry of the two leads who weren’t even sharing screen time for the majority of the movie. What was even more cringe was their awkward red carpet photos together where they looked like they didn’t know what to do with themselves. However, Kutcher explained the awkwardness came from being hard of hearing in one ear and not knowing where to look as people were calling his name. 

The Harry Potter movies may not be rom-coms, but Reddit users found fault with the pairing of Harry and Ginny. 

I’m on the same page with this Reddit user. In the books and the movies, I found the two characters from the J.K. Rowling series to be an odd pairing. Of all of the women The Boy Who Lived ended up with, I never thought he’d want to get with his best friend’s sister. Talk about violating the bro code. But Ginny’s character in the movies came out as “disappointing” due to her lack of screen time, so maybe if she could have gotten more scenes throughout the books and the films, more people would be sold on the Hogwarts students eventually becoming a married couple.

Other movie fans mentioned included Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez in The Fast Saga, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams in Man of Steel, Pierce Brosnan and Denise Richards in The World Is Not Enough, and more. I do find it funny that people on Reddit are arguing about Anne Hathaway and Chris Pine being on this list for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. While I felt the two had chemistry in the movie, I wish the characters of Mia and Nicholas had more development. Not to mention, I still ship her with Michael from the first film.

Reddit users had a lot of interesting picks for their movies that lacked the romantic chemistry we should have gotten. It can really ruin the fun of watching a romance story if the film’s two leads just don’t sell their love story to us. If you’re interested in the latest romance films coming out this year, check out our 2024 movie schedule.

You can watch the best romantic comedies any time of year, but Valentine's Day season is an especially apt time to have yourself a little rom-com movie marathon. And for this February 14, a Peacock subscription will make it way easier to choose a romantic movie to watch while snuggled up with your significant other, or a good "rom-con" that happily reminds you why you're single. (Hello, Fatal Attraction.) 

The Fifty Shades franchise falls somewhere in between those two notions. Fittingly, just in time for Valentine's Day, all three films in the titillating trilogy — 2015's so-bad-it's-good Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, 2017's Fifty Shades Darker and 2018's Fifty Shades Freed — will be available to stream on Peacock, the streamer announced. 

Those frisky flicks, which follow Dakota Johnson's Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan's Christian Grey as they explore a BDSM relationship, join a whole host of other fan-favorite romances, rom-coms and rom-cons recently added to the streaming service ahead of the February 14 holiday. 

Jennifer Aniston fans can watch Along Came Polly or The Break-Up. Jane Austen diehards can swoon to the 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation or Hallmark's modern-day spin Unleashing Mr. Darcy. Plus, those craving a good Meg Ryan movie can settle in for one of her best, Sleepless in Seattle. (And, yes, we're still waiting for one last rom-com reunion between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.) Musical lovers can fall slowly for Once's love story — see what we did there? Or you take your rom-com with a side of zombie apocalypse with Warm Bodies. 

While the streamer is adding plenty of throwback favorites, like Sandra Bullock's Forces of Nature (1999), Jennifer Lopez's Out of Sight (1998) and Gabrielle Union's Deliver Us from Eva (2003), there are also more recent romantic comedies to stream on Peacock now, such as the 2022 Billy Eichner comedy Bros and the Julia Roberts-George Clooney reunion Ticket to Paradise. 

Check out all the Valentine's-ready Peacock additions below: 

•  Age of Adaline, 2015 
•  All My Life, 2020 
•  Along Came Polly, 2004 
•  The Break-Up, 2006 
•  Bros, 2022 
•  Couple to Throuple, New Episodes (Peacock Original)* 
•  Dear John, 2010 
•  Deliver Us from Eva, 2003 
•  Fatal Attraction, 1987 
•  The Five-Year Engagement, 2012 
•  Forces of Nature, 1999 
•  Girls Trip, 2017 
•  The Groomsmen, 2006 
•  Held Up, 2000 
•  I Could Never Be Your Woman, 2007 
•  If Beale Street Could Talk, 2018 
•  Isn’t It Romantic, 2019 
•  Made of Honor, 2008 
•  Marrying Mr. Darcy, 2018 
•  Not Easily Broken, 2009 
•  Obsessed, 2009 
•  Once, 2007 
•  Out of Sight, 1998 
•  Playing Cupid, 2021 
•  Pride and Prejudice, 2005 
•  Sleepless in Seattle, 1993 
•  Something’s Brewing, 2021 
•  Spring Breakthrough, 2023 
•  Sweet on You, 2023 
•  That Awkward Moment, 2014 
•  Ticket to Paradise, 2022 (launching Feb 9) 
•  To Her, With Love, 2022 
•  Unleashing Mr. Darcy, 2016 
•  Unthinkably Good Things, 2022 
•  Valentine in the Vineyard, 2019 
•  Warm Bodies, 2013 
•  The Wedding Date, 2005 
•  The Wood, 1999 

A Peacock subscription will currently set you back $5.99 month for the ad-supported Premium plan and $11.99 per month for the commercial-free Premium Plus option, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than taking both you and your boo to the movie theater for a regular rom-com viewing. Consider your Valentine's movie night set!

Fifty Shades of Grey may have been a hit with the fans and achieved huge box office records, but critics didn’t take well to the trilogy. Rotten Tomatoes scores gave the first movie a Rotten 25%, with Darker and Freed both getting 11%. Jamie Dornan, who signed on as Christian Grey for the three films, recalled going into hiding once negative reviews for the first movie came out.

It mustn’t have been easy for Jamie Dornan’s cinematic breakthrough to have been in the E.L. James-adapted film. He got real with BBC Sounds about receiving rave reviews for his work in the Northern Irish drama series The Fall to getting mediocre ones in Fifty Shades of Grey.

I can only imagine the frustration Jamie Dornan was experiencing about the fate of his career starring in a poorly-received film series that everyone was flocking to see. It still comes out, he says, when people call out his Fifty Shades performance in newer reviews, noting that the E.L. James project almost always comes up. In response he'd say, 'give us a chance!'

It’s because of all of the attention and reviews the Irish actor got that he said before he wouldn’t take a job like Fifty Shades of Grey again. Being part of a franchise can, after all, make it easy to be typecasted, and the last thing he wanted was for people to only see him as Christian Grey.

The critics may have sent hate to the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie, but its box office number of $570 million against a budget of $40 million guaranteed film adaptations of the next two books. Dornan continued to say the financial success of the erotic romance film only heightened his fears of what was to come.

Sadly, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed still didn’t do much better critically. Jamie Dornan remembers one brutal review that stuck with him that compared his character to “oatmeal.” While the Belfast actor said he “didn’t entirely disagree with it,” he still thought it was “harsh” to read. 

Even though the Fifty Shades of Grey films didn’t respond to Jamie Dornan positively, it wasn’t the end of his career. In fact, he began to appreciate being in indie films more, as they provided a more close-knit environment with his crew compared to the large-scale setup he was used to. After Fifty Shades Freed, he starred in the Golden Globe-nominated film A Private War and the TIFF-released sci-fi horror Synchronic, and he earned awards notice for the Oscar-winning movie Belfast. The 41-year-old is even on the drama thriller series The Tourist, which reviews say is fifty shades of excellent. It proves that if you have enough opportunities to show off your talent, critics will eventually recognize it.

Jamie Dornan may have gone into hiding for a bit after the negative reviews of Fifty Shades of Grey came out, but he didn’t regret being part of the film franchise. He knew the series would light a fire under his bum for years with critics comparing every next performance to his work as Christian Grey, but it’s a reality he’s learned to live with as time passed. Maybe eventually Dornan will play an unforgettable role that will make critics and audiences forget that he ever was Christian Grey, like how Robert Pattinson established a successful career outside of Twilight.

You can see Jamie Dornan in his breakout performance in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy with your Max subscription.  

Fame and celebrity. They can come with true obstacles. Of course, there’s the enormous wealth, and tremendous access, that typically follow stardom. When you reach the top of the entertainment industry, your life changes, forever. But not all the changes are welcome, as Jamie Dornan discovered while working on the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptations. Critics didn’t love the movies, and fans argued over the first movie’s ending, leading to all sorts of chatter surrounding the trilogy. While we tracked the off-screen relationship between Dornan and his Fifty Shades co-star Dakota Johnson, the actor was fending off unwanted attention from stalkers. 

Jamie Dornan has moved on from the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, stealing scenes in the hilarious Barb & Star and eventually making the shortlist to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond. But he’ll always be associated with Christian Grey, the part he played in the 2015 film and its sequels. And in a recent interview with The Independent, Dornan explained how he tried to separate himself from the fandom that came with that popular saga… and the repercussions his family experienced. Dornan said in the interview:

That’s terrifying. Everything about Jamie Dornan that we have learned in his post-Fifty Shades arc makes him seem like a regular guy, someone easily accessible, and credible as a dad  in the Oscar-winning Kenneth Branagh film, Belfast. But there are limits, and everyone – no matter how famous – is entitled to their privacy. When Dornan chooses to open up about his relationship with his kids, that’s his call. Stay off the man’s front steps. 

We assume we will be tracking Jamie Dornan’s professional career for years, whether he’s popping up as a member of Branagh’s latest Hercules Poirot murder mystery, or fending off spies alongside Gal Gadot in the Netflix thriller Heart of Stone. As stated, he has managed to break out in the Fifty Shades series, but use the global platform as a means for finding new and exciting roles… even if he has stated being jealous of Robert Pattinson’s post-Twilight success.

Let’s just hope the stories of stalking fans who push through established boundaries stop happening. 

Fifty Shades Of Grey was the best-selling book of the past decade, spawning a series of three Fifty movies that made more than a billion dollars at the box office. Fans can’t get enough of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, but if you were to ask author E.L. James herself, she was getting a little tired of her misunderstood hero. In fact she recently shared a brutally honest take on Mr. Grey, and it checks out. 

OK,  maybe she is more than a little tired. Citing that she “wanted a break from Christian and Ana” as one of the reasons she switched to new characters Maxim and Alessia after Fifty Shades Freed, James recently admitted that her infamous leading man is “exhausting.”  His red room scenes may be fun to watch on the big screen, but there’s a lot to unpack when you are one of the creative people on the project. 

Look, I get it. Part of the appeal of Fifty Shades is that it allows its audience to have darker and more outside-the-box fantasies about relationships and bedroom interactions. But if you are the person writing those scenes -- or performing them on the big screen -- it's not always so fun to be dealing with sometimes emotionally manipulative back and forth. So James' comments check out, and they are honestly similar to what Jamie Dornan has said about playing Christian Grey in the past. 

In the interview with Today about her famous film and book characters, the popular creator also shared that she has always envisioned her famous characters as having taken a page from popular fairytales (or Disney movies if you look at them that way). She noted Ana and Christian is the Beauty and the Beast narrative while her newer characters are a little more tame.

Christian Grey is a character who was tormented by his early childhood like the Beast was tormented by his "curse." He channeled that pain into naughty bedroom behavior, but he can still be quite controlling and often difficult for Ana to deal with. In fact, one of the major differences between the Fifty Shades of Grey book and movie is how they make Christian less of a stalker. And while she is typically pretty patient when it comes to the gig of being Ms. Grey, Alessia and Maxim don’t have the same background trauma to deal with. Instead, they’re dealing with mafia issues and more while Alessia is a part of a rags to riches narrative (though that's not her motivation), like Cinderella. 

Like Fifty Shades of Grey, The Mister’s rights have already been snapped up by the major studios, though a movie has not moved forward yet. After E.L. James admitted studios were circling her Maxim book in 2019, The Mister was picked up by Universal in 2020, who also optioned the rights to the Fifty movies. 

The sequel to that book The Mistress just hit shelves this month, and I almost wonder if this might be a trilogy as well. If that's true, it may have made sense to wait at least for the second book in the trilogy to come out before greenlighting another series of movies so the studio didn't end up with a Game of Thrones situation on its hands. 

We'll have to wait and see, but there are doubtless plenty of fans hoping to see Alessia and Maxim on the big screen... or at the very least on the list of sexually explicit Netflix movies. In the meantime, you can always catch up on the Fifty Shades movies streaming. 

Can you believe it’s been five years since the conclusion of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy opened in theaters? Fifty Shades Freed had us say goodbye to Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele as they embarked on a new life together. Fans of the book had the chance to see its memorable wedding scene and, of course, Christian’s abs. To further commemorate Fifty Shades Freed’s anniversary, the book’s author, E.L. James, shared a behind-the-scenes photo that will send you genuine nostalgia feels.

Fifty Shades Freed showed Christian and Anastasia getting married and ready to share a life together full of love, as well as plenty of sexy moments. But their happiness was threatened by Anastasia’s former boss, who began to stalk her. E.L. James posted a behind-the-scenes cool throwback wedding photo on Instagram that she took on the set of the film adaptation with a reminder of its five-year anniversary.

That really is a beautiful photo. It was a breath of fresh air to see Christian and Anastasia tie the knot considering the franchise started with Christian not wanting to get emotionally attached to Ana despite his growing feelings for her. Here's a fun fact for you about how Anastasia’s wedding dress came together - it was a collaboration between costume designer Shay Cunliffe and the film’s female lead, Dakota Johnson. They were searching for a look that would make Anastasia sexy, and modern, but classy at the same time. With just one version of the costume made, this dress was perfect for the momentous occasion. While the wedding scene may have looked beautiful and heartwarming to some, Christian Grey’s Jamie Dornan thought it was so silly to give vows to someone you’re not actually getting married to, but they do call it acting for a reason.

Certainly, though, you know it’s not a Fifty Shades of Grey movie without its steamy sex scenes. However, these sensual moments were filled with challenges. They had to be filmed back-to-back due to the scenes taking place in the same locations, like the Red Room, the boat house, the shower and more. It also doesn’t help that Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed were filmed simultaneously, so it was best to knock those sex scenes out of the way. The hardest sex scene for Dakota Johnson was when she was blindfolded with her hands and legs handcuffed towards a gate feeling like her senses were robbed from her. Luckily, the two stars were able to work like a team through these uncomfortable situations, like how Johnson gave Dornan advice on a sexy way of taking off a woman’s panties. With them both being in the same boat awkwardly performing these BDSM scenes, it helps to be on the same wavelength as one another.

Many uncomfortable BDSM scenes later, it is still very hard to say farewell to a franchise you worked on for three years with the same cast and crew. When the Irish actor said goodbye to Christian Grey, he had a mixed reaction about leaving behind his beloved cast and crew but also felt it was nice that the romance franchise has finally concluded. This makes me wonder if he kept any of the “wee-bags” that he had to wear from Fifty Shades Freed as a souvenir once filming was over. 

Five years later and Fifty Shades Freed is still just as memorable as when it first premiered in theaters back in 2018. Check out our 2023 movie releases so you can follow the future film endeavors of Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. 

Despite being well over 50 years of age (she’s 54) and getting shamed for posting bikini photos in recent years, former Baywatch star Donna D’Errico does not seem to care what the haters think. Case in point, she's previously clapped back at trolls and this week she suited up in a look that showed off a bit more than the average bikini, calling it her “50 Shades of Donna” era. Yes, she showed off a bondage look. 

While it’s probably worth noting here that in the actual 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, while all kinds of bondage equipment is used, Dakota Johnson is actually typically fairly demurely dressed. The one exception would probably be the infamous Red Room scene in the third movie. Costume designer Shay Cunliffe put Dakota Johnson in a corset to help her achieve more of a real bondage look. In this case, Donna D’Errico donned an even more over-the-top look she called “sliving,” to borrow Paris Hilton’s famous phrase.  

Probably my favorite thing about this post outside of the fact that D’Errico doesn’t take any crap from her naysayers, is the fact that Cypress Hill commented with the two hands clapping emoji. You don’t see that coming. In fact, however, while D’Errico has had to deal with haters in the past, most of the comments on this post are of the pretty positive variety. Real Housewives alum Peggy Tanous even asked the other TV star where she got the suit, writing, "Love this pic and love that suit. Where did you get it???"  Others sent a slew of heart, temperature and fire emojis.

While Donna D’Errico is still acting occasionally on TV, popping up in episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 9-1-1 and the short-lived Roadies in recent years, she’s transitioned a lot of her brand to OnlyFans where she and some other Baywatch alums have found lucrative careers – as her former co-star Carmen Electra noted there’s a lot of freedom on OF and “there’s no one telling you what to do.” D’Errico runs her account herself. 

Previously, D’Errico made headlines after a bikini she’d chosen for a Fourth of July celebration went viral; while the Baywatch star is extremely fit for 54, some people were unhappy with how skimpy her look was. D’Errico posted about the bikini shaming at the time, and has doubled down since then on posts showing off her body, including themed lingerie posts for Halloween and the Christmas holiday. 

She’s still occasionally dealing with trolls, however, as one individual asked her “thirsty much?” on her recent Santa post. To which Donna D’Errico responded:

So whether she’s being naughty or nice, it does seems she’s still taking flack for doing the unexpected at 54. We’ll keep you updated as this latest post continues to gain traction and see if she has any comments related to that as well. 

Marcia Gay Harden is still known for her role in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, in which she played the adopted mother of Christian Grey. The trilogy is, of course, notorious for the BDSM scenes that took place between Christian (Jamie Dornan) and his lover Anastasia (Dakota Johnson). Those scenes had an interesting effect on fans, and Harden apparently took notice at the time. Now, the 63-year-old actress is speaking out about the “sexual unleashing” she noticed within the fandom and why being in the midst of that was “fascinating” to her.

The Fifty Shades of Grey films didn't receive the hard NC-17 ratings that readers of E.L. James' series thought they would get. Though the series still attracted a more mature crowd compared to the tweens that made up Twilight's fandom. While promoting Confess, Fletch during an interview with Metro, Marcia Gay Harden explained that she found it especially “fascinating” to watch how some women responded to the erotic films:

According to Elite Daily, there are a number of scientific reasons why the Fifty Shades of Grey book series is so popular with women. The character of Dorian Grey was written to be the man that all women wish they could have in their life. And when reading about the fictional character, women apparently have an outlet in which they can “unleash” their fantasies. The books just have a way of pulling fans into its world desire and sexual liberation. That's why so many fans were excited when it was confirmed years ago that the franchise would be adapted for the screen. 

Fifty Shades of Grey provided audiences with BDSM practices that included blindfolds, handcuffs, riding crops, and more. Amid all of that, there was also graphic nudity that was tailored for an R-rating. Marcia Gay Harden doesn't think all of that is the sole reason for the popularity of the movies, though she does acknowledge that it's a significant part of their success:

If anything, this is all a true testament to the power of literature and how a compelling book can stoke up specific feelings in a person, particularly of the sexually explicit movie variety. Given its groundbreaking subject matter, it's no wonder that the series of books remains relevant today. However, the reception to the big-screen adaptations has varied. The first Fifty Shades movie shattered box office records in 2015, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time at $569.7 million. But ultimately, the series would see fewer returns with each sequel. The final installment ended the franchise with a whimper by claiming only $373 million.

Marcia Gay Harden’s fascination with the Fifty Shades of Grey fandom is warranted, and chances are they'll continue to entrance the masses as more people discover the novels in the years to come. Those who want to watch the movies can rent or buy them using an Amazon Prime subscription. You can watch Harden in the comedy-crime movie Confess, Fletch using a Paramount+ subscription.

Anyone who pays attention to pop culture will surely remember a time when just about all anyone could talk about was Fifty Shades of Grey. As the first in a trilogy, the erotic romance novel by E.L. James (who was said to have clashed with Dakota Johnson on the film’s set) pretty much set the world on fire (becoming the most popular book of its decade) after it was released in 2011, and its tale of the deepening relationship between a college senior and a young, rich (and very hot) businessman was so filled with explicit sex (that required modesty underwear) that leaned heavily into BDSM practices that it either shocked or delighted (or, frequently did both) for many who read the book or even just heard about it from those who indulged in the naughty tale. 

The film adaptation, which starred Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and debuted four years after the book was released, quickly became a massive hit, with the sequels (Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed) making the franchise as a whole one of the biggest R-rated franchises in history, with all three movies raking in over $1.3 billion worldwide. Luckily, if you would either like to revisit the steamy story of Ana and Christian as they fall in love while he helps the young woman begin to explore her submissive side, or enjoy the eroticism for the very first time, you can now see all of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies streaming for free, on an ad-supported streamer. Below, we’re going to break down how you can do just that for each movie, so let’s get down to the dirty business!

How To Watch Fifty Shades Of Grey Streaming

Here we go; the story that started it all. Fifty Shades of Grey was based on the very first novel in James’ very popular trilogy (though there are several differences), where we followed along with the tale of Anastasia Steele’s sexual awakening at the hands (and floggers… and restraints…) of Christian Grey. The movie was a hit at the box office, and also made major stars out of now friends Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, despite much of the reception for the film going in the same, not completely positive, direction as that of the novel upon which it was based. But, for those who want to look back at this time in movie history, Tubi now has the film as a part of its library of free movies available to stream. And, you can also rent or buy the film on Amazon.

Stream Fifty Shades of Grey on Tubi.
Rent/buy Fifty Shades of Grey on Amazon.

How To Watch Fifty Shades Darker Streaming

Fifty Shades Darker came along in 2017, two years after the first film, to make sure that everyone could keep the (sometimes pantless) party going. The stars returned to their beloved roles, and we watched as Ana and Christian’s relationship grew while he opened up to her about his traumatic past, and they faced threats from some outside forces. Because Tubi knows what it’s doing, you can also stream the second movie in the trilogy for free on the site.

Stream Fifty Shades Darker on Tubi.
Rent/buy Fifty Shades Darker on Amazon.

How To Watch Fifty Shades Freed Streaming

What would the first two Fifty Shades movies be without 2018's Fifty Shades Freed? Incomplete, that’s what! This film sees the end of the story of Ana and Christian’s BDSM-heavy romance, with protective buddies Johnson and Dornan once again coming aboard for the sexy finale, which follows the couple as they deal with yet more dangers from their past. You know what’s coming next, right? Head on over to Tubi to wrap up your streaming binge of the franchise!

Stream Fifty Shades Freed on Tubi.
Rent/buy Fifty Shades Freed on Amazon.

There you have it, folks! The complete guide for how you can now watch all of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies streaming. Enjoy the pleasure, and the pain, whenever you like!

The Fifty Shades of Grey films revolved around a college graduate and her erotic sexual adventures with a young billionaire. As Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan played the roles of the two leads, there were rumors that the romantic chemistry that was presented on-screen was the total opposite of how things really were between them off-screen. However, Johnson has now shared some insight into the true nature of her behind-the-scenes relationship with Dornan.

It's easy to imagine that it can be challenging to portray sexual chemistry with an actor when the feelings aren’t there in real life. One would think that such a thing would be even harder if both performers didn't really get along. However, Dakota Johnson revealed during her interview with Vanity Fair, that she and Jamie Dornan were very cool while making the Fifty Shades of Grey flicks:

This is definitely good to hear, as there have certainly been instances in which leads in romance films did not get along. For example, Ryan Gosling and his co-star Rachel McAdams were no Noah and Allie off camera filming The Notebook, as Gosling even tried to where he Gosling tried to get McAdams fired at one point. (Surprisingly enough, the two ended up dating each other in real life not long after.)

While the Fifty Shades of Grey leads may never have been a couple in real life, they still became a great team while making the movies. In regard to filming the challenging sex scenes, the Cha Cha Real Smooth actress gave her male co-lead some advice on the sexy way to take off a woman’s underwear. She’s also said in the past that she enjoyed working with Jamie Dornan (preferring him over the character of Christian Grey) and credited their special on-screen relationship due to the trust they had in each other. The Belfast actor has also said some nice things about Johnson, noting that her humorous personality would be great if the two of them were to ever host an erotic book club together. I'm sure they'd have no problem finding members to join.

While they're not currently working together, red-carpet events have helped bring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan together. The Irish actor reflected on seeing the 32-year-old actress during premieres and said that they had a nice time reuniting. He's proud of the work the two of them did during their “mad journey” together. Though Johnson and Dornan have moved on from the jobs that made their careers, it’s refreshing to know that no tension exists between them and that they're still good friends to this day.

If you want to see the romantic chemistry Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan brought to the Fifty Shades of Grey movies, you can stream them now for free on The Roku Channel. Keep up with CinemaBlend’s schedule of new movie releases for updates on when and where you can see the stars on screen next.  

While Dakota Johnson made her first major film appearance as Sean Parker’s one-night stand in The Social Network, her debut as a lead came from being cast as Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. Based on the book series that originally started out as Twilight fanfiction, this film trilogy showed off the wild and sexy methods of BDSM to mainstream audiences. While Fifty Shades of Grey may have helped Dakota Johnson achieve success as an actress, she got candid about the problems she had on the set of the film and the "battles” she faced.

While Anastasia starts out as someone who is bashful about these non-traditional forms of sex, Dakota Johnson has no fear of expressing herself sexually on camera. During an interview with Vanity Fair, the 32-year-old actress spoke about how comfortable she is doing “big naked movies,” but didn’t exactly have the experience she expected when filming Fifty Shades of Grey. She explained:

Anastasia Steele gets mixed up with young businessman Dorian Grey, who tends to control his women through BDSM methods. He discovers that Anastasia is actually a woman who cannot be controlled as she has no problems expressing what works and doesn’t work for her. The reason why Dakota Johnson took on the Fifty Shades lead role was her love for the character’s fierceness and discovering her own sexual preferences through Dorian Grey. Just like Anastasia had no fear of attempting new sexual adventures, neither did Johnson in portraying sexual expression on-screen.

One thing that the Suspiria star had issues with during Fifty Shades of Grey was dealing with the creative control of E.L. James, the author of the book series. In the actress' words:

This is understandable, as sometimes inner monologues can come as cringeworthy. While Bella Swan’s inner monologue for Twilight can pass since we’re getting some insight into her complex emotions being in the vampire world, other times it could come off as unnecessary. We already understand the thought processes of Anastasia Steele due to Dakota Johnson's stellar expressions. It turns out E.L. James actually had a miserable time filming Fifty Shades of Grey because of her clashes with the director of the first movie, Sam Taylor-Johnson. It can be a struggle when an author and a filmmaker have creative differences in how to make a piece of literature come to life. If you want more proof, watch the movie Saving Mr. Banks.

Despite being proud of the work she did for the erotic romantic drama, being able to complete the films was a very messy ordeal. Seven years after the release of the first movie, Johnson continued to be honest about just how messy filming really was, saying:

The experience Dakota Johnson went through for Fifty Shades of Grey proves that a messy start can have a satisfactory conclusion. Her life changed after the first film in that it opened the doors for directors and writers to discover who this talented actress was and paved the way for many projects like Black Mass, Suspiria, and The Peanut Butter Falcon. 

You can watch Dakota Johnson's latest movie, Cha Cha Real Smooth, on your Apple TV+ subscription; she co-produced the flick and stars as a single mother who starts a relationship with a party starter. She will also be in Netflix’s Jane Austin adaptation of Persuasion, which you can stream on your Netflix subscription on July 15th. Additionally, Johnson is leading Madame Web, which comes out in summer 2023.

Contrary to what we’d guess by looking at even the most recent picture of Jamie Dornan, the Irish actor has just turned the big 4-0. Following the Fifty Shades Of Grey lead turning a year older on Sunday, he shared how he was celebrating and it’s honestly legendary. It looks like Dornan had a backyard bull ride, cowboy hat and all. 

Jamie Dornan took to Instagram this week to share a short video of himself on a mechanical bull having a spin round before falling off the saddle. Take a look: 

The actor posted the video with the caption “This is 40,” and I’m absolutely here for this being the way he rang in his latest birthday. The mechanical bull is in a blown-up arena and looks to be placed in the middle of a backyard party. Yes, you can rent such a  mechanical bull in certain places for hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on where you rent it from. It looks like the perfect way to feel young again, whilst also challenging yourself with a difficult and daring activity.   

Jamie Dornan has had a heck of a 39th year, between his hilarious role Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar finding a loving audience, starring in Belfast and releasing his series The Tourist. 2021’s Belfast allowed the actor to portray a role from his homeland of Ireland alongside director Kenneth Branagh. The movie, and Dornan’s role in it, went on to receive awards buzz and win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar amongst six other nominations from the Academy. 

Dornan’s return to television in The Tourist also had audiences raving about his acting chops. The series that is available to stream with an HBO Max subscription is a thriller about a man who wakes up in an Australian outback with amnesia and his past ready to catch up quickly catching up to him. 

Among his 40 years on Earth, Jamie Dornan has spent just shy of half his life as an actor in Hollywood films and television, starting with a role in 2006’s Marie Antoinette and then catapulting higher with the popular series Once Upon a Time and The Fall. Oh, and of course in 2013, he was cast as Christian Grey in the adaptation of the popular erotica novel Fifty Shades of Grey. 

While you’d think the actor might have a chip on his shoulder about starring in the sultry films in hindsight, he's shared that he does not regret starring in Fifty Shades of Grey. Jamie Dornan also recently said that it “transformed” his life, fans loved it and it
ultimately helped provide for his family. Next, the actor will star alongside Gal Gadot in Netflix’s action film Heart of Stone. While we wait for more news on his roles, happy birthday, Jamie! 

Over the past year, some of our favorite franchises have released their final chapters, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home and No Time To Die, while others like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Twilight are celebrating 10 year anniversaries. Whether new or old, certain cinematic universes hold a special place in our hearts, and now you can own some complete collections of your favorites through Amazon Prime at discounted prices.

We've gathered some of our favorites below and Amazon is adding even more discounted digital downloads each week, so be sure to check back. While Prime isn't required to purchase bundles, members do receive access to to other digital downloads not available without a subscription. If you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can sign up for one here and even get a 30-day free trial. 

Spider-Man: Tom Holland 3-Movie Collection

The Spider-Man 3-Movie Collection includes:

• Spider-Man: Homecoming 
• Spider-Man: Far From Home 
• Spider-Man: No Way Home

James Bond: The Daniel Craig 5-Film Collection

The Daniel Craig 5-Film Collection includes:

• Casino Royale
• Quantum of Solace
• Skyfall
• Spectre
• No Time To Die

The Twilight Saga: The Complete Movie Collection

The Twilight Saga: The Complete Movie Collection includes:

• Twilight
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon
• The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Saw: The Complete 9-Film Collection

The Saw Complete 9-Film Collection includes:

• Saw
• Saw II
• Saw III
• Saw IV
• Saw V
• Saw VI
• Saw: The Final Chapter
• Jigsaw
• Spiral: From The Book of Saw

The Hunger Games: The Complete 4-film Collection 

The Hunger Games Complete 4-film Collection includes:

• The Hunger Games
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

The Mummy: Complete 3-film Trilogy

The Mummy Complete 3-film Trilogy includes:

• The Mummy
• The Mummy Returns
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Fifty Shades of Grey: Complete 3-Movie Bundle (Unrated)

The Fifty Shade of Grey Complete 3-movie Bundle (Unrated) includes:

• Fifty Shades of Grey (Unrated)
• Fifty Shades Darker (Unrated Version)
• Fifty Shades Freed (Unrated)

Batman: the Dark Knight Trilogy Collection

The Dark Knight Trilogy Collection includes:

• Batman Begins
• The Dark Knight
• The Dark Knight Rises

Shrek: The 4-Movie Collection

The Shrek 4-Movie Collection includes: 

• Shrek
• Shrek 2
• Shrek the Third
• Shrek Forever After

The Harry Potter 8-Film Collection

The Harry Potter 8-Film Collection includes:

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Jumanji: 2-Movie Collection

The Jumanji 2-Movie Collection includes:

• Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle
• Jumanji: The Next Level

John Wick: Triple Feature

The John Wick Triple Feature includes:

• John Wick
• John Wick Chapter 2
• John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Ghostbusters 3-Movie Collection

The Ghostbusters 3-Movie Collection includes:

• Ghostbusters
• Ghostbusters II
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Transformers + Bumblebee 6-Movie Collection

The Transformers + Bumblebee 6-Movie Collection includes:

•  Transformers
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Transformers: Age of Extinction
• Transformers: The Last Knight
• Bumblebee

Divergent: Complete Series 3-Film Collection

The Divergent: Complete Series 3-Film Collection includes:

• Divergent
• Allegiant
• Insurgent

The Lord Of The Rings™ Motion Picture Trilogy Extended Edition

The Lord Of The Rings™ Motion Picture Trilogy Extended Edition includes:

• The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition
• The Two Towers Extended Edition
• The Return of the King Extended Edition

Dakota Johnson wasn’t a stranger to Hollywood when she booked Fifty Shades of Grey. But nothing could have prepared her for the way her life would change after she played Anastasia Steele for the first time. The actress has had a few years away from the franchise and, now, she’s able to reflect on exactly what the massive series meant for both her personal life and her career. 

Fifty Shades of Grey was a hugely popular book series when Dakota Johnson became part of the film series’ cast. So it was inevitable that it would transform her from a relatively unknown actress to one of the most famous faces in the world. On an episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, she admitted that her life has changed a lot since the first Fifty Shades film was released – in both good ways and bad ways: 

It’s hard to imagine how stressful it would be to deal with the media tracking your day-to-day life – even before the first film came out,, there was a lot of attention on how she and co-star Jamie Dornan got along. And now, that the star is with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the attention has only increased. But just like Dornan’s own take on the Fifty Shades whirlwind, she has a healthy perspective on the ways in which her life has changed for the better. 

Her balanced perspective on fame could partially be due to her chill approach to life in general. It could also be the result of growing up in a family that has a history with fame. Her parents are Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson and her grandmother is the Hitchockian icon Tippi Hedren. It’s easy to see how she could have picked up a few ideas about how to handle being a celebrity. 

Dakota Johnson has undoubtedly made the most of those doors in Hollywood opening up for her after Fifty Shades of Grey. In the years since, she’s booked some amazing roles in films like Black Mass, Suspiria, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter. Her career is still heating up, too, as it sounds like she’s in talks to join the Spidey-verse (albeit not in a new Marvel movie) as Madame Web in an upcoming film. That role could catapult her to even more fame, but it sounds like she has the wisdom and perspective to keep her grounded through another wild Hollywood ride. 

Dakota Johnson has a history of starring in romantic movies (you may have heard of a little movie called Fifty Shades of Grey). Her latest romantic film, however, will feature a first for the actress: a queer relationship. How did Dakota Johnson prepare for the role? By making out with tons of women, of course. 

In an interview for the Sundance Film Festival via Entertainment Weekly, Dakota Johnson revealed her faux preparation process for her new movie Am I Ok? Her character begins to explore her sexuality later in life, and Dakota Johnson decided to practice the only way she knew how. She joked: 

Practice makes perfect, after all. Dakota Johnson may not have actually gotten her reps in, but she did try to hang out with her co-star Sonoya Mizuno before the filming process for Am I OK? began. The pandemic didn’t allow the pair to become super close pre-production, but that didn’t stop Dakota Johnson from showing off her culinary skills. She said: 

While COVID kept Dakota Johnson from developing her relationship with her co-star, that lack of connection may lend itself to the explorative nature of Am I Ok? The coming-out story, directed by lauded comedian Tig Notaro and her actress wife Stephanie Allynne, follows 32-year-old masseuse Lucy (Dakota Johnson), who begins to unpack her feelings for her best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno) after she meets a new stylist at her salon. Dakota Johnson has not put a public label on her sexuality, but she did express an interest in navigating the nuances of self-actualization. She explained: 

Many of Dakota Johnson’s past films have featured romantic journeys, but Am I Ok? seems to be diving deeper than a surface-level love affair. If Dakota Johnson’s commentary is any indication, the movie will feature both a self-exploration and a queer love story for modern viewers. The only downside seems to be that Dakota Johnson didn’t actually get to make out with a lot of women. 

Am I Ok? premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24. While we wait for a nationwide theatrical release date, there are plenty of upcoming movies to keep us occupied. 

It’s been a hot minute since Dakota Johnson played the leading lady in the spicy film adaptation of the 50 Shades of Grey series, but she apparently doesn’t mind throwing it back to her most popular films. After James Corden asks the star if her dress may be a little too short, Johnson had the perfect response, referencing her many nude scenes in the 50 Shades of Grey franchise. 

Dakota Johnson recently appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden in a gorgeous red mini dress. At the beginning of the interview she appears a little bit uncomfortable, with her hands and arms in an odd placement. This seems to evoke a response out of Corden, who asks Johnson if she is okay and would like his jacket. You can check out the video for yourself below:

It’s reasonable to say that some people may have found themselves a little uncomfortable at James Corden’s question about a potential wardrobe malfunction, especially if they were feeling a bit anxious about sitting in a short dress in the first place. However, Dakota Johnson handles the situation with some serious humor and grace, earning her some laughs from the audience.

Dakota Johnson doesn’t seem phased by the question about her dress. In fact, Johnson is all smiles when she looks out to the live audience and whips out a quick response that throws it back to her role in the erotic romance 50 Shades of Grey. Here’s what she says, exactly:

If you’ve seen 50 Shades of Grey or any of the later films in the franchise, you know exactly what she’s talking about. Dakota Johnson and her co-star Jamie Dornan are filmed nude or near nude in pretty much all of them. Having been heavily involved in such an erotic franchise that had a huge following, it totally makes sense why her dress riding up a little, even on television, seemed as though it was no big deal to her. 

Dakota Johnson has been pretty vocal about how proud she is of her work on the 50 Shades of Grey franchise, and has even said she would be open to taking part in other similar franchises. Her ability to embrace her past work and handle situations like James Corden’s dress question has fans really loving Johnson. There’s practically nothing but love for her in the comment section of the video, fans praising her for her quirky vibe and authentic nature.

While she may have no problem throwing it back to her time as Anastasia Steele in 50 Shades of Grey, you’ll be able to catch her in a few different projects this year. Cha Cha Real Smooth and Am I Okay? both head to the Sundance Film Festival within the week, and the new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion should be releasing to Netflix sometime this year. 

Jamie Dornan has kept busy with work since his time in the Fifty Shades franchise ended. While the movies made Dornan a well-known name and earned more than a billion dollars at the box office, the actor is the first to admit the complicated legacy of playing Christian Grey. In fact, he says it didn’t lead to the career security that you might think. 

The Fifty Shades and now Belfast actor spoke out about how Fifty Shades of Grey, Darker and Freed were boons to his career, but that they also put him on a path that is quite different than a lot of other popular franchises.  When asked about whether he has job security these days, he answered “no” before explaining in depth: 

Dornan’s comments were part of a longer profile in the New York Times and also highlighted why he feels he still needs to fight for every role he lands. For example, Jamie Dornan noted it’s the story between Ana Steele and Christian Grey that led audiences to follow him, but those audiences don’t always translate into helping him get into other things he wants to do. In fact, he lost out on playing Superman for the the DCEU and hasn't yet landed some of the more high-profile gigs he would like to, though he did say he has met with Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige about a possible role. 

He calls this an "extra fire" lit within him and he says it is tied both to becoming a father to three little girls and also to his father's death from Covid-19 complications earlier this year. 

Elsewhere in the interview, Jamie Dornan spoke of Robert Pattinson’s similar career trajectory early on and how he’s been able to shift past Edward Cullen to play roles as varied as his upcoming take on Batman and the lead in the arthouse flick The Lighthouse. He called that trajectory "really smart." To some degree, I get what Dornan is saying, as his career may not be as gob-smackingly shiny as R. Pats,' but whose is right now? 

To note, Dornan had a well-liked comedic turn in Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar earlier this year. The memorable ending of Wild Mountain Thyme had people talking as well. Most recently, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is earning accolades and plenty of acclaim for Jamie Dornan and his co-stars, including Caitriona Balfe. So, he is finding a very nice niche in the industry even if he's not where he wants to be. Yet. 

If you didn’t know it already, the Fifty Shades of Grey books actually began as fan fiction based on Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight books. Following the success of the Twilight franchise on the big screen, Universal adapted the trilogy with Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson as its stars. The Fifty Shades movies have come and gone, leaving Dornan with a similar feat Robert Pattinson had to deal with before him: making a career after becoming very well known and beloved for one, specific character. 

Jamie Dornan’s latest role is in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, a black and white coming-of-age film about living in Northern Ireland in the ‘60s. It’s a critically-acclaimed movie and one of many impressive projects Dornan has booked since the last Fifty Shades movie came out in 2018. Recently, when speaking to The New York Times though, Dornan shared that he’s a little envious of how Pattinson has navigated it all for the past decade. In his words: 

As the actor points out, since starring in the five Twilight films, Robert Pattinson's made a ton of small passion projects that seem really intentional and involve quality. Pattinson memorably starred in independent movies like Good Time, The Lighthouse and High Life, spending his time on more intimate projects years before returning to the blockbuster space. Just last year, Pattinson worked for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, his first big-budget movie in years, and his most high-profile movie is months away, as he's the latest Bruce Wayne for next year’s The Batman. 

Jamie Dornan isn’t one to hide how lucrative the Fifty Shades franchise was for him and his family. Recently, he shared that it has done “no harm” to his career and it’s “provided a lot” that he is grateful for. The franchise often is the butt of some jokes, but he takes issue with that sentiment, sharing that “everyone involved worked as hard as they could on those films.” Since saying goodbye to Christian Grey, Dornan has already starred in nine more movies, and they include Trolls World Tour, Robin Hood, Wild Mountain Thyme and Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar. 

Robert Pattinson has a bit of a head start, and he does seem more honed in on arthouse films than Jamie Dornan, but I think both of these talented actors have really shown themselves to be incredible talents outside their famed romance roles. Belfast is now playing in theaters, socheck out CinemaBlend’s interviews with the cast, including Dornan. 

Jamie Dornan was an actor before his career-making role in Fifty Shades of Grey and he’ll be an actor for long after. However, it’s his role as Christian Grey that cemented his name in Hollywood and has led him to have a fanbase that continues to follow his newer endeavors. But if you ask Dornan himself, the actor would say that everything he does now gets compared to his work opposite Dakota Johnson. Instead of bringing him down, though, that sort of commentary has lit a fire under his rear. 

Right now, Dornan has been a major part of the awards circuit, having done festivals and more press in support of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, which has earned rave reviews (including CinemaBlend's own Belfast review) and an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score. The Fifty Shades actor is aware the film is fresh on peoples’ minds right now, but it’s still getting a lot of comparisons to the trilogy he filmed before. 

While the actor does mention "penance" here, instead of getting down about his place in Hollywood, Jamie Dornan told GQ it’s actually the type of thing that “spurs” him on. While Dornan has already said goodbye to playing Christian Grey and that period in his life, he is starting to come to terms with the complicated legacy a role like Fifty Shades of Grey brings. 

• Does Jamie Dornan Regret Starring In The Fifty Shades Of Grey Franchise? Here’s What He Says
• Fifty Shades Of Grey’s Jamie Dornan Opens Up About How He ‘Struggled’ With Playing Christian Grey

Intriguingly, it’s a big year for both Dornan and his former co-star Dakota Johnson. She’s also been out and about at festivals and on red carpets in support of her own movie The Lost Daughter. And Jamie Dornan said earlier this year that he finally had the chance to reconnect with Johnson for the first time in a few years, as Fifty Shades Freed and Fifty Shades Darker shot back-to-back eons ago. 

When someone is a part of a major fandom, it can be difficult to break free in some ways. After all, people are still doing things like celebrating Christian Grey's birthday each year and I doubt that will change anytime soon. That fanbase also can mean that more attention may be paid to your roles then may have otherwise, so for some it can be an equally useful tool. In Dornan's case, it seems he uses his popularity as a Fifty Shades star to spur him on and help him to attain new and interesting heights in his acting career.

It's an interesting way for a person to look at their place in a fandom and I can't wait to see what else he adds to his resume in the coming years. For now, you can catch Belfast in theaters right now or see him back on the small screen in upcoming project The Tourist next. 

Ahead of Fifty Shades of Grey, Dakota Johnson was already breaking out into the Hollywood scene, between finding a small role in David Fincher’s The Social Network, the hit comedy 21 Jump Street and action flick Need For Speed. But then Fifty Shades made its way to the 23-year-old’s sight. As the actress reflects on signing to the project years later, she has shared how Emily Blunt actually played a part in making her decision. 

Dakota Johnson and Emily Blunt worked together in 2012’s The Five-Year Engagement. When speaking to The Hollywood Reporter recently, the actress shared the invaluable advice Blunt gave her ahead of signing on the dotted line. In Johnson’s words: 

Dakota Johnson didn’t have a lot of people to go to when she was being considered for the role because of how massive the casting was. In turn, the actress went to Emily Blunt to get her take on the opportunity. Johnson was worried how it might affect her career, but as Blunt shared with her, at the end of the day her decisions should be geared based on what she truly wants to be involved in. 

The actress made the Fifty Shades trilogy between 2013 and 2016 alongside Jamie Dornan and they became massive hits. Based on E.L. James’ erotic novels, Dakota Johnson embodied Anastasia Steele, a young woman who gets entangled with Christian Grey, a billionaire entrepreneur who’s also into bondage relationships. The Fifty Shades movies certainly cater to a specific audience and come from a franchise often made fun of, but in the end Johnson was part of a huge phenomenon that made her good money and offered her larger name recognition than ever before. As Johnson continued:  

In between and following the Fifty Shades trilogy, Dakota Johnson has made some memorable films such as the Luca Guadagnino horror remake Suspiria, underrated thriller Bad Times at the El Royale or The Peanut Butter Falcon with Shia LaBeouf. It sounds like everyone won here. Dakota Johnson got to make some wildly popular movies and also retain the career she wanted all along. 

It seems like Jamie Dornan is having the same luck as well. Recently the actor shared that sharing as Christian Grey did ‘no harm’ to his career and it’s provided him with a lucrative career he can then give back to his family with. You can see Dakota Johnson next in The Lost Daughter, coming out on December 31. 

Before it was even cast, Fifty Shades of Grey was destined to be the kind of movie that made its stars into overnight sensations. That proved to be true for Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan -- both of whom have since gotten very real about the highs and lows of starring in the risque franchise. Now, the series’ leading man is reflecting on the entire ride and whether or not he regrets signing on to play the controversial mogul Christian Grey. 

The first Fifty Shades film was released more than six years ago. For Jamie Dornan, that appears to be enough time to gauge the impact that the franchise has had on his life. When GQ Magazine asked him recently if he’d ever regretted signing on to the sexy series, he shared how he came to the decision in the first place: 

Before that first installment, the actor was best known for his work in the Irish drama The Fall. These days, despite a humbling lack of game in real life, he will forever be known as a heartthrob with a dark side. By consciously taking on a role he knew would redefine his career, he was certainly taking a risk. Even though he’s been honest about the fact that he struggled with his polarizing character, today, he believes the downsides were worth it in the end: 

So it sounds like even though it wasn’t a perfect experience, he wouldn’t change it. That’s a healthy perspective to have. These days, Jamie Dornan is still working hard, albeit on projects that couldn’t be more different from Fifty Shades. At present, he stars in Kenneth Branagh’s coming of age drama, Belfast, which hits theaters on November 12.

It’s been a few years now since Fifty Shades Freed wrapped up the famous love story of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. In the time since, the two leads in those movies, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, have both gone on to notable other projects. However, this awards season has been the first time the two have been able to spend more time together thanks to red carpets related to their two awards circuit films. 

Dakota Johnson has been busy hyping her new film The Lost Daughter, about a woman on summer holiday recalling her early days as a mother, for awards season. Jamie Dornan is also a part of a film that has begun to receive good notice. That flick is none other than Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, a black and white film about childhood in Belfast in the 1960s that even has Dornan singing in the first trailer. 

While the movies don’t have a ton in common, it has afforded Dornan the opportunity to see and catch up with Dakota Johnson again. It wouldn't be the first time he's had kind things to say about his former co-star, either. This time, he told the Belfast Telegraph about running into Johnson on red carpets:

Technically, the third movie in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, Fifty Shades Freed, came out in 2018, but it actually filmed back in 2016. This is because Fifty Shades Darker and Freed actually filmed back-to-back. While Dornan and Johnson would have done promotion for the final movie based on E.L. James’ novels in 2018, it’s really been quite a long time since they spent significant time together.

While the two might see each other often, Jamie Dornan did say it’s been nice to catch up. I’m guessing that’s doubly true given it comes at a time that both are seeing such success for wildly different projects than the ones that made them household names. Both actors have jumped on very different types of projects and roles than those they inhabited as Ms. Steele and Mr. Grey in the time since the last film premiered.

The Christian Grey actor has previously been open about enjoying switching to "indies" after finding success in Fifty Shades, for example. While the cast has certainly moved on from the roles, they are still connected in the way the fanbase loves to keep tabs on what they are doing. So it's nice to hear they've been able to catch up. 

When people are in a movie franchise or TV series together, there are extended periods of time when they are working with co-stars and seeing the same crew teammates every day. And then the projects end and those involved scatter on to start something new with a new cast and crew. That’s the nature of the business, but it’s still nice to see fan favorite co-stars meeting up again every once and awhile.

• Related: What The Fifty Shades Of Grey Cast Is Doing Now

When I think of Jamie Dornan, I often think of him as Christian Grey, the smooth, well-dressed protagonist of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. However, if you hear him tell it, in real life he’s a whole lot closer to his Wild Mountain Thyme character, allowing himself to be pursued by the ladies rather than the other way around.

During a recent interview ahead of his upcoming projects on screens big and small, Jamie Dornan actually spoke a little bit about his own personality and how he identifies a bit more with his Wild Mountain Thyme character. If you haven’t seen that particular movie, it follows a young man named Anthony (Dornan) who has shared a property line with a young woman named Rosemary (Emily Blunt) for many years, without making a romantic move on her. He told The Belfast Telegraph of Wild Mountain Thyme and his own ambitions where the ladies are involved:

Things seem to have worked out for Jamie Dornan, who has been happily married to his wife Amelia Warner, a composer who also worked on Wild Mountain Thyme, for eight years. The two have three daughters together, whom he spent plenty of time with during quarantine in 2020. This whole story makes me wonder if it was Warner who made the first move when they met, as Dornan recalled his complete lack of game and awkwardness in social situations, qualities that seem to be a far cry from Christian Grey.

Although, I guess I'd argue Christian Grey is not particularly gabby and is pretty to the point, in the past, Jamie Dornan himself has said he “struggled” with playing Fifty Shades of Grey’s Christian Grey during the making of the billion dollar franchise. He noted in 2020 the character felt “very far away from me” and also said he felt “quite uncomfortable” during his time playing the literary icon. He’s also previously mentioned that he had “a lot of swings and misses” with the ladies in his youth, so I suppose these comments shouldn't be a huge shock, but I do find the process of separating an artist and their characters fascinating.

So, now that Dornan has shared more details about who he is and how he’s flirted in a past life, it’s easier to see why the major franchise gig was a little bit tough for the actor. After all, you can be a wide-ranging actor and still have roles that are a little tougher to tease out on the big screen. In this case, a BDSM and suit-loving dude apparently is not who Jamie Dornan is in his personal life.

Jamie Dornan has taken on a wide variety of eclectic roles since Fifty Shades of Grey wrapped in 2018. He’s played real life facsimiles of people in My Dinner with Hervé and A Private War. He braved the comedy landscape and even got into a shirt rip scene harkening a little bit back to his Fifty Shade days in Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar. He rocked out with a twist ending in Wild Mountain Thyme, though it sounds like the Irish setting and that character in general were a little closer to home for the actor.

Next up, he has some new projects coming, including another set in Ireland, Belfast, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. His other project, The Tourist, will be headed to HBO Max. Of that latter one, Dornan has said the script "some of the most exciting" he's even dived into. We'll keep you updated when we have more information regarding release

You know a fictional character has reached a new level of popularity when fans are posting about their birthdays. This can be said about protagonists such as The Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen and Harry Potter, but today it’s all about Fifty Shades of Grey’s Christian Grey. The character Jamie Dornan played in the steamy trilogy is being celebrated all over social media because it’s a great day to dream about the E.L. James leading man.

Per the books, Christian Grey was born on June 18, 1983, making him fictionally 38 years old on Friday. A few years after the end of Fifty Shades Freed, we’d imagine the heartthrob character is happily married and enjoying his life as a family man alongside Anastasia Steele and their two kids, Teddy and Phoebe. Of course, fans took the special date to remember the character through Jamie Dornan-centric posts like this:

This October marks the eight-year anniversary since Jamie Dornan was cast to play Christian Grey, after Charlie Hunnam gave up the role alongside Dakota Johnson. The stars would go on to adapt the entire Fifty Shades trilogy before going on to different projects with the 2018 conclusion. Fans are starry eyed about his portrayal for Christian’s birthday:

Jamie Dornan brought to life the protagonist of E.L. James best-selling series that explored the relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, who becomes his next submissive in his BDSM lifestyle. Steele, who is initially sexually inexperienced, makes for a different kind of match for Christian that leads to the pair unexpectedly falling in love. He’s an electrifying character who fans couldn’t forget on his big day:

Most recently, E.L. James has continued to explore Christian Grey through novels written from his perspective instead of Anastasia Steele’s. In 2015, she released Grey, which retold the first book before Darker’s release in 2017 and most recently with Freed, which came out at the top of this month. Here’s another Twitter tribute for Christian Grey:

Christian Grey was originally inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, since the book itself began as Twilight fan fiction of Edward and Bella’s vampire romance. Both franchises have certainly had staying power in pop culture, and E.L. James is celebrating the date as well:

Following his time as Christian Grey, Jamie Dornan has been taking on some different roles, such as alongside Emily Blunt in Wild Mountain Thyme, popping up in the hilarious Barb and Star Go To Del Mar, as well as starring in an upcoming show called The Tourist. Dakota Johnson, on the other hand, is returning to romance with a role in the Jane Austen adaptation of Persuasion with Henry Golding. Happy birthday, Christian Grey!

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Jamie Dornan has taken a lot of quirky and varied roles since first starring in Fifty Shades of Grey back in 2015. However, he also turned heads on Once Upon A Time on ABC and had made a bit of a career out of being on-screen eye candy as recently as 2018 when Fifty Shades Freed came out. As it turns out, however, in his younger days, Dornan was not particularly smooth with the ladies, though his turn as Christian Grey (or that shirt-ripping scene) may have had his fans fooled.

In a recent interview, Jamie Dornan spoke about his growing up experience and how he can identify with one of his latest characters more closely than the one (Grey) we may more identify him with. In Wild Mountain Thyme he plays a character who isn’t forward with his feelings and who is awkward in many ways, something that occurred when Dornan was a young lad as well. In fact he told Sky News he "struggled" with the confidence factor when it came to trying to get the attention of the people he was interested in early on.

While Anthony isn’t exactly a kid in Wild Mountain Thyme, he is certainly awkward around Rosemary, played by Emily Blunt. The whole way through the film the two are dancing around the probability that they are meant for one another. There’s even a whole subplot about a fence that was put up by Rosemary’s family and interferes with Anthony’s family accessing their own property that would simply be solved if the two were to come together into their own union. But as Jamie Dornan noted, that’s a struggle for Anthony and that’s something Dornan could relate to with his own growing up experiences.

These days Jamie Dornan is married to Amelia Warner, a composer who actually did the music for Wild Mountain Thyme. Together, they have three daughters, whom Dornan often gets to behave dorkily around. (Please also read his amusing story about spending money on Trolls World Tour in quarantine for a real look at the type of person he is.) He’s often up to some silly shenanigans with his girls on social media, as well.

So, I guess whatever is in his personality that made him awkward as a young adult is perfectly acceptable for all the dad moments. We’ll keep you posted the next time Jamie Dornan gets up to these sorts of shenanigans. In the meantime, you can definitely catch the actor engaging with his sillier side in Wild Mountain Thyme or, heck, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, both out on VOD.

Dakota Johnson familiarized herself with all kinds of bedroom interplay when she signed on for Fifty Shades of Grey just a few years ago. Thanks to the billion dollar franchise, we equate her name with things like vibrators, floggers (one of which she still owns), spreader bars, and even Ben Wa balls. It’s perhaps only natural that for her new endeavor Maude, Johnson would be focusing on the “sexual wellness” aspect of these types of items, traditionally called toys. According to Johnson, they are anything but toys and she is working to "destigmatize" those items in society.

In fact, Dakota Johnson has become both a creative and investor for Maude, a company with a sleek eye for design that is creating inclusive products for couples of all genders and ethnicities. The company’s next step seems to be tackling the stigma of sex toys, with Johnson herself remarking to InStyle that the products the company is creating, including vibrators, are more intimacy "tools" than anything else.

Dakota Johnson has referred to items for the bedroom as “toys” in past interviews related to Fifty Shades of Grey, but people can change their perspectives over time, and that may be what happened after Johnson learned more about the work Maude was doing and came on board. In this case, Johnson and her business partner want to challenge what they feel are antiquated ideas about items like vibrators, noting they should be more for “well-being.” In fact, Maude creator and CEO Éva Goicochea also noted more specifically:

Though the comments are new, Dakota Johnson has been all over this concept since she joined Maude in 2020. A previous post to her social media with Eva Goicochea highlights how much the Fifty Shades of Grey star cares about the “ethos” of the brand.

We’ll have to wait and see what else Dakota Johnson, Eva Goicochea and Maude bring to the table, but for now jumping into sex essentials is an interesting next step for the Fifty Shades of Grey star. As for the world of acting, next up you can catch her in The Lost Daughter, which will mar The Dark Knight actress Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature length directorial debut.

Actress Dakota Johnson has made quite a name for herself, partly due to her iconic run as Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. The notoriety from that gig has helped her land more exciting projects, and Johnson also comes from a legacy of actors. She's the child of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, but it turns out that she didn't ask them for much advice on her career. According to her father Don, she doesn't need it.

Since both of her parents are accomplished actors, it would make sense of Dakota Johnson might depend on their knowledge. After all, their collective years in front of the camera have taught them lessons about the film industry. Don Johnson was recently asked if the Fifty Shades star asks for advice, answering with:

It looks like Dakota Johnson established herself as an independent person as a fairly young woman. Because just after high school she decided she was going to skip college in hopes of be coming a working actress. We all know exactly how well that worked out for her.

Don Johnson's comments come from his recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Eventually the host turned the conversation to his famous daughter, and inquired about what their dynamic was like. That's when the Knives Out actor revealed the origin of Dakota's start as a movie star.

Later in that same conversation, Don Johnson revealed how quickly his daughter Dakota was able to stat booking work after foregoing a college education. In his words,

Touche. Dakota Johnson had a small but memorable role in The Social Network, as soon began nailing down other gigs. And after becoming a household name thanks to the Fifty Shades franchise, Johnson is now an in-demand star. So it's no wonder that she doesn't need any career advice from her famous parents.

Dakota Johnson has been in a number of exciting projects over recent years, including the remake of Suspiria, Bad Times at the El Royale, and The High Note. And while she may be best known as Anastasia, you can't deny the power Fifty Shades had over the 31 year-old actress' career.

The next movies Dakota Johnson has in store are The Lost Daughter and Am I Ok? In the meantime, check out our 2021 release list to plan your next movie experience.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Jamie Dornan won over the hearts of many as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey. Since his Fifty Shades days, Dornan has diversified his career. He played a serial killer in the critically acclaimed series The Fall. In 2020, he voiced the character Chaz in Trolls World Tour, and in 2021, he returned to his romantic roots by playing the love interest of Kristen Wiig's Star in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.

Jamie Dornan has come a long way from his Marie Antoinette screen debut in 2006. Luckily for fans of the Irish actor, there are plenty of shows and movies available to stream or rent featuring Jamie Dornan. Here are some of your best Jamie Dornan film and TV options currently available.

Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021)

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo play best friends Star and Barb in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. When they’re fired from their jobs and kicked out of their favorite club, the women decide to have an adventure by vacationing at Vista Del Mar. Barb and Star experience more adventure than they expected (or wanted) when they become involved in a plan to kill everyone in Vista Del Mar.

In Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Jamie Dornan plays Edgar, a handsome man with whom the women have a wild night that turns into true love for Star. Edgar is also a main part of the killing everyone in Vista Del Mar plan: it’s his whole reason for being in town. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is a goofy, fun comedy that’s perfect viewing for when you want some lighthearted content and shirtless Dornan. The film is available to rent on your favorite VOD service.

Rent it on Amazon here.

The Fall (2013-2016)

The Fall follows a family man and serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan). Gillian Anderson played Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, the woman on a quest to find Paul and stop his killings. The Fall is a fascinating crime drama that explores the psyche of a serial killer and the woman trying to bring him down.

Many consider The Fall one of Dornan’s best works, both for his performance and the show’s dark and complex writing. The series is also one of Dornan’s few TV series roles, so it allowed him to really flesh out Paul and his twisted mind. The Fall aired for three seasons and they’re all available on Tubi and Amazon Prime.

Stream it on Tubi here.

Stream it on Amazon Prime here.

Purchase episodes on Amazon here.

Fifty Shades of Grey Franchise (2015, 2017, 2018)

Fifty Shades of Grey is a film based on E.L James’ best-selling novel of the same name. It follows Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), a college graduate who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The 2017 follow up film Fifty Shades Darker continues Ana and Christian’s journey of figuring out their relationship and all the complications that come with it. Fifty Shades Freed is the final installment and wraps up things for Ana and Christian.

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy is what made Jamie Dornan a household name, so these are important films to watch if you’re a diehard fan of him or the Fifty Shades of Grey movies. These controversial films explore the world of BDSM in a way mainstream culture hasn’t before, making the Fifty Shades movies a much-debated topic. The Fifty Shades of Grey movies are all available to watch on Peacock.

Stream them on Peacock (1, 2, 3).

Rent them on Amazon (1, 2, 3).

Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

Wild Mountain Thyme stars Jamie Dornan and Emily Blunt as Anthony Reilly and Rosemary Muldoon. She’s set on winning Anthony’s affections, but he’s oblivious to her. Meanwhile, Anthony’s farm is threatened when his father plans to sell it to his American cousin. The Wild Mountain Thyme cast also includes Jon Hamm and Christopher Walken.

Wild Mountain Thyme is a romantic drama set in Ireland and takes a bit of a fable quality with its whimsical nature and storylines. This film is one where you’re going to want to talk about its wild ending. Wild Mountain Thyme is currently available to rent through Video On Demand services, like Amazon and VUDU.

Rent it on Amazon here.

Once Upon A Time (2011-2018)

Once Upon a Time is an ABC series that ran from 2011 to 2018. It’s the reimagining of several fairy tales, especially those in Disney’s collection. Once Upon a Time follows Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) as she moves to Storybrooke, Maine. The son she gave up for adoption, Henry (Jared S. Gilmore) informs Emma that she is the savior and must break a curse. Everyone in this town has forgotten their true identity. They were once fairytale characters like Snow White and Cinderella.

Jamie Dornan only briefly appeared in Once Upon a Time. He played Sheriff Graham, whose fairytale identity was the Huntsman. He was also Emma Swan’s first love interest on the series, and she becomes the sheriff when he’s no longer on Once Upon a Time. Disney+ has all seven seasons of Once Upon a Time available to stream.

Stream it on Disney+ here.

Purchase episodes on Amazon here.

Endings, Beginnings

Endings, Beginning stars Shailene Woodley as Daphne, a woman who just broke up with her long-term boyfriend. She also just quit her job. Daphne vows to take a break from drinking and men but finds herself in a love triangle between two friends Jack (Jamie Dornan) and Frank (Sebastian Stan). Endings, Beginnings has Daphne fall for both men for different reasons, which makes her choice quite difficult.

I think many straight women and gay men would dream of the day that they’re in a love triangle with Jamie Dornan and Sebastian Stan. Yet, Endings, Beginning is a drama that digs deeper than just a sexy love triangle. It’s a look at spiraling downward and needing to love yourself before really opening your heart to loving another person. Dornan once again is in a romantic drama, so he’s right in his genre sweet spot. Endings, Beginnings is currently available to stream on HBO Max.

Stream it on HBO Max here.

Rent it on Amazon here.

Synchronic (2019)

Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan star in Synchronic, a science fiction horror movie. They play Steve and Dennis, two paramedics who work the late shift. After a series of strange deaths and cases, they find that all these cases are linked to a drug called Synchronic. Steve has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor and he finds out that because of his tumor, Synchronic could help him find Dennis’s teen daughter, who goes missing.

Synchronic is a time-traveling movie that strays away from many of the time-traveling movie formulas, giving it a fresh perspective and allows it to de-romanticize the idea of the past. Dornan isn’t the main protagonist in the way Mackie is, but he’s a critical part of the story. His bond with Mackie’s character is one of Synchronic’s main driving forces. It also gets its emotional weight because of Dennis’s missing daughter and the toll that takes on his family. Synchronic is available to rent on VOD.

Rent it on Amazon here.

New Worlds (2014)

New Worlds is a four-episode historical miniseries that stars Jamie Dornan, Joe Dempsie, Alice Englert, Freya Mavor, Pip Carter, and Holli Dempsey. Set in America and England in the 1680s, New Worlds follows England during the rule of Charles II and the struggles endured by those with a quest for liberty. It’s the sequel to the 2008 miniseries The Devil’s Whore. New Worlds takes place 20-years after The Devil’s Whore.

Jamie Dornan plays Abe Goffe, a renegade that falls for the daughter of an anti-monarchist Beth Fanshawe (Freya Mavor). If you’re a fan of historical fiction, then New Worlds may fit your desires for some 1600s drama. New Worlds is available to stream on Acorn TV.

Stream it on Acorn TV here.

Purchase episodes on Amazon here.

My Dinner With Herve (2018)

My Dinner with Herve is based on the life of Hervé Villechaize, best known for his role as Tattoo on Fantasy Island. The film stars Peter Dinklage as Hervé Villechaize. The cast of My Dinner with Herve includes Jamie Dornan and Andy Garcia. Dornan plays Danny Tate, a journalist who interviews Hervé. It follows these two broken men as Hervé tells Tate more of his life story. The two bond in their self-destructive and damaged behavior.

My Dinner with Herve includes two really strong performances from Dornan and Dinklage. It’s a fascinating snapshot of one moment and how it fits into the big picture of these men’s lives. My Dinner with Herve is an HBO Original Movie, so available to stream on HBO Max.

Stream it on HBO Max here.

Purchase it on Amazon here.

Robin Hood (2018)

Robin Hood is the retelling of the prince of thieves story of Robin Hood. Taron Egerton plays the title character, Jamie Foxx plays Little John, Ben Mendelsohn plays the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Jamie Dornan plays Will Tillman (a new version of Will Scarlet), and Eve Hewson plays Maid Marian.

If you’ve ever thought, “they really need to do another Robin Hood movie and this time add a bunch of action, and also make sure the cast includes Egerton, Foxx, and Dornan,“ well your request is answered with this 2018 action-adventure flick. Robin Hood is available to stream for free on Peacock.

Stream it on Peacock here.

Rent it on Amazon here.

Anthropoid (2016)

Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan star in Anthropoid, a film about Operation Anthropoid. Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the World War II assassination of Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak soldiers. Murphy and Dornan play Jozef Gabcík and Jan Kubis.

In Anthropoid, Dornan plays more of the naive character compared to Murphy’s driven and determined character. They balance each other out because it helps paint the picture of two men who are doing something massive that could change the course of the war, but ultimately to do so, they risk nearly certain death. Anthropoid is available to stream on Starz.

Stream it on Starz here.

Rent it on Amazon here.

The Fall, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, and Fifty Shades of Grey are just a few of Jamie Dornan’s films available to stream or rent: Trolls World Tour is available to stream on Peacock, The Siege of Jadotville is available to stream on Netflix, A Private War is available to stream on Amazon Prime, and Untogether is available on Tubi. Most of these movies are also available to rent on Amazon Video. You can next catch Jamie Dornan in the HBO Max series The Tourist and the Kenneth Branagh-directed film Belfast.

Jamie Dornan’s had a huge year in Hollywood, appearing in Trolls World Tour, Wild Mountain Thyme (which featured his wife’s work to boot), and now Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. This also means he’s still doing the press rounds into 2021 and he recently had some nice things to say about his Fifty Shades of Grey co-star Dakota Johnson when entreated to play a game of “Would You Rather?”

Jamie Dornan was recently asked during an episode of Stir Crazy about whether or not he would prefer to be in an erotic book club with his real-life Fifty Shades of Grey co-star Dakota Johnson or her fictional counterpart from the mind of E.L. James, Anastasia Steele. He joked he’d choose the fictional version before clarifying to host Josh Horowitz that Dakota Johnson is the real deal.

You get to know people pretty well when you are filming a series of three intimate movies with them, and Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson have been open in the past about some weird stuff they got up to, including how they prepped for sex scenes. That entailed her drinking whiskey to get in the right mindset and Jamie Dornan apparently doing a lot of pushups to make sure he was looking OK shirtless. As I said, you get to know people pretty well, at least well enough to call them DJ.

As it turns out, this was the same question from the opposite perspective that Dakota Johnson was asked a while back. In her case, she was asked whether or not she’d prefer to be in an erotic book club with her co-star or the Christian Grey character. Women all over the world may disagree, but she absolutely picked the legitimately funny Jamie Dornan over the super serious Christian Grey, echoing Dornan’s comment here that Anastasia got all of the fun moments in the movies.

Josh Horowitz also informed Jamie Dornan that Dakota Johnson chose him as well, which made him pleased as punch. It’s probably been some time since the two have spent any time together, as filming wrapped on Fifty Shades Freed way back in 2016 as the latter two movies filmed back-to-back. Both actors have gone on to other projects in the time since (and Johnson's latest was even recently shut down due to Covid), but perhaps one day down the line they'll find themselves as co-stars once more.

Fifty Shades Freed ultimately hit theaters in 2018 (in February of that year actually), but it has been some time since Jamie Dornan slipped into Christian Grey’s character, complete with his American accent. Next up, you can catch him using his funny bone in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar this weekend as the new movie hits VOD just ahead of the Valentine’s and Galentine’s day holiday.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many anticipated films were forced into going the streaming route. One of those films was Trolls World Tour. The animated film featured Fifty Shades’ Jamie Dornan in a small, but pivotal role. His inclusion in Trolls World Tour has led to hilarious story about how he pled to be in the sequel, only to pay an outrageous amount for it.

As part of the Trolls World Tour ensemble, Jamie Dornan played the bounty-hunting Smoot Jazz troll, Chaz, with his scenes being some of the animated film’s highlights. Recently, the actor went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote his latest film, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar , before the conversation turned to his role in Trolls World Tour. Dornan spoke on how he and his daughter were hyped for the Trolls sequel arriving on VOD after pleading to be in the film. As Dornan recalled:

After buying Trolls World Tour on iTunes, Jamie Dornan decided to buy the animated film a few more times for his daughters. But after so many purchases, the actor found out an unexpected advantage of being in the film from his agent. The actor continued:

Hearing Jamie Dornan’s outrageous story pointed out how even the actors sometimes miss out on the benefits of a “freebie.” Dorman was just a typical dad trying to win favor with his children. Plus, who hasn’t spent a large amount of money trying to make their kids happy? Like other Hollywood players (and parents, in general), the actor isn’t above having his family not really care about his profession unless it’s something everyone can participate in or enjoy. If you want to watch Dornan as Chaz, you can check out Trolls World Tour on Hulu, Peacock, Vudu and Prime Video.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

When it comes to certain actors, sometimes you think of the roles that made them famous. For Harrison Ford, instantly Han Solo comes to mind. For Daniel Radcliffe, I think of Harry Potter and the crazy saga that he starred in. When it comes to Dakota Johnson, though, I always think of Fifty Shades of Grey. And, while it was never my particular favorite film, I always could admire Johnson for her acting skills, and for other roles she has had in the past.

Just because she is known for the popular explicit series, though, doesn’t mean that she hasn’t done some other awesome films. From comedies like 21 Jump Street to horrors like Wounds, Johnson has some serious range and it’s a shame that people don’t talk about it more. But that’s why this list exists, for us to talk about the best performances of Dakota Johnson, and where to watch them.

The Social Network (Netflix)

I feel like everyone in the world has heard about The Social Network at this point, considering it’s a fantastic movie. Even so, The Social Network is about the birth of Facebook and the early years of the youngest billionaire ever, Mark Zuckerberg. Businesses rise, friendships fall, and people get sued pretty consistently in this drama – all based on a true story.

You might not believe it, but this was actually Johnson’s breakout role. While she had her film debut back in 1999 in Crazy in Alabama, this was the first time Hollywood got to see her skills, and while her role was minor, it was only the beginning of her career.

Stream it on Netflix here.

The Five-Year Engagement (HBO Max)

A classic comedy, The Five-Year Engagement is a great time for anyone to watch. It follows the lives of Tom and Violet, and the story of how their relationship becomes strained as their engagement goes on.

While Johnson does have another minor role in this, she stands out among the others in the film, showing her staying power as an actress. And, who would have ever thought of her as a comedic actress really? It’s funny to see her in something so different.

Stream it on HBO Max here.

Suspiria (Amazon Prime)

Bit of a change in direction here, as Suspiria is a supernatural horror film following the story of a young woman who enrolls in a prestigious dance academy. It sounds normal until she finds out that it’s actually a coven, and the school is run by witches, which bring about threats that she never thought she would have to face.

If you’re into horror, this is the movie for you. Not only is Johnson the star of this film, but plenty of critics have gone on to say that the visual effects of the film were pretty great, too, something that is always essential for a good horror movie.

Stream it on Amazon Prime here.

Wounds (Hulu)

Another horror film on this list, Wounds mixes the genre with psychological terror to provide an intense thrill in a movie that is only available on streaming. A bartender in New Orleans begins to experience strange occurrences in his life after he brings home a phone left at his bar. Over time, the situation gets worse and worse.

One of the more recent entries on this list that features Johnson, she definitely shows that horror is something that she is not afraid of. While the first entry on this list that specialized in horror was good, this movie sort of takes it to another level and almost gets trippy after a while, but it doesn’t stall her. The plot can sometimes be confusing, but that’s usually what happens during a psychological thriller. Even so, Dakota Johnson still shines.

Stream it on Hulu here.

The Peanut Butter Falcon (Hulu)

I’m always a fan of sleeper hits, and The Peanut Butter Falcon is the pure definition of that phrase. The film tells the story of a young boy with Down syndrome who escapes an assisted living facility and stumbles across a friendly fisherman. But, of course, not everything can go as planned, as a social worker is trying to track him down.

One thing that makes this film so great is that it was an independent film, but it received so much praise that it grossed over $23 million despite it not having a big release, which shows how amazing it is. Johnson’s performance was praised, and this was one of her first roles post-Fifty Shades of Grey. Not only is Johnson great in The Peanut Butter Falcon, but she is also joined by many stars who shine around her, and she has some great chemistry with, such as Shia LaBeouf and Jon Bernthal. It’s really worth the watch.

Stream it on Hulu here.

The High Note (HBO Max)

I never thought of Dakota Johnson as someone who was close to music, but after seeing this movie I believe that she could be a part of that world if she wanted to. The plot of The High Note focuses on Johnson’s character Maggie, who has been a longtime assistant to a famous R&B singer, Grace Davis. While her job is great and all, Maggie’s big dream is becoming a music producer, and the film follows all the different ways in which she tries to reach that goal.

It’s a shame that the movie came out in 2020, where it didn't get to have a splashy theatrical release. However, this film was still released in a few theaters, and Johnson definitely shows a different side of her acting skill in it. I quickly believed her in this role, and I think that no matter what, everyone always loves the origin story of watching someone grow as they do what they love. And, that’s what The High Note is about. Whether you’re a music fan or not, this movie is still a good time.

Stream it on HBO Max here.

21 Jump Street (Starz)

It’s amazing what you notice upon re-watching of these movies, and I honestly only just recognized that Dakota Johnson had an appearance in 21 Jump Street. The film follows the story of two buddy cops, Schmidt and Jenko, as they go undercover as high school students to try and prevent the outbreak of a new drug, while also finding out who the supplier is.

We’ve already seen that Johnson does have some comedy chops in here from her appearance in The Five-Year Engagement, but no one ever said you could have too much comedy in your life. While her role is smaller in this one compared to others on the list, it’s most certainly memorable. The cast that stands beside her also makes the movie a fun watch. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have amazing chemistry, and Dave Franco is awesome as well – it’s just all-around great.

Stream it on Starz here.

The Fifty Shades Of Grey Movies (Peacock)

I mean, duh.

Arguably this is the film series that made her famous, and while it’s not necessarily the best out there, she does perform the role well. Fifty Shades of Grey tells the story of Anastasia Steele, a young woman who meets a billionaire, Christian Grey, during an interview she was covering for her journalist friend. From there, she realizes she just can’t stay away, but Christian has a dirty little secret – he’s into BDSM and she’s quite the opposite - at least at first.

Look. I’m going to be honest. I was never the hugest fan of these movies just because the plot has been done before I think that it could have been written better. I mean, it did start out as Twilight fanfiction, didn’t it? But that doesn’t take away from the fact that, despite the storyline and what happens, Dakota does a kick-ass job at portraying the character from the books, all the other issues with the films aside. Even here, she does show she can act, and that speaks volumes considering the rest of the film, and the trilogy as a whole. If erotic dramas are something that you’re into, it’s definitely worth the watch for her acting.

Stream it on Peacock here.

Dakota Johnson Movies Available To Rent Or On-Demand Through Streaming TV Services

While these movies listed above are easily available to stream on regular streaming sites, all of the ones below you can access through certain add-ons to streaming services or cable companies, or if you wish, you can rent them as well. It’s completely up to the viewer.

Bad Times At The El Royale (Rental)

How To Be Single (Rental)

Need For Speed (Hulu, Live-TV)

Cymbeline (Hulu, Live-TV)

A Bigger Splash (Rental)

Whether you're into horror, romance or comedy, Dakota Johnson has got you covered no matter what. Take your pick!

Everything has to come to an end. In 2018, only a few short years after it began in 2015, the Fifty Shades of Grey movie franchise concluded with Fifty Shades Freed, the third installment in the steamy trilogy, thus bringing Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey's tale to its final climax. While the series wasn't meant to last, the careers of its two main stars, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, continues to evolve in many expanding and bountiful ways.

Let's take a peek and see what the Fifty Shades of Grey cast is doing now.

Dakota Johnson (Anastasia "Ana" Steele)

As Anastasia "Ana" Steele, a shy-natured English major who forms an intensely sexual romantic relationship with billionaire bachelor Christian Grey, Dakota Johnson found her breakthrough role at the forefront of the Fifty Shades trilogy. Making her film debut at age 10 with Crazy in Alabama, Johnson's other notable movie roles include The Social Network, How to Be Single, A Bigger Splash, Black Mass, 21 Jump Street, Need for Speed, and The Five-Year Engagement. Following her work in the Fifty Shades movies, Johnson starred in Suspiria (2018), Bad Times at the El Royale, Wounds, and The Peanut Butter Falcon.

Most recently, Dakota Johnson acted in The High Note and this past weekend's Our Friend. Next, she'll be seen in The Nowhere Inn and Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter. Outside of acting, Johnson directed Coldplay's "Cry Cry Cry" music video. She's also starring in Elaine May's Crackpot, and she'll produce and star in Forever, Interrupted, Unfit, Queens of the Stoned Age, the limited series, Cult Following, and the mockumentary series, Rodeo Queens.

Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey)

In the role of Christian Grey, the young (and very handsome) billionaire, entrepreneur, and CEO who forms an unconventional romantic relationship with Anastasia, Jamie Dornan plays our beefy and tormented male lead in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Previously a model, Dornan first gained recognition for his work in The Fall, Once Upon a Time, and Marie Antoinette. His other notable credits include Anthropoid, The Siege of Jadotville, and New Worlds. Following his work in the Fifty Shades movies, Dornan was seen in HBO's My Dinner with Herve, Untogether, A Private War, Robin Hood (2018), and the mini-series, Death and Nightingales.

Most recently, Jamie Dornan starred in Endings, Beginnings, Synchronic, and Wild Mountain Thyme. He was also heard in Trolls World Tour. Next, Dornan appears in February's Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. He also stars in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast.

Eloise Mumford (Katherine "Kate" Kavanagh)

Playing the part of Katherine "Kate" Kavanagh, Ana's best friend and, eventually, Elliot Grey's fiancée, Eloise Mumford has a notable supporting role in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Outside of these movies, the actress can be seen in Law & Order: SVU, Starz's Crash, Lone Star, The River, Christmas with Holly, Just in Time For Christmas, So Undercover, and In the Blood.

Following her time in the Fifty Shades series, Eloise Mumford starred in Hallmark Channel's A Veteran's Christmas. She also appeared in Standing Up, Falling Down, and the mini-series, Horse's Mouth. Additionally, she had a recurring role in Chicago Fire. Most recently, Mumford was seen in Disney+'s The Right Stuff.

Jennifer Ehle (Carla Wilks)

In the role of Carla Wilks, Anastasia's mother, Jennifer Ehle plays a loving character in the Fifty Shades movies. Most notably, Ehle won a BAFTA for her performance in the 1995 BBC mini-series, Pride and Prejudice. She also won two Tony awards for her Broadway roles in 2000's The Real Thing and 2007's The Coast of Utopia, respectively. On the big screen, Ehle is recognizable for her work in Contagion, Zero Dark Thirty, A Little Chaos, The King's Speech, A Quiet Passion, Little Men, Wilde, Sunshine (1999), RoboCop (2014), The Adjustment Bureau, and Detroit. Following her time in the Fifty Shades movies, the actress appeared in Vox Lux, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, I Kill Giants, Take Point, The Wolf Hour, The Professor and the Madman, Wetlands, Monster (2018), and Hulu's The Looming Tower.

Most recently, Jennifer Ehle was seen in Run This Town and Showtime's The Comey Rule. Next, she'll appear in Saint Maud, John and the Hole, which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies, which screened at TIFF.

Marcia Gay Harden (Dr. Grace Trevelyan-Grey)

As Dr. Grace Trevelyan-Grey, Christian's adoptive mother, Marcia Gay Harden plays a prominent supporting character in the Fifty Shades series, especially in the sequels. Most notably, the actress is known for Pollock, for which she was Oscar-nominated, Mystic River, Used Cars, The First Wives Club, Flubber, Into the Wild, and The Mist. Harden was also Tony-nominated for Angels in America and God of Carnage. Additionally, she appeared in The Newsroom and The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. During her time in Fifty Shades, Harden starred in CBS's Code Black. Following her role in Fifty Shades Freed, Harden was seen in Point Blank and Lifetime's Love You to Death. She was also heard in BoJack Horseman.

Most recently, Marcia Gay Harden appeared in National Geographic's Barkskins. The actress also guest-starred in A Million Little Things and played a recurring role in The Morning Show. Next, she'll be seen in Amy Poehler's Moxie, which premieres on Netflix on March 3rd. Additionally, Harden will star in Pink Skies Ahead, which was screened at October's AFI Fest.

Victor Rasuk (Jose Rodriguez)

Playing the part of Jose Rodriguez, Anastasia's friend, Victor Rasuk plays a notable supporting character in the Fifty Shades movies. Some of Rasuk's other notable credits include How to Make It in America, Lords of Dogtown, Stalker, Jobs, ER, Godzilla (2014), Law & Order: SVU, Stop-Loss, Colony, Being Flynn, Che, and Raising Victor Vargas. After the Fifty Shades franchise, Rasuk appeared in The Mule. He also played a recurring role in Amazon Prime's Jack Ryan.

Most recently, Victor Rasuk was seen in ABC's The Baker and the Beauty. Next, the actor stars in Holy New York and Jesse Eisenberg's Bream Gives Me Hiccups.

Luke Grimes (Elliot Grey)

In the role of Elliot Grey, Christian's adopted brother, Luke Grimes played a prominent supporting role in the Fifty Shades movies. Outside of this performance, Grimes is known for American Sniper. His other notable film credits include All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Taken 2, Freeheld, The Magnificent Seven (2016), and El Camino Christmas. He also played a recurring role in True Blood and a main role in Brothers & Sisters. Shortly after the Fifty Shades movies, Grimes appeared in Into the Ashes. Currently, Grimes stars in Paramount Network's Yellowstone.

Rita Ora (Mia Grey)

As Mia Grey, Christian's adopted younger sister, musician Rita Ora played a notable supporting role in the Fifty Shades movies. As a musician, Ora is one of the most famous solo acts to come out of the U.K. in recent years. Her chart-topping tracks include "Let Me Love You," "Anywhere," "How We Do (Party)," and "R.I.P." She also performed "For You," which is on Fifty Shades Freed's soundtrack. Her other acting credits include Fast & Furious 6, Spivs, Southpaw, and The Brief. Additionally, she was a coach on The Voice UK, a judge on The X Factor, and the host of Boy Band and America's Next Top Model.

Following her time in Fifty Shades, Rita Ora appeared in Detective Pikachu. Currently, she's a panelist for Masked Singer UK and a coach for The Voice Australia. Next, Ora stars in Wonderwell and Twist. Also, she's currently working on her third studio album.

Callum Keith Rennie (Ray Steele)

Playing the part of Ray Steele, Anatasia's father, Callum Keith Rennie played a familial supporting character in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Most notably, Rennie is known for Battlestar Galactica and Californication. He has several other notable movies and TV credits to his name, including Blade: Trinity, Memento, eXistenZ, Warcraft, Jigsaw, The L Word, The Killing, Longmire, and The Man in the High Castle.

Following his time in the Fifty Shades movies, Callum Keith Rennie played a recurring role in Netflix's Jessica Jones. Most recently, he appeared in YouTube Premium's Impulse.

Eric Johnson (Jack Hyde)

In the role of Jack Hyde, Ana's boss and stalker, Eric Johnson played a menacing part in Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. Most notably, Johnson is known for Flash Gordon, Smallville, and Rookie Blue. He was also part of the main cast for The Knick and Caught, and he appears in Criminal Minds, Orphan Black, The Alienist, and Saving Hope. Meanwhile, Johnson's other film credits include Legends of the Fall, Texas Rangers, and Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed. Following this franchise's finale, Johnson was seen in A Simple Favor.

Most recently, Eric Johnson was seen in Disappearance at Clifton Hill, Epix's Condor, and the final season of History Channel's Vikings. Currently, he appears in American Gods' newest season.

Kim Basinger (Elena Lincoln)

As Elena Lincoln, Christian's business partner and former romantic partner, Kim Basinger had a starry supporting role in Fifty Shades Darker. She also cameoed in Fifty Shades Freed. Most famously, Basinger won the Oscar for L.A. Confidential. Her other notable film credits include 9 1/2 Weeks, Batman, Nadine, The Natural, Never Say Never Again, Cellular, Wayne's World 2, 8 Mile, The Nice Guys, The Door in the Floor, Cool World, The Informers, Charlie St. Cloud, and My Stepmother is an Alien, to name only a few. Most recently, Basinger was seen in the marketing campaign, Miu Miu: Icons.

Bella Heathcote (Leila Williams)

Playing the part of Leila Williams, one of Christian's former submissives, Bella Heathcote had one of her most high-profile roles in Fifty Shades Darker. Most notably, the actress is known for Dark Shadows, The Neon Demon, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman, and The Man in the High Castle. She also had a recurring role in Neighbors. Her other notable film credits include In Time, Not Fade Away, The Curse of Downers Grove, Beneath Hill 60, and The Rewrite. Additionally, she had a main part in CBS All Access' Strange Angel.

Most recently, Bella Heathcote starred in Relic and Stan's Bloom. She also guest-starred in Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. Next, she'll appear in Pieces of Her.

Arielle Kebbel (Gia Matteo)

In the role of Gia Matteo, the architect who's recommended to design Anastasia and Christian's future home, Arielle Kebbel plays a brief but memorable supporting role in Fifty Shades Freed. Following this trilogy-capper, Kebbel starred in Another Time and Hallmark's A Brush with Love. She also played a recurring role in Grand Hotel.

Arielle Kebbel's other notable film credits include John Tucker Must Die, American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Aquamarine, The Uninvited, Think Like a Man, The Grudge 2, Be Cool, and Soul Plane. On television, Kebbel played main parts in Ballers, Life Unexpected, and Midnight Texas. She also played recurring roles in Gilmore Girls, The Vampire Diaries, and 90210. Most recently, Kebbel starred in NBC's Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector. Next, she'll be seen in After We Fell.

Tyler Hoechlin (Boyce Fox)

As Boyce Fox, a popular author, Tyler Heochlin plays a minor role in Fifty Shades Freed. Most notably, Hoechlin is known for MTV's Teen Wolf. He also plays Superman in the Arrowverse, notably Supergirl. Additionally, Hoechlin had a prominent role in 7th Heaven. His other notable credits include Road to Perdition, Everybody Wants Some!!, Hall Pass, and Undrafted. Following his work in Fifty Shades Freed, Hoechlin was seen in The Domestics, Bigger, Then Came You, and Can You Keep A Secret?

Most recently, Tyler Hoechlin appeared in Palm Springs and Crisis on Infinite Earths. He's also heard in Final Fantasy VIII Remake. Next, Hoechlin will reprise his role as Superman in The CW's Superman and Lois.

Who are your favorite Fifty Shades of Grey stars? Let us know in the comments below! Also, you can stream Fifty Shades of Grey on Peacock here.

Team Edward vs. Team Jacob divided an entire generation of Twilight fans, but when push came to shove, it was all sparkles over even golden tans for Bella Swan by the end of the series. Edward Cullen is the more daring and dangerous option, inspiring E.L. James’ erotic Fifty Shades series, paving the way for Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan to portray another pair of star-crossed lovers.

With that in mind, Dakota Johnson is kind of part of the Twilight family, once or twice removed. While playing a game on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the host and actress discussed famous debates such as the Titanic door, Friends’ “We were on a break” discourse and Twilight’s love triangle. Here how they settled it:

It’s unanimous. Team Edward it is. And while there are most certainly some Jacob fans who would stand up in his honor if the late night show was still being filmed in studio, it definitely feels like the majority seems to be aimed at Bella’s favorite vampire these days too. Although Jacob is technically the safer and more natural option for the teen to go for, Bella fits in much better with Edward Cullen when you look close up at the details.

Sure, Jacob does have a major leg up by not wanting to kill her and drink the blood between her flesh. But it’s book series; no one is actually advocating for vampire boyfriends. Dakota Johnson did not offer much explanation as to why she settled the famous Twilight debate how she did, but check out how it shook up between her and Jimmy Fallon:

Do you think Dakota Johnson is a Twilight fan? The fanbase has recently found a resurgence this past year with the release of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun, a long-awaited retelling of the first book from Edward’s perspective. The book further fanned the Team Edward flames as we were able to get the teen vampire’s side of the story as he fell in love with Bella. We’d be interested in what Jacob’s POV might be like too, but it’d unlikely change most of our minds about Edward and Bella.

Team Edward has also been amped up thanks to Robert Pattinson’s renaissance in Hollywood the past few years, whether that be his role in Good Time or in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet last year. The actor is suiting up to play Batman next for Matt Reeves’ noir treatment of the Dark Knight, whilst Taylor Lautner has gone largely off the grid since Twilight aside from a few projects like Scream Queens and The Ridiculous 6.

Where do you stand? Team Edward or Team Jacob? Vote in our poll below to cement your blood pact.

This poll is no longer available.

Very sex-filled spoilers are coming up in this Vikings Season 6 article. Don’t tempt your fate written by the gods by reading if you haven’t caught the episodes yet.

It’s been a few days since Amazon brought Season 6B of Vikings into our homes. Per usual, the series Michael Hirst created was full of violence, deaths both noble and bitter, family drama, some doomed romantic partnerships, and, in one case, a scene that seemed straight out of 50 Shades of Grey--and had a Fifty Shades connection to boot.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on Vikings since Season 6 of the hit show started, you may already know the History and Amazon series added Eric Johnson to play Erik Thorvaldsson, an ally of Bjorn’s during the show’s final season. That is, at least until Bjorn says his final goodbyes on the series, which comes early during Season 6B.

After that, Erik gets a little bit more power hungry on the series. Not helping matters is the return of King Harold, who decides to take Ingrid as a wife, as well as to journey to England and fight with Ivar. This means he leaves Ingrid with Erik, and Erik clearly doesn’t have a lot of experience with a woman like Ingrid. Plus, Harold seemingly sets Erik up for success by putting him in charge of decisions, but ultimately this simply means Ingrid is champing at the bit to get him out of the way.

Anyway, you may not recognize Eric Johnson for some of his other roles, because he’s sporting long hair, braids and a wholly impressive beard on Vikings. I really wouldn’t blame ya if you didn’t recognize that he’s the same guy who plays the jealous Jack Hyde in 50 Shades of Grey--a point worth noting while we talk about the intricacies of this Ingrid/Erik “relationship.”

Perhaps my favorite moment in Season 6B comes when Ingrid decides to enact a plan to take over power in Kattegat. She does so using her sexual prowess, and this leads to a scene where she and Erik have a talk. She ultimately tells him she “wants to see the marks,” turns him around, and then whips his back as some foreplay before they have sex. It’s not my favorite because I’m mostly looking forward to Vikings' bedroom scenes, but because it looks like some pretty familiar Red Room scenes...

Having not spoken to CinemaBlend about this moment in particular, I have no idea if Michael Hirst thought the BDSM was a good moment to nod to Eric Johnson’s prominent work in 50 Shades of Grey or if the tie-in happened by chance. However, it’s literally all I could think of as Ingrid took a whip and went to town before the two characters ultimately took one another in the bedroom. You can say a lot about the dom/sub relationship in Fifty Shades of Grey, but those movies are heavily about Anastasia Steele navigating her way though Christian Grey’s world and preferences.

In the case of Vikings, one of the cool themes of the show is women who take on power and how they wield it. In this case, Ingrid just takes what she wants in the bedroom scene and Erik looks to navigate the moment and cede power in order to obtain pleasure. He ends up being blinded and ultimately killed for this decision, but it’s him navigating her world and her rules during the major Vikings episode. If the Erik and Ingrid scene is meant to be a contrast to 50 Shades of Grey I really dig it. And if it’s a coincidence, I still can’t get enough of how neatly the scenes tie together while showing contrasting viewpoints.

There’s ultimately something very satisfying about seeing an actor like Eric Johnson jump from a major franchise to a totally different sort of period drama. In an interview at Escapist Mag a while back, he talked about shooting a battle scene early on with 300 people on camera and 600 people on set to make the scene work. It’s a totally different ballgame to film a historical drama with deep action over something with a smaller universe like Fifty Shades of Grey.

That he -- amidst boat scenes, battle scenes and one final moment with a pitchfork -- was still able to pull off a scene that would be very in keeping with the 50 Shades universe is extremely satisfying as someone who has engaged with both properties. Though, to be fair, 50 Shades is less into the witchcraft than Vikings’ final episodes. And actually it’s that witchcraft bit that ends up being Erik’s downfall in Vikings Season 6.

You can stream Season 6B of Vikings anytime you want to with Amazon Prime. Or catch the final episodes when they eventually air on the History channel this year.

Jamie Dornan will likely always be remembered as Christian Grey, Fifty Shades of Grey’s businessman with kinks for BDSM in his own Red Room. But the 38-year-old is now two years removed from the franchise and exploring some new roles that challenge his talents and the audience’s perception of the actor. One such project is Wild Mountain Thyme, where the Irish actor plays a lonely and socially-awkward farmer opposite Emily Blunt and, while discussing the new role, Dornan explained that playing Grey wasn't without its struggles.

Fans of the Fifty Shades movies will likely be taken aback by the very different kind of romance Jamie Dornan fronts in Wild Mountain Thyme. There’s a more inhibited and eccentric quality about his character, Anthony Reilly. It’s from the viewpoint of his Wild Mountain Thyme character that he examines his differences from Christian Grey. In his words:

It’s like they say, hindsight is 20/20. When speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actor admitted to finding it difficult at times to relate and enter the headspace of Christian Grey, who is known to be super confident, aggressive and eager to be in control. It’s a quite tempered headspace for the actor to have spent four years of his life inside, and it sounds like he never surrendered himself to Christian’s psyche.

For Wild Mountain Thyme, he felt more comfortable getting close to Anthony Reilly, an Irish farmer. It makes sense considering the actor actually does live in the countryside in South West England with his wife, three daughters, and a number of farm animals such as goats, chickens, bats, a horse and a dog. Though as he told CinemaBlend when we interviewed the actor for the movie, he and Emily Blunt had a curious response to their interactions with the animals:

Jamie Dornan is at home with trying new characters outside of Fifty Shades of Grey, taking a note out of the playbook of his pal, Twilight’s Robert Pattinson, who has explored a breadth of memorable roles in recent years and has established himself as an impressive talent outside his work on the major romance franchise. Dornan has been in a number of interesting new roles as of late, such as one of the most under-the-radar sci-fi flicks of the year, Synchronic, in which he stars alongside Anthony Mackie.

Wild Mountain Thyme, on the other hand, centers on the drama between the Reilly family, Dornan’s Anthony and his father (played by Christopher Walken), when he decides he may be giving his farm to an American cousin (played by Jon Hamm) instead of his son. Emily Blunt’s Rosemary Muldoon gets in the middle when her feelings for Anthony are challenged by Hamm’s character. The movie is currently playing in select theaters and available to rent on demand.

There was a time when it felt like everyone in the world was talking about Fifty Shades of Grey. Both the book series and the subsequent film adaptations became hot topics and helped make its lead actors huge stars. However, some people actually didn't latch onto the Fifty Shades fervor, including Jamie Dornan’s new co-star, Emily Blunt, which actually may have been good news for the actor.

In Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan plays Christian Grey, a super rich mogul-in-the-making with some dark secrets -- including what he gets up to in the bedroom. The franchise is well known for its super sexy themes (and the resulting controversy around them), and it would be a bit of an understatement to say that it helped turn Jamie Dornan into a worldwide sex symbol.

Christian Grey is definitely the kind of role that tends to follow an actor long after the cameras stop rolling, and it's something Jamie Dornan is definitely aware of. His Wild Mountain Thyme co-star Emily Blunt recently told ET that he had an interesting reaction when she told him she was out of the Fifty Shades loop:

Of course, just because Emily Blunt hadn’t seen Fifty Shades of Grey, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t aware of who Jamie Dornan is and what he could bring to their on-screen partnership. Blunt was more familiar with some of the actor's other work:

There’s something to be said for not having preconceived notions about someone before you work with them. While Jamie Dornan doesn't appear to have any negative feelings towards the Fifty Shades franchise, his relief at playing opposite someone who didn’t think of him as Christian Grey shouldn’t come as too big a surprise.

In the past, Dornan has been vocal about the pros and cons of taking on such an iconic role. While he’s surely aware of the opportunities (and financial security) the Fifty Shades series afforded him, he’s also revealed that he feels much more comfortable making indie films than he does taking on big studio roles. He’s also made it clear the attention and scrutiny he received while playing Christian Grey was somewhat stressful.

Wild Mountain Thyme is definitely a departure from Fifty Shades of Grey - both films are romances, but that’s about all they have in common. It’s currently available to view in theaters and to rent on digital platforms.

Jamie Dornan was known to fans of Once Upon A Time and other TV projects before landing the lead in Fifty Shades of Grey. However, it was after joining that franchise that his popularity skyrocketed, leading to plenty of opportunities in Hollywood after the third film was released. However, it turns out Jamie Dornan actually learned a bit from his pal Twilight’s Robert Pattinson as he was figuring out what to do next in his career.

During a recent interview, Jamie Dornan confirmed that he is, in fact, friends with Twilight star Robert Pattinson and has been following him throughout his career. He was around when the actor hopped from a major franchise to doing obscure stuff and really respects what Pattinson did in movies from Cosmopolis to The Lighthouse.

Jamie Dornan took note and has embarked on a similar path with his Fifty Shades Freed follow-ups. He starred in a slew of independent projects including A Private War and Endings, Beginnings opposite Shailene Woodley. While his name has been connected with bigger budget movies such as Robin Hood or Trolls World Tour the actor also told Variety he “love[s] the energy” of indie movies, also saying he enjoys the “sort of kick, frolic, scramble-to-the-finish-line every day” required of working on smaller films with smaller budgets. He’s previously said indie films are where he’s “most comfortable” as well.

There’s a second way Jamie Dornan may follow in Robert Pattinson’s footsteps as well. While his time post-Fifty Shades has been peppered with mostly independent projects, he might pull a Robert Pattinson on us once more down the line. Dornan, in fact noted that while he’s trying to ride the independent train for now, he’s open to doing a different type of franchise movie should it come down the pipeline.

If you are familiar with the pattern of Robert Pattinson’s career, he did the major Twilight films, which wrapped with Breaking Dawn - Part II and then he shifted into indies such as the ones mentioned in this story. After he’d taking a few years to really get into meaty acting roles, he then signed on to Matt Reeves’ The Batman and will (hopefully) play the Caped Crusader through a series of planned movies for Warner Bros. Perhaps Jamie Dornan will land another big budget role that’s equally high-profile in a different franchise down the line?

OK, I gotta say this just because I think it could be interesting casting: The last time James Bond was from Ireland was when Pierce Brosnan took a gander at the gig, and the 007 role will be vacated very soon. There are worse possibilities than Jamie Dornan to my way of thinking, but we’ll just have to wait and see how that particular puzzle shakes out.

Fifty Shades of Grey has a very dedicated fanbase, one that has followed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele from the page to the big screen. However, despite the love from the fans, the critics have not been as kind to the Fifty Shades franchise, and lead Jamie Dornan recently revealed one particularly brutal review that has stuck with him over the years.

The critics haven’t always been super kind to Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker or Fifty Shades Freed. However, in general I’d say this has more to do with the plot of the films than the acting from Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, who have both gone on to more critically acclaimed things. Regardless, in a recent interview, Jamie Dornan revealed one particularly brutal review was all about his performance, though he says he doesn’t “entirely disagree.”

The above comments to Variety came as part of his press for Wild Mountain Thyme but I went ahead and did a little sleuthing and believe I found the review in question, which comes from The Diva Review, who did literally compare Christian Grey to oatmeal when the first flick came out.

I personally thought the comment was going to be more of the “stodgy” or “mushy” variety when oatmeal was compared to Christian Grey as a character, but I can certainly see why Jamie Dornan found it to be a memorable one-liner. Brutal.

These days, Jamie Dornan is out and about working on a lot of indie films. While Fifty Shades has opened a lot of doors for the actor to become a household name and take paths that are more akin to what he really wants to be doing and less akin to being shirtless eye candy, Dornan still understands the franchise was the path to help get him there. He’s respectful about his time with Dakota Johnson on the big screen yet says he is looking forward to more “diverse and interesting work.”

Touching again on the critics, Jamie Dornan also just talked about what it was like to be Christian Grey in the box office monsters that were the Fifty Shades films. He knew going into Fifty Shades of Grey exactly what he was in for, but says that it doesn’t make the feelings any less “strange.”

Though Jamie Dornan says he can’t imagine playing a character for “multiple, multiple films” again, I personally wouldn’t fully close the door to that idea. Robert Pattinson, for example, took a similar path in the indie world after his big role in Twilight and ultimately did join another big budget movie with Matt Reeves’ The Batman, a movie expected to spawn sequels. So, never say never.

Meanwhile, you can catch Jamie Dornan back in a romantic role opposite Emily Blunt when Wild Mountain Thyme premieres on December 11. Or keep your eyes peeled for the latest from E.L. James’ mind with The Mister movie updates.

If I had to make a list of actors who were shirtless most often in movies, Jamie Dornan and Zac Efron would come to mind very early on. When it comes to NSFW sex scenes, they absolutely make that list too, though there are some other surprising Hollywood actors and actresses who have also landed on a list of most “severe” aka racy sex scenes in movies. In fact, the number one slot actually goes to Julianne Moore, but there’s a whole Top 10 list to peruse through.

So, how does one come up with a list of “severe” sex scenes in movies? A survey conducted by Online Gambling looked into a number of parental advisory warnings for sex and nudity compiled by IMDB and triangulated those with movies that were marked “most severe” to find some of the raciest scenes in movies. The list of actors and actresses came from figuring out which celebrities were in the most movies on the list that fit within the "severe" definition. As it turns out, some of the people who made the list make total sense and some are Seth Rogen.

Really though, if you look at the full list, you can zoom in on Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. Both have three movies on the list, which obviously makes so much sense given both of them are the leads in the notably raunchy Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. No one’s out there accusing The Peanut Butter Falcon of being gratuitous, though it’s worth pointing out that Jamie Dornan’s Endings, Beginnings has a fair amount of sex in it.

Julianne Moore topped the list thanks to roles like The Kids Are Alright, in which she’s (spoilers) in a same-sex relationship with Annette Bening’s character but also does the deed with Mark Ruffalo’s character. She’s also in The End of the Affair and three more movies that landed her right at the top of this NSFW list.

Kate Winslet gets naked a lot in The Reader and other movies, and the outlet also declares Ewan McGregor’s raunchiest movie to be Velvet Goldmine, in case you were wanting to check out what pushed him over the edge and helped him to land in one of those two 4-movie slots.

All the movies are not listed in relation to the actors, so they leave some gaps, particularly thanks to my cinematic memory. I know Zac Efron, for example, has a lengthy and memorable sex scene with Taylor Schilling in The Lucky One that might have helped him achieve such great heights on this list. And Seth Rogen’s NSFW sex scenes may include the famous condom-less sex scene in Knocked Up and probably Zack and Miri Make A Porno--at least that’s my best guess.

The study also looked into genres, determining that dramas actually more often feature this sort of “severe” sex scene, even more so than comedies (makes sense) or romances (more surprising) might. Thirty-three of the drama movies studied had high ratings in regards to sex and nudity, whereas 12 comedies and 14 romances made the list. Low on the sex and nudity totem pole were horror and fantasy movies, with only one fantasy flick making the list and two horror movies total fitting the criteria.

At the end of the day, sex and nudity goes in waves in films and on TV. "Severe" nudity always exists of course, and we’ll have to wait and see a few years down the line if any new names populate this list.

E.L. James is an author with a popular franchise, Fifty Shades, and a popular one-off bestseller, The Mister, under her belt. She’s known for writing provocative fantasy, but at the end of the day the storyteller may have mastered scenes set in the red room, but she’s still grappling with why Fifty Shades Of Grey has been so popular.

Admitting she likes it when “things get steamy,” E.L. James was candid in an interview with ET about her place in the literary world and how she’s only one of many voices writing in her genre. She talked a little bit about Fifty Shades’ trajectory on both page and screen, noting that while the average person might find Christian Grey and Ana Steele’s behavior to be quite risqué, those genre readers should be very used to their sexual dynamic. She noted:

I appreciate E.L. James’ modesty here, but her books are behemoths and have far outsold the average erotic romance. In fact, last year, Fifty Shades Of Grey was marked down as the most popular book of the last decade. It outsold the likes of The Hunger Games and The Help, which were the fourth and fifth bestselling books of the decade. Number 2 and 3? Well, those spots went to Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

There’s been a lot of speculation over the years about why Fifty Shades has resonated so strongly with the fanbase. Sometimes a project will develop a small fanbase and then fan out due to good marketing or strong word of mouth, as happened with Schitt’s Creek in its later seasons on TV. But Fifty Shades of Grey also may have benefited from coming after Twilight but being based on the formula of that vampire series. Also true is the fact that BDSM fiction had not been widely marketed in the way Fifty Shades has been, at least at the time of its release.

Whatever the reason, the “big naked franchise” brought a lot of attention to E.L. James. Her subsequent book The Mister also landed some interest from movies studios and back in February we learned that Universal had signed on the dotted line to potentially bring the other book to the big screen. There hasn’t been a ton of public traction on that project in the months since, but as we know a lot of movie projects are in some stage of limbo right now as the global pandemic still rears its ugly head.

We’ll keep you posted if The Mister moves forward or if the author ever gets around to that fourth Fifty book. Meanwhile, E.L. James also said she “never considered Fifty Shades to be a BDSM book” in the same interview, which is a comment that's worth chewing on a little. It’s usually interesting to hear from an author’s point of view on a popular subject and in this case that certainly holds true.

If you know a bunch about Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels, you may already know the film franchise went through a very long list of potential stars before landing on Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. In fact, Pretty Little Liars and more recently Katy Keene star Lucy Hale once auditioned for the role well before she really even understood some of the BDSM-related language the books and movies made famous.

In fact, while doing promotion for her new movie A Nice Girl Like You, the actress revealed that she did audition for Fifty Shades of Grey, though it was a bit weirder than she expected. Although she did point out the casting team wasn’t having her actually read from dialogue that showed up in the movies, but rather sexually edgy dialogue that would have the same feel as E.L. James' work on the big screen.

The audition ended up making her a little uncomfortable, though she told the AP elsewhere in the interview that she was pretty young at the time she was auditioning to play Anastasia Steele. This would line up with the casting timeline, as it was way back in 2013 that Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam were officially cast as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Hunnam later left the project in favor of Jamie Dornan and filming commenced on Fifty Shades of Grey in 2015.

While Fifty Shades as a franchise still feels fairly contemporary given Fifty Shades Freed hit theaters back in 2018, it was actually quite a long time ago that Universal’s film franchise started casting. If Lucy Hale had auditioned in 2013, she would have been around 24 years old at the time and apparently the material was a little more mature than what she was used to, which makes sense given during that time she was still starring in the teen drama Pretty Little Liars.

Previously Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson told THR that what the women reading for Anastasia Steele were reading came from Persona, the 1966 film from Ingmar Bergman. This squares with what Lucy Hale revealed in her recent interview.

The movie in question is about a woman having an identity crisis and features backstories involving sex and abortions. A lot of women read the four-page monologue to prep for Fifty Shades of Grey, and Lucy Hale is in good company along with Dakota Johnson, Alicia Vikander, Imogen Poots, Elizabeth Olsen and Shailene Woodley, who were all on the shortlist for the gig.

Ultimately, Sam Taylor-Johnson said Dakota Johnson was an “easy” pick for Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan later came along and crushed the audition. Years later, Lucy Hale doesn’t seem too bent out of shape about missing out on the role either. So, this seems to be a situation of alls well that ends well. Or at least, alls well that ends in the Red Room.