What is the best Ben Stiller acting performance of all time?

Ben Stiller has built one of Hollywood's strangest and richest filmographies — from hysterically dim male models to bleak, introspective loners. He's also a fearless director who has staged his own performances in bold, unexpected ways. Which Stiller role is his greatest?

1

Derek Zoolander

A hilariously dim male model incapable of turning left in a fashion world satire Stiller also directed, Zoolander (2001).

2

Tugg Speedman

A fading action star who goes dangerously method in a film-within-a-film in Tropic Thunder (2008), directed by Stiller.

3

Greg Focker

A male nurse hopelessly trying to win over his girlfriend's suspicious ex-CIA father in Meet the Parents (2000).

4

Walter Mitty

A daydreaming magazine worker who embarks on a real-world adventure in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), directed by Stiller.

5

White Goodman

A pompous, mustached gym mogul trying to bulldoze the neighborhood underdog fitness center in Dodgeball (2004).

6

Chas Tenenbaum

An obsessive, tracksuit-wearing overachiever returning to his eccentric family after personal tragedy in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

7

Ted Stroehmann

A lovesick man who hires a private eye to locate his high school crush with increasingly disastrous results in There's Something About Mary (1998).

8

Tony Perkis

A deranged fitness guru who takes over a summer camp for overweight kids with cult-leader intensity in Heavyweights (1995).

9

Mel Coplin

A neurotic new father searching chaotically across America for his biological parents in Flirting with Disaster (1996).

10

Roger Greenberg

A tightly wound, socially awkward carpenter reconnecting with his brother's personal assistant in Greenberg (2010).

11

Mr. Furious

A wannabe superhero whose only power is that he becomes very, very angry in Mystery Men (1999).

12

Jerry Stahl

A Hollywood TV writer's devastating spiral into heroin addiction in Permanent Midnight (1998).

13

Richard Matt

A convicted murderer orchestrating an elaborate prison escape in Escape at Dannemora (2018), a TV miniseries Stiller directed.