# What is the best Ian McKellen movie role?

> Wizards and war criminals, Shakespeare's tyrant and an elderly Sherlock: McKellen's screen career swings between blockbuster franchises and small, sharp character studies. Some of these parts won him Oscar nominations, others just stuck with audiences.

*By YPB Team · Published November 4, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-ian-mckellen-movie-role*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)** — score 1000/1000
   The wizard McKellen played in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), earning an Oscar nomination for The Fellowship of the Ring.
2. **Sherlock Holmes (Mr. Holmes)** — score 731/1000
   A 93-year-old retired Sherlock Holmes struggling with failing memory in Bill Condon's 2015 film.
3. **Roy Courtnay (The Good Liar)** — score 500/1000
   A con man targeting a wealthy widow played by Helen Mirren in Bill Condon's 2019 thriller.
4. **Magneto (X-Men)** — score 409/1000
   The mutant leader Erik Lehnsherr, first played by McKellen in Bryan Singer's X-Men (2000) and again in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
5. **James Whale (Gods and Monsters)** — score 409/1000
   The ageing Frankenstein director James Whale in Bill Condon's 1998 drama, a role that earned McKellen an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
6. **Leigh Teabing (Da Vinci Code)** — score 409/1000
   The British Holy Grail historian Sir Leigh Teabing in Ron Howard's 2006 adaptation of Dan Brown's novel.
7. **Toad (Flushed Away)** — score 409/1000
   The voice of the villainous Toad of the sewer city beneath London in the 2006 Aardman and DreamWorks animated film.
8. **John Profumo (Scandal)** — score 300/1000
   The British Secretary of State for War at the centre of the Profumo affair in Michael Caton-Jones's 1989 film Scandal.
9. **Kurt Dussander (Apt Pupil)** — score 300/1000
   A Nazi war criminal hiding in a California suburb in Bryan Singer's 1998 adaptation of the Stephen King novella.
10. **Richard III (1995 film)** — score 0/1000
   Shakespeare's murderous king in Richard Loncraine's 1995 adaptation set in a fascist 1930s Britain, which McKellen co-wrote.

Tags: movies, actors, uk, ian mckellen