Outside of some repurposed footage from Thor: The Dark World in Deadpool & Wolverine, Chris Hemsworth had a Marvel-free year in 2024, and yet he was still busy. Both Transformers One and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga are worth watching, with the latter film displaying some of his best acting to date as Dementus (perhaps even better than his work in the MCU). In fact, he’s done quite well outside the MCU since hitting the A-list back in 2011. And, even before that, he had a minor but still important role in the underrated thriller A Perfect Getaway. There have been misses here and there, like Red Dawn, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, and Men in Black: International, but there have been more gems than duds.
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What follows are some Thor-free movies that every Chris Hemsworth fan should check out at least once. Just missing the cut were Michael Mann’s Blackhat, In the Heart of the Sea, and the two Extraction films. Furthermore, if one can ignore the ineffective films around them, his performances in 2015’s Vacation and 2016’s Ghostbusters were pure gold.
The Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard’s wildly impressive directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods, had a hard time getting to theaters thanks to MGM’s financial difficulties at the time. But those who did see it on the big screen were in for a wonderful treat, especially given the fact the trailers arguably did a poor job marketing it. “Arguably” because the trailers were actually exactly as they should have been.
The Cabin in the Woods has so many out of left field curveballs that it was for the best the advertising didn’t even hint at them. It’s far less a straightforward horror film than it is an examination of what it is that makes horror movies tick. The tropes, the jump scares, it’s all brushed with a fine-tooth comb. Even the archetypal characters are more than meets the eye, including Chris Hemsworth’s “The Athlete” character Curt Vaughan who, by the end of his screentime, has proved himself to be the opposite of, say, Travis Van Winkle’s Trent Sullivan in Friday the 13th (2009).
Rush
Hemsworth’s collaboration with Ron Howard on Rush must have been a healthy one, because the famed director put the Thor star in his very next film, In the Heart of the Sea. Both films work quite well, but Rush is the better of the two, with Heart dragging in spots. Rush, the story of Formula One drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, is the opposite, serving as an adrenaline shot to the arm.
That said, Rush isn’t an adrenaline shot like Fast and Furious, where the testosterone-fueled scenes take precedence over all other factors. Instead, it’s a thoughtful character study with some sublimely shot, hair-raising racing sequences added in. Hemsworth is spot-on as Hunt, but this still ends up being Daniel Brühl’s movie all the way to the finish line. It’s truly a shame Rush went under most people’s radars while playing in U.S. theaters, because it was a great big screen experience. Rush was Ron Howard’s best movie in years, and it makes for an excellent companion to Apollo 13 on double feature night.
Bad Times at the El Royale
Drew Goddard’s second and still most recent film in the director’s chair, Bad Times at the El Royale, is about as star-studded as a modern mystery thriller can get, but Hemsworth still manages to steal the show with just a sliver of the film’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime. With a handful of well-executed twists and painstaking reconstruction of 1960s style, it’s a smooth viewing experience in spite of its considerable required time investment.
For the most part, Bad Times at the El Royale focuses on five individuals spending the night at the El Royale, a hotel sitting right on top the California-Nevada border. While not explicitly linked, they all carry secrets that, by film’s end, bind them together. Jeff Bridges and Cynthia Erivo share some terrific chemistry, as does the duo of Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny, but it’s Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick and Thunderbolts*) who runs away with the movie as jumpy hotel manager Miles Miller. That is, until Hemsworth’s charming and ripped, but Manson-like cult leader, Billy Lee wanders up to the El Royale’s front door. Bad Times manages to accomplish a lot throughout its runtime, and while it can sometimes be a tad on the overstuffed side, its ambition never fully gets the best of it.
