The bestJon Favreaumovies and TV shows aren’t just the ones he has starred in, but also those that he directed and produced. When Favreau’s career started, it seemed like he might end up as an indie dramedy actor attached to his friend Vince Vaughn, for better or worse. However, something big happened when Favreau decided to direct the duo’s second starring movie together,Made, and he forged a great new career behind the camera.
While he saw great success as a director, Favreau never wanted to stop acting and took on both minor roles in the films he directed, such asElf,and significant roles, like inChef. Over his career behind the camera, he has mostly had the chance to direct some giant blockbusters, including themovie thatkick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe,Iron Man, and the Disney+ series thatlaunched the televised Star Wars universe,The Mandalorian. Through it all, Favreau has received recognition from the Golden Globes and Primetime Emmys and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
While not on par with most of Jon Favreau’s directorial efforts,Madeis the movie that launched his career behind the camera. Favreau was the screenwriter onSwingers, the first movie starring him and Vince Vaughn, but he got a chance to direct his following script with this mafia crime comedy. InMade, Favreau stars as Bobby, a man who works as an honest man for a local mafia boss’s (Peter Falk) construction projects. However, when he needs money, Bobby agrees to a criminal job and brings his friend Ricky (Vaughn).
Madefocuses on the different personalities of Favreau and Vaughn, with Favreau the put-upon, frustrated friend, and Vaughn the rash and egotistical troublemaker who always gets them into trouble. The film has an impressive cast, with Famke Janssen and Vincent Pastore in supporting roles. Critics praised the film’s script and comedy, but noted that it wasn’t as funny or creative asSwingers.
It seems that Jon Favreau prefers smaller roles in his acting career, and he often makes the most of them with very little screen time. That happened when he joined Vince Vaughn’sromantic Christmas comedyFour Christmases. This movie stars Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as Brad and Kate, a couple who are happy together despite never getting married. They also avoid their families at all costs, but theyend up being forced to visit both families one Christmaswhen their trip to Fiji falls apart.
Humorously, Jon Favreau plays Denver McVie, Brad’s older brother, an amateur cage fighter (as is his other brother, Dallas, played by Tim McGraw). As expected, they beat up Brad when he arrives, thanks to their overtly aggressive brotherly love. This is a nice callback as well toMade, where Favreau was an underground fighter in his spare time, and then toIron Man, where Favreau was a former boxer.Four Christmaseswas a box office success and became a holiday staple.
Disney has made several live-action remakes of classic animated movies, or at least they are remaking the animated films into new CGI-influenced versions with a mix of live actors. Not all have had equal success, but Jon Favreau has directed two of the most successful:The Lion KingandThe Jungle Book. Of these two, whileThe Lion Kingwas the box office king ($1.6 billion),The Jungle Bookwas the better movieand made almost a billion dollars on its own.
The movie follows the same story as the original animated film, telling the tale of a young orphaned boy named Mowgli who is adopted by a pack of wolves and raised in the jungle. However, he finds his life in danger from the murderous Bengal tiger named Shere Khan, and it is up to the other animals to protect him and keep him safe. Pixar assisted in the story development, which explains its high quality, and it won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
While Jon Favreau mainly focuses on his films, he also stars in movies directed by other filmmakers. He got a huge opportunity when Martin Scorsese cast him in his 2013 film,The Wolf of Wall Street. This film is a black comedy that tells the story of Jordan Belfort, showing his rise as a stockbroker and his eventual fall, when he is arrested and charged with rampant corruption.Favreau stars in the film as Manny Riskin, Jordan’s securities lawyer. He is there to represent Belfort and convinces him to plead guilty.
Favreau’s character was based on Ira Sorkin, the American attorney who represented Bernard Madoff after his arrest for the largest Ponzi scheme in history.The Wolf of Wall Streetwas highly praised by critics and ended up on several top-10 lists in 2013. It received five Oscar nominations, winning none of them, although Leonardo DiCaprio won a Golden Globe for his performance. As for Favreau, he might be most notable for being the only character who kept his hands clean during the ordeal.
Jon Favreau was the man who launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he directed the firstIron Manmovie, which also marked the debut of the MCU. Over the last eight years, Favreau’s movie acting career has been primarily limited to MCU movies, except for a voice role inSolo: A Star Wars Story. This means that, since 2017,the only character Favreau has played on the big screen is Harold “Happy” Hogan. In 2024, he took the role and brought the MCU toDeadpool’sworld.
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The role was a small guest shot, as Deadpool visited the Avengers' corporate offices and asked for a job as a team member. However, Happy had to let Deadpool down easily. His role was small, but it was funny, and it provided a perfect opportunity to bring the MCU, Fox’s X-Men movies (starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine), and Deadpool together, combining them into one shared universe. This was easily the best MCU movie of the 2020s, and Favreau got a chance to be part of it.
Jon Favreau had been in several movies beforeSwingers, includingHoffa, Rudy,andPCU. However, his breakout role came in this 1996 film. This was a massive opportunity for Favreau,as he was also the film’s screenwriter.This was Doug Liman’s second directorial feature and the film that made him a big name, eventually leading to movies likeThe Bourne IdentityandEdge of Tomorrow. It was also Vince Vaughn and Favreau’s first major starring roles.
Favreau stars as Mike, a struggling comedian who has just broken up with his girlfriend. His best friend, Trent (Vaughn), tries to get Mike back into the swing of things, and introduces him to the lives of swingers. This leads to Mike meeting a woman named Lorraine (Heather Graham), but he constantly makes mistakes thanks to his inability to get over his ex. Vaughn and Favreau became big stars thanks to this movie, which remains a cult classic from the ’90s indie scene.
While almost all of Jon Favreau’s directorial efforts after his breakout withMadehave been blockbusters, he took a chance to make a 2014 comedy-drama road trip movie. This was a small, personal movie with an $11 million budget, also starring Favreau in the lead role.Cheftells the story of Carl Casper, a head chef at a Los Angeles restaurantwhose owner refuses to take chances and demands the same boring entrées with no changes. When this leads to a bad review from a local critic, Carl loses his temper and quits his job.
Carl then decides to travel across the country using a food truck instead of working at a restaurant and begins to discover why he fell in love with cooking in the first place.Chefwas a box office success and received positive critical reviews, with an 87% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews praised the script’s comedy and heart, with Favreau delivering both in front of and behind the camera.
Jon Favreau is the man who launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He didn’t have a lot of pressure here, since it was a movie about a lesser-known superhero at the time, but what happened was the most significant moment in comic book movie history. Favreau made one of the best decisions of any director in the MCUwhen he fought for Robert Downey Jr. to play Tony Stark, even when the studio didn’t trust the actor enough at the time to carry what they hoped would be the start of something big.
It was a home run for Favreau, the MCU, and Downey Jr., who used this role to launch himself into leading man status in Hollywood. Without this movie succeeding, there wouldn’t have been anAvengersmovie, and the multi-billion-dollar franchise could have been dead in the water. Favreau proved himself with this movie and ensured his status as a blockbuster filmmaker for the next two decades. Meanwhile, the MCU built onIron Man, and the superhero became the centerpiece of the franchise.
While most people associate Jon Favreau today with his work in the MCU,whether as director or Happy Hogan, or the Disney live-action movies, his most beloved directorial effort has nothing to do with either of these franchises.Favreau directed theChristmas comedy movieElfin 2023, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy, a baby who Santa Claus accidentally took back to the North Pole and raised as an elf because he knew Buddy’s dad was trouble.
However, when Buddy was old enough, Santa gave him his blessing to find his father, which led Buddy to head to New York City and experience real life for the first time. The film was a monster success and spawned a Broadway musical, a video game, and an animated special.Elfis now considered a holiday mainstay as one of the best Christmas movies ever made.
TheStar Warsmovie world came to a halt after the polarizing reception to the sequel trilogy, but Disney made a gamble to try to keep the franchise going. With Jon Favreau already proving to have the golden touch after kickstarting the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney gave him the keys to theStar Warsuniverse when they hired him to serve as the showrunner for the first Disney+ show for the franchise,The Mandalorian.
This followed Din Djarin, a Mandalorian bounty hunter, who was sent to retrieve “The Child.” However, he instead took the young Grogu under his protection and sought to get him to safety so that he could grow into the Jedi he was meant to be.Jon Favreaunot only ran the show, but he also wrote or co-wrote 19 episodes of the series.The Mandalorianlasted for three seasons, earning a Golden Globe and six Primetime Emmy nominations.
