Michael Bay‘s movies throughout his career have helped to establish him as one of the most successful directors of all time as well as a deeply divisive one. Starting out in commercials, Bay got his start in feature films with the action-comedy Bad Boys. From there, Bay went on to direct huge blockbusters, war movies, and several movies in the Transformers franchise. With these films, Bay has established a distinct style of filmmaking that has earned him plenty of fans and plenty of critics.
Bay movies have grossed over $6.5 billion worldwide, making him the fourth highest-grossing director of all time. He has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, with the likes of Bruce Willis and Mark Wahlberg headlining his movies, and he has also helped make up-and-coming actors household names, including Will Smith and Shia LaBeouf. Bay’s movies all vary in terms of their size and their genre, but it is not hard to identify a Michael Bay movie when they come.
15 Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)
A Vengeful Decepticon Targets Optimus Prime
Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the second of his five Transformers movies, continued the adventures of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) as he attempted to balance his connection to the heroic Autobots while also starting his new life at college and maintaining his romance with Makayla (Megan Fox). However, Sam and the Autobots face a much greater threat in the form of an even Decepticon known as The Fallen and a resurrected Megatron.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was made during a Hollywood writer’s strike and unfortunately, it shows in many ways. The movie feels like it was made off of a very rushed first draft of a script. The story is nonsensical, sending the main characters on a globetrotting adventure that makes no sense. Bay’s humor is also a big issue in the film as it often derails the movie’s dark tone with extended silly bits. Including two comedic relief robots was also criticized as leaning into racist stereotypes. The result is often viewed as the most maligned entry in the series.
14 Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014)
A Mechanic Forms A Partnership With Optimus Prime
With the fourth installment of the Transformers series, Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky was out as the Transformers lead and he was replaced by Mark Wahlberg’s blue-collar genius Cade Yaegar. Transformers: Age of Extinction is set years after the events of the Michael Bay movies, with Cade discovering a hibernating Optimus Prime. Together, the human and robot heroes team up to save the day from a villainous Transformer bounty hunter on Prime’s trail.
While Bay presented this as the start of a new era of the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction is more of the same. Senseless destruction and random action sequences make for a spectacle, but not much of a story. Wahlberg also seems to be a poor fit for the franchise as his attempts at being the down-to-earth hero are unconvincing. Bay also continues to add in necessary and cringeworthy comedy, including an ill-advised joke about the relationship between Cade’s teen daughter and her older boyfriend.
13 Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
The Transformers Lore Goes Back To Medieval Times
Transformers: The Last Knight ended up being Michael Bay’s final Transformers movie and the consensus was that it was time for the director and the franchise to move on. The fifth movie in the series sees the return of Cade Yaeger as he teams with the Autobots again as they hunt for a powerful ancient artifact that the Decepticons are also after. This leads to new discoveries about the history of Transformers on Earth as well as a secret about Cade’s past as well.
After endless success in the Transformers franchise, regardless of critical reception, Transformers: The Last Knight was the first box-office disappointment of the series. The movie delivered the big action sequences that fans have come to expect with Bay’s blockbusters and the story was a bit more concise than the previous installments. However, the growing mythology connecting the franchise to the legend of King Arthur felt unnecessary.
12 6 Underground (2019)
Shadow Operatives Takes On A Dangerous Dictator
Though Michael Bay has been a theatrical director for his entire career, he embraced the new streaming world with the Netflix Original action movie6 Underground. The wild movie tells the story of a billionaire (played by Ryan Reynolds) who fakes his own death to form a vigilante group to take down terrorists around the world while remaining anonymous. This leads the crew of misfits to stage a takeover of a ruthless dictator.
6 Underground is a movie that showcases the best and worst of Michael Bay’s movies. With a massive streaming budget, the action sequences are grand and exciting, such as the opening car chase and the hilariously violent setpiece with a giant magnet. However, Bay once again does not have a grasp on the tone, swinging wildly back and forth between Reynolds doing goofy bits to looking at the brutal treatment of people in war-torn countries. It is a movie that has fun with Bay’s no-holds-bar approach and serves as a reminder he needs to be reigned in at times.
11 The Island (2005)
A Peaceful Island Community Holds A Dark Secret
The Island is a 2005 science fiction thriller directed by Michael Bay. The film stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as residents of a confined facility who discover they are clones, living only to provide organs and offspring for wealthy humans. As they escape to the real world, they uncover the truth about their existence. The film explores themes of identity and the ethics of cloning.
- Release Date
- July 21, 2005
- Runtime
- 136 Minutes
The Island is Michael Bay’s attempt at a more subtle and thought-provoking story for one of his movies. The problem is that he then tries to combine it with his typical relentless action mayhem, making for an awkward cinematic ride. The movie takes place on an island community where the citizens live in relative harmony with certain subjects occasionally being selected for special upgrades. However, two members of the community learn a dark secret about the island and their own existence, leading them to make an escape.
Despite using the same compelling themes in dystopian sci-fi classics, The Island is probably the Michael Bay blockbuster that audiences are most likely to forget exists. The whole narrative feels like a YA novel written to capture the hype of The Hunger Games, complete with thematic simplicity and painfully obvious influences. What sinks the movie more than its mundane approach to the material is the glaring product placement. The movie features a stellar cast, led by Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, but Bay seems uninterested in exploring characters.
10 Bad Boys II (2003)
Mike And Marcus Take On A Drug Kingpin
Michael Bay made the first sequel of his career with this wild return to the Bad Boys franchise. Bad Boys II arrived nearly a decade after the original movie with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence now cemented as blockbuster stars. The film follows Miami detectives Marcus and Mike as they take on a drug lord who is operating in their city.
This is the movie where it feels like Bay was fully given permission to go off the rails and make the kind of project he always wanted to. The sheer mayhem of some of these action scenes displays some of the best technical craft of Bay’s career. In between all that carnage, however, is a ceaseless barrage of long-winded and offensive comedy sequences that add to the movie’s bloated runtime. It is a film that is a lot of fun to watch for the mindless action, but Bay puts the audience through a lot to get to those fun parts.
9 Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (2011)
A Transformer Relic Is Found On The Moon
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a notable step up from Revenge of the Fallen, serving as the finale to Bay’s original Transformers trilogy. This is also the first Transformers movie without Megan Fox, who was fired and replaced with British model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Sam’s new love interest. The movie further expands on the wild Transformers lore with the revelation that humanity first encountered the robots in disguise during the moon landing. With a spacecraft discovered to be hiding up there, Optimus and the Autobots face off with their old enemies again.
Bay seemed to learn from his script issues with the previous movie, as Dark of the Moon features a much more interesting story. That is not to say the movie still doesn’t suffer from an unnecessary runtime that is added to by more misguided comedy. However, Bay fully delivers on the action with some incredibly entertaining setpieces and a gloriously over-the-top climax. It became Bay’s highest-grossing movie.
8 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi (2016)
The True Story Of Soldiers Bravely Defending An American Compound
Michael Bay took on a real-life military tragedy for the second time in his career with the action movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. The movie centers around the terrorist attack of September 11, 2012, when the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by local militants. The movie follows six members of the Annex Security Team who protected the compound during the various waves of attacks.
When it was announced that Bay would be making a film about Benghazi, one of the most politically contentious issues of modern-day politics, it seemed like a misguided idea that could have terrible results. However, 13 Hours is more restrained than one would expect from Bay. There’s real grit to this war drama, as befits the story, and it’s easily Bay’s most mature work, even if it does lean into his jingoistic sensibilities. Separated from its socio-political context, 13 Hours is enjoyable enough though not a very deep look at the event itself.
7 Pearl Harbor (2001)
A Love Triangle Set Against The Back Drop Of The Infamous Attack
Pearl Harbor was supposed to signal the birth of a new kind of Michael Bay. This was the beginning of the prestigious Bay, the kind of director who could blend high-octane action with serious drama and historical heft. Pearl Harbor was the retelling of the infamous attack by the army of Japan on the American military base in Hawaii which launched America’s involvement in World War II. The film is told from the perspective of two fictional pilots, played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, as they fall in love with the same woman, Kate Beckinsale.
The movie attempted the approach of James Cameron’s Titanic, depicting a famous historical event in the midst of a grand Hollywood romance. Unfortunately, half of that plan doesn’t work at all. The love triangle storyline drags the entire movie down. However, while there are plenty of historical accuracies in Bay’s retelling, the actual attack sequence may be the best action filmmaking Bay has ever done.
6 Transformers (2007)
A Teen’s Car Is A Robot In Disguise
Even after four more Transformers movies, Bay never managed to outdo the one that started it all. Transformers takes a simpler approach to the story as it follows young outcast high schooler Sam Witwicky as he gets his first car which turns out to be a Transformer named Bumblebee. Along with the girl he has a crush on, Sam is introduced to the hidden world of the Transformers and must help them save the day.
Transformers is a perfect popcorn blockbuster with exciting action and big effects. What makes it stand out in the franchise is the genuine sense of wonder it creates with these robots. The scale and sense of detail still manage to thrill audiences more than a decade after it debuted and long after the rest of Hollywood started copying its aesthetic. Transformers is goofy and mindless, and offers enough stunning set-pieces to justify its existence as a movie based on a toy line.
5 Bad Boys (1995)
Two Miami Detectives Protect A Witness
Michael Bay made his directorial debut with the action-comedy Bad Boys, quickly showing off his considerable style to Hollywood. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star as detective partners and best friends who are trying to take down a mastermind who stole a massive drug supply from a police station. When a witness to the drug lord’s crimes is seeking help from the cops, Smith and Lawrence are forced to trade places to keep her safe.
The sitcom aspect of the script with the misunderstandings spiraling out of control is the least interesting thing in Bad Boys, but Bay makes up for it with his action. The movie is a much smaller-scale ride than what Bay delivered later in his career, and that is part of its charm. Smith and Lawrence are able to carry a lot of the movie with their great performances. However, as with the climactic shootout, when it is time to lean into the action, Bay proves himself.
4 Ambulance (2022)
Thieves Go On The Run Inside A Hijacked Ambulance
Ambulance is Michael Bay’s most recent movie and remains one of the best of his career. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as stepbrothers and former soldiers who team up in order to pull off a desperate heist. When the plan goes wrong, the duo is forced to hijack an ambulance and its paramedic (Eiza González) as they are pursued across Los Angeles by the police.
The movie is essentially a long car chase sequence and that works surprisingly well. Bay keeps things entertaining with one obstacle after another and some inventive filming techniques, including his wildly entertaining use of drones. The movie does fall into the trap of many Bay projects as the humor is forced and the wacky antics add unnecessarily to the runtime. However, the film is a solid action ride that is elevated by some great performances.
3 Pain & Gain (2013)
A True Story Of Criminal Bodybuilders
Pain & Gain is a black comedy based on a true crime story. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie play a trio of over-muscled lug-headed bodybuilders who plot to kidnap a slimy businessman who frequents their gym and get ransom money from him. However, the desperate and misguided men soon find that they are not criminal masterminds and the entire plan gradually spirals into deadly chaos.
Pain & Gain is the smallest of Bay’s movies and benefits from the director having to be a little more reserved. The film does feature some of his worst qualities and there is a meanspiritedness to how the movie depicts the victims of these crimes, but it is an interesting companion piece to Bay’s other work. Bay typically glorifies a specific kind of retro masculinity, but here, he exposes it for the pathetic facade it truly is. The film is deeply nihilistic and hateful but with a cohesive agenda that Bay’s work so often lacks.
2 Armageddon (1998)
Oil Drillers Try To Save Earth From An Asteroid
Armageddon was Michael Bay’s first foray into the sci-fi genre long before his Transformers movies. It was also his biggest movie to date, delivering a truly entertaining summer blockbuster. The film stars Bruce Willis as an oil driller who is hired by NASA to go into space along with his ragtag crew of drillers in order to save the world from an asteroid that is heading towards the planet and will wipe out all live on Earth if it does impact.
The premise is ridiculous and falls apart at even the slightest bit of examination, but it is easy to push all that aside and just enjoy the wildness of it all. The movie creates an idea team on a mission setup, making the audience care about these colorful characters, which makes it all the more impactful when they don’t all make it. The space scenes are outrageous and fun, while the sequences of worldwide destruction are terrifying and thrilling.
1 The Rock (1996)
An Elder Ex-Con And A Chemist Take On Mercenaries At Alcatraz
With only his second movie, Michael Bay cemented himself as one of the best action movie directors working in Hollywood in the 90s, even if he wasn’t the most subtle. The Rock sees a group of rogue soldiers taking prisoners on the former prison island of Alcatraz and threatening to unleash a bioweapon if their demands are not met. It is then up to a mild-mannered and neurotic biochemist (Nicolas Cage) and the only man to have successfully escaped Alcatraz (Sean Connery) to save the day.
The Rock is the perfect blend of Bay delivering exciting action while still at a stage in his career when the studio was perhaps pushing back on some of his distracting tendencies. It also doesn’t hurt that The Rock features one of the best casts Bay has ever worked with. Cage and Connery make for a great mismatched team while Ed Harris is intense as the complex antagonist. Most effectively, Bay’s comedic tendencies are kept in check, allowing for the movie to maintain its gripping town without being undercut by jokes.