# What is the best Dustin Hoffman movie role?

> Oscar winners sit beside a pirate captain, a cartoon kung fu master and a handful of gritty 1970s turns that rarely get their due. One actor, wildly different people.

*By YPB Team · Published October 25, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-dustin-hoffman-movie-role*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Raymond Babbitt (Rain Man)** — score 1000/1000
   The autistic savant in Rain Man (1988), which won Hoffman his second Best Actor Oscar.
2. **Benjamin Braddock (The Graduate)** — score 660/1000
   The adrift college graduate seduced by Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), Hoffman's breakout role.
3. **Master Shifu (Kung Fu Panda)** — score 595/1000
   The red panda kung fu master he voices across the Kung Fu Panda films (2008-).
4. **Sam Daniels (Outbreak)** — score 595/1000
   The Army virologist racing a deadly epidemic in the thriller Outbreak (1995).
5. **Ratso Rizzo (Midnight Cowboy)** — score 550/1000
   The sickly New York hustler in Midnight Cowboy (1969) whose 'I'm walking here!' became legend.
6. **Ted Kramer (Kramer vs. Kramer)** — score 498/1000
   The divorcing father fighting for custody in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), his first Oscar win.
7. **Max Dembo (Straight Time)** — score 498/1000
   The paroled thief sliding back into crime in the gritty drama Straight Time (1978).
8. **Lenny Bruce (Lenny)** — score 440/1000
   The provocative stand-up comic in Bob Fosse's biopic Lenny (1974), an Oscar-nominated turn.
9. **Michael Dorsey (Tootsie)** — score 372/1000
   The difficult actor who becomes soap star Dorothy Michaels in the comedy Tootsie (1982).
10. **Jack Crabb (Little Big Man)** — score 372/1000
   The 121-year-old frontier survivor recounting his life in the revisionist western Little Big Man (1970).
11. **Babe Levy (Marathon Man)** — score 372/1000
   The graduate student tortured by a Nazi dentist in the thriller Marathon Man (1976).
12. **David Sumner (Straw Dogs)** — score 293/1000
   The mild mathematician pushed to violence in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971).
13. **Captain Hook (Hook)** — score 293/1000
   Peter Pan's flamboyant pirate nemesis in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991).
14. **Bernie LaPlante (Hero)** — score 293/1000
   The petty crook who saves plane-crash victims and loses the credit in Hero (1992).
15. **Carl Bernstein (All the President's Men)** — score 200/1000
   The Washington Post reporter chasing Watergate alongside Robert Redford in All the President's Men (1976).
16. **Harold Meyerowitz (The Meyerowitz Stories)** — score 0/1000
   The prickly sculptor patriarch in Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories (2017).
17. **Louis Dega (Papillon)** — score 0/1000
   The bespectacled forger imprisoned on Devil's Island beside Steve McQueen in Papillon (1973).
18. **Stanley Motss (Wag the Dog)** — score 0/1000
   The Hollywood producer staging a fake war in the political satire Wag the Dog (1997), an Oscar-nominated role.
19. **Bernie Focker (Meet the Fockers)** — score 0/1000
   Greg's free-spirited father in the comedy Meet the Fockers (2004).

Tags: movies, actors, classics, performances, dustin hoffman