Jamie Foxx, one of the entertainment industry’s most famous triple threats, has been successful in several different areas. Most notably, Foxx is an Academy Award winning actor who has been able to successfully transition from mostly films to more serious roles. When he made his first on-screen appearance in 1991 as a part of the sketch-comedy show, In Living Color, he was praised for his ability to make people laugh. However, Foxx has since gone on to star in films such as Any Given Sunday and Law Abiding Citizen. Unlike many other actors, Foxx has been able to avoid being type-cast by showing that he posses the skills to play a wide range of characters. Even with the diverse history of his roles, Foxx usually finds a way to cleverly insert his sense of humor into his work. Although Foxx’s roles often require him to dig deep into his imagination to bring life to characters that would otherwise only exist on paper, Foxx has also had the honor of being a part of several films who draw their stories directly from real life. Here is a list of the best Jamie Foxx movies that were based on true stories.
5. Ali
In the 2001 biographical film on the legendary boxer, Muhammad Ali, Jamie Foxx played the role of Drew Bundini Brown – one of Ali’s trainers. Brown began working with Ali in 1963 and remained with him until the end of his career in 1981. Brown, who also wrote some of Ali’s speeches, is credited with inviting the famous line “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see.” Although the film lost more than 60 million dollars, it received generally positive reviews from critics.
4. The Soloist
The 2009 film The Soloist featured Foxx in the lead role of musician Nathaniel Ayers. During the film a Los Angeles Times journalist, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.), discovers Ayers, a former Julliard student who was suffering from schizophrenia and living on the streets. Lopez soon discovers that Ayers was once a cello prodigy who was forced to drop out of Julliard after the symptoms of his schizophrenia made it impossible for him to focus. After publishing his article on Ayers, a reader was so moved by the story that she sent Ayers a cello. Although the film doesn’t have a stereotypical happy ending, that doesn’t take away from its moving storyline, and both Lopez and Ayers grew from their experiences together while forming a very strong bond. The Soloist received mixed reviewers from most critics; however, Foxx’s performance was well received.
3. Jarhead
The war-drama film, Jarhead, was based on the 2003 memoir of the same name. The film focused on a group of United States Marines who were deployed to the Persian Gulf. Foxx’s character, SSgt Sykes was a hard-nosed staff sergeant who was a career military man. Foxx received a Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. The film itself received mostly positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+ rating and stated that: “Jarhead isn’t overtly political, yet by evoking the almost surreal futility of men whose lust for victory through action is dashed, at every turn, by the tactics, terrain, and morality of the war they’re in, it sets up a powerfully resonant echo of the one we’re in today.”
2. Dreamgirls
Although Dreamgirls is mostly fictitious, it is actually loosely based on the story of the legendary Diana Ross and her Supremes. The film, which is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, tells the story of an all-female R&B group who struggles to deal with life in the spotlight. Foxx’s character, Curtis Taylor, is based on the iconic founder of Motown Record, Barry Gordy. Although Foxx was nominated for several awards for his role in the film, he almost missed out on the part entirely because DreamWorks was initially reluctant to meet his salary demands. The film was a critical and commercial success and one reviewer stated: “watching Dreamgirls on the big screen feels like an event somehow. Maybe it’s the conviction and passion that the actors bring to their roles…Dreamgirls doesn’t feel synthetic and dead on-screen. It uses theatrical conventions to capture some of the energy of live theater; for example, a clever curtain-call-style credit sequence gives the audience a chance to cheer for the actors one by one as we revisit the highlights of each performance.”
1. Ray
Ray is perhaps Jamie Foxx’s most popular film. Focusing on the life of the late Ray Charles, the film covers a 30 year time period of his life. Foxx who has released four studio albums of his own, also performed many of the songs in the film. His role as Charles has been widely critically acclaimed and even earned Foxx an Academy Award for best actor. Famed movie critic, Robert Ebert, stated: “What Foxx gets just right is the physical Ray Charles, and what an extrovert he was. Not for Ray the hesitant blind man of cliche feeling his way, afraid of the wrong step. In the movie and in life, he was adamantly present in body as well as spirit, filling a room, physically dominant, interlaced with other people. Yes, he was eccentric in his mannerisms, especially at the keyboard…But Foxx correctly interprets the musician’s body language as a kind of choreography, in which he was conducting his music with himself, instead of with a baton.”
(Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)
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