Ralph Fiennes (born 1962) is an English actor and filmmaker best known for his roles in Schindler’s List (1993), The English Patient (1996), and the Harry Potter series (2005–2011). Renowned for his commanding presence and emotional precision, Fiennes has built a career spanning historical dramas, thrillers, and psychological character studies. From playing war criminals and romantic antiheroes to intellectual villains, he’s become one of modern cinema’s most versatile performers.
This article highlights five essential Ralph Fiennes performances that showcase the full range of his craft, from Conclave to The Menu and beyond.
5 Ralph Fiennes Movies
1. Conclave (2024) – The Vatican’s Quiet Storm
Director: Edward Berger | Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Genre: Political Thriller, Drama
IMDb: 7.4/10 | RT: 93%
Role: He plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence as the senior cleric leading the papal election.
Synopsis:
After the death of the Pope, cardinals from around the world gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pontiff. As alliances form and secrets surface, the sacred ritual turns into a political labyrinth. Behind the frescoes and prayers lies ambition, guilt, and buried scandal.
Why It’s a Must-Watch:
He plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, a man thrown into the Vatican’s back-room chaos. And what makes it interesting is that Lawrence is neither the obvious hero nor the generic villain. Fiennes frames him as someone torn between institutional duty and a deeper, personal crisis of faith, a nuance he’s been able to capture very well.
2. The English Patient (1996) – Desire in the Desert
Director: Anthony Minghella | Platform: Pluto TV, Apple TV, Fandango At Home
Genre: Epic Romance, War Drama
IMDb: 7.4/10 | RT: 86%
Role: He plays Count László de Almásy, who is a wounded, mysterious desert explorer whose memories of forbidden love unravel against the backdrop of WWII.
Synopsis:
Amid the ruins of World War II, a nurse tends to a mysterious, badly burned man in an abandoned monastery. Through fragmented memories, his past unspools as a forbidden love affair between an explorer and a married woman that unfolds under the vast North African desert. Love, betrayal, and obsession collide against the backdrop of war, as history and heartbreak blur into one.
Why It’s a Must-Watch:
In a romance war-drama that could have gone full melodrama, Fiennes keeps his performance close, cool, and devastating. That makes his role a quiet epic in its own right.
3. Schindler’s List (1993) – The Anatomy of Evil
Director: Steven Spielberg | Platform (to buy): Amazon Video, Apple TV, Fandango At Home
Genre: Historical Drama
IMDb: 9.0/10 | RT: 98%
Role: Ralph Fiennes plays Amon Goeth, the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp
Synopsis:
Set during World War II, the film chronicles the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saves more than a thousand Jews from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. As the Nazi regime tightens its grip, compassion and cruelty clash in devastating ways, revealing both the best and worst of humanity.
Why It’s a Must-Watch:
Few performances in cinema history have captured evil with such terrifying stillness. Fiennes’s contribution to Schindler’s List shows bureaucratic horror. He depicts the casual, everyday face of monstrosity. He makes brutality look like procedure, which is precisely what makes it unbearable. The genius of his performance is that it doesn’t ask for your hatred; it asks for your comprehension, and that’s far harder to give.
4. The Menu (2022) – Perfection Served Cold
Director: Mark Mylod | Platform: fuboTV, YouTube TV
Genre: Satire, Horror, Drama
IMDb: 7.2/10 | RT: 88%
Role: Ralph Fiennes plays Chef Julian Slowik, a world-renowned culinary artist so consumed by perfection that he turns his dinner service into an act of revenge and self-destruction.
Synopsis:
A group of elite guests arrives at a remote island for an exclusive dining experience hosted by a world-famous chef. As the meticulously planned evening unfolds, each course reveals another secret and another punishment. By the end of the night, the meal becomes a dark meditation on privilege, creativity, and the price of obsession.
Why It’s a Must-Watch:
At its centre is Ralph Fiennes as Chef Julian Slowik – a man who birthed art, believed in it, then watched it devour him. He’s polite, cultured, precise… until that precision becomes torture. It’s both terrifying and strangely poetic. As one review put it: “a Michelin-star version of Saw” with social satire.
5. 28 Years Later (2025) – The Reckoning of a Survivor
Director: Danny Boyle | Platform: Netflix
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Thriller
IMDb: 6.6/20 | RT: 89%
Role: He plays Dr. Marcus Hale, a weary survivor and moral compass in a world still infected by its own mistakes.
Synopsis:
Set nearly three decades after the outbreak that decimated humanity, 28 Years Later returns to a fractured world rebuilding itself on the ruins of infection. Survivors struggle to restore order as old mistakes resurface, and a new threat rises from the shadows of supposed peace. It’s not just a fight for survival this time – it’s a reckoning.
Why It’s a Must-Watch:
Reuniting with director Danny Boyle, Fiennes brings a gravitas that anchors the chaos. If 28 Days Later was about panic, 28 Years looks poised to be about consequence, and Fiennes’s presence promises to turn that into something hauntingly personal.
OTHER NOTABLE ROLES
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Role: Monsieur Gustave H.
As the perfectly mannered, perfectly unhinged concierge, Fiennes’s comedic timing as the polished, foul-mouthed concierge is hysterical. - The Constant Gardener (2005) Role: Justin Quayle
A portrait of quiet heroism and grief, merging political thriller with personal loss. - In Bruges (2008) Role: Harry Waters
His brief, explosive appearance as a gangster is pure chaos. - Harry Potter Series (2005–2011) Role: Lord Voldemort
As Lord Voldemort, the most well-known villain of our time – the one who shall not be named, Fiennes plays the villain so cold that he became iconic.
WHY RALPH FIENNES WORKS SO WELL
If you’ve watched Fiennes enough – whether channeling ruthless power in Schindler’s List, patrician menace in the Harry Potter Series, or quirky-ness in The Grand Budapest Hotel, you’ll notice something beyond his “special-actor” status. Here are the nuanced threads that make him exceptional:
Signature Traits:
- The pursuit of truth: Fiennes once said that acting for him is “this weird thing called the truth” and that what he’s really fascinated by are those “transparent” moments when the craft falls away and something very pure comes through.
- A classical backbone with modern ferocity: With a stage-rooted background (he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and earned acclaim with the Royal Shakespeare Company), he brings discipline and precision. The man who plays Gustave in “Grand Budapest” can also embody Amon Göth. That range feels credible because his foundation is strong.
- Power, control, and the fear beneath it: Whether he’s playing a dictatorial Nazi, a dark lord, a refined concierge, or a grief-stricken diplomat, there’s always the sense of someone juggling external composure while the interior is churning.
- Meticulous preparation: He self-describes as “quite fussy and perfectionist.”When you watch his performances, you see it: the alignment of posture, voice, timing, gesture—all so controlled that when he lets go, the effect is seismic.
- Versatility: What’s remarkable is how Fiennes can flick between genres: historical epic, horror-thriller, whimsical comedy. But across that spectrum, there’s a constant: intensity paired with nuance.
IN SUMMARY: 5 Ralph Fiennes Performances to Revisit
| Title | Year | Director | Platform | Genre |
IMDb / RT |
| Conclave | 2024 | Edward Berger | Amazon Prime Video | Political Thriller, Drama | 7.4 / 93% |
| The English Patient | 1996 | Anthony Minghella | Amazon Video, Apple TV, Fandango At Home | Epic Romance, War Drama | 7.4 / 86% |
| Schindler’s List | 1993 | Steven Spielberg | Amazon Video, Apple TV, Fandango At Home | Historical Drama | 9.0 / 98% |
| The Menu | 2022 | Mark Mylod | fuboTV, YouTube TV | Satire, Horror, Drama | 7.2 / 88% |
| 28 Years Later | 2025 | Danny Boyle | Netflix | Post-Apocalyptic, Thriller | 6.6 / 89% |
FINAL WORD
Ralph Fiennes has always been drawn to the boundaries of control: men who build walls out of manners, intellect, or faith, and then crumble against their own design. But in that collapse, Fiennes finds a strange beauty in his roles: not redemption, exactly, but recognition.
He basically defined what evil looks like for a whole generation. Watching him makes you think about the craft. He’s here to entertain. He’s here to unsettle. And that, perhaps, is the purest form of artistry.
Here are 7 crisp one-liners based on the internet’s most-searched questions about Ralph Fiennes — short, conversational, and factual:
