The Best Dave Bautista Movies to Watch Before He Becomes the God of War

Bautista started picking up TV roles not long after winning his first Heavyweight Championship as a professional wrestler — even playing himself on an episode of Neighbours in 2009. Action movies inevitably followed, but it wasn't until 2014 that he landed the defining role of his career, as Drax the Destroyer in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

The movie is now one of the most beloved in the history of the MCU, but nobody really knew what to expect from a comic book movie that, at the time of release, was based on characters who 99% of the audience had never heard of before. Luckily, Marvel had the lightning in a bottle combo of Gunn’s idiosyncratic filmmaking style and a cast of charismatic actors who fully got the assignment — with Bautista possibly the best of the lot.

Six movies and a holiday special later, that deadpan schtick still hasn't gotten old.

Off the back of his MCU debut, Bautista started popping up all over the place: between 2015 and 2018, he appeared in a whopping 16 different movies, often playing heavies, and none bigger than the one he played opposite Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Spectre.

The movie was director Sam Mendes’ second mission with Bond, and while it doesn’t quite hit the same highs that he reached with Skyfall, it’s still a perfectly exciting action romp. 

For his part in this one, Bautista played Mr. Hinx, the main muscle behind Christoph Waltz’s villainous Blofeld. His showdown with Bond on the desert train in North Africa is probably the highpoint of the movie.

When I think about Blade Runner 2049, I immediately think of Dave Bautista’s Sapper Morten. This is kind of strange in itself, as the character — an older replicant living in hiding as a protein farmer — only appears for a few minutes at the very beginning of the film and never comes back.

The rest of the movie is very good, of course, so it’s with great credit to Bautista that he makes the character so immediately memorable and in such a short period of time. Most fans of Ridley Scott’s original came into 2049 with a feeling of slight apprehension, but whatever nerves there might have been were quickly soothed by the image of Bautista in those tiny reading glasses and the little gas stove burning in the background. 

I can pay it no better compliment than to say that it felt like Blade Runner.

While remaining open to the odd indie movie and the occasional auteur project, Bautista’s bread and butter has usually been action movies or action comedies. In the last few years, you probably saw him in Afterburn and The Wrecking Crew, and in the next few years you’ll probably see him in Highlander and Road House 2, and many more after that.

From this side of his career, my favourite is probably Army of the Dead, a deliriously bonkers Las Vegas-set movie from Zack Snyder that essentially blended Resident Evil with Ocean’s Eleven. Need I say more?

Glass Onion is probably the third best film in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series but Bautista has an absolute blast in it. He’s so good at playing the strong silent type that it’s easy to forget how good he is when he gets some scenery to chew on — as he very much does here as Duke Cody, an alpha male Twitch streamer with shades of Joe Rogan.

Leaving the leafy settings of Johnson’s airtight original and last year’s Wake Up Dead Man, Glass Onion took Craig’s Benoit Blanc into the garish world of a tech billionaire’s island and lost a lot of the coziness that makes the other movies so pleasurable to watch, but it still delivers as a twisty, turny mystery that's packed to the brim with stars.

Mileage understandably varies when it comes to M. Night Shyamalan’s more recent output, but if you enjoy seeing the Sixth Sense director churn out a self-contained thriller every other year or so, albeit to varying degrees of success, Knock at the Cabin mostly hits the mark. 

The story takes place in a secluded log cabin, where a family are held hostage by a group of religious fanatics (led by Bautista’s Leonard) who calmly explain that the only way to stop an imminent apocalypse is for the family to sacrifice one of their own.

It’s not anywhere near the director’s best, but at 100 minutes it reads like a gripping and immediately forgettable airport novel — which of course I mean as a compliment.

Playing Baron Harkonnen’s dead-eyed nephew Glossu “The Beast” Rabban, Bautista was introduced into Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy in the first instalment, in 2021, but it wasn’t until the phenomenal sequel, released in 2024, that he really got to sink his teeth into the role. 

The main reason for this was the arrival of Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha — the most interesting and merciless villain in Frank Herbert’s novel and Rabban’s direct rival as heir to the Harkonnen throne. In the second movie, Rabban is left to rule Arrakis with an iron fist, which meant plenty of screen time for Bautista. In turn, he delivered his most frightening performance to date.

We are only a little over a decade into Bautista’s acting career, but if the former wrestler continues to try his hand at roles like the one he played in The Last Showgirl, it probably won't be long before awards recognition starts to come his way. 

The movie is the latest from Gia Coppola, and it offers a touching portrayal of a Hollywood showgirl (a perfectly cast Pamela Anderson) attempting to move on after the revue she’s headlined for decades finally comes to an end.

Bautista, an artist who knows a thing or two about second acts, gives a lovely performance as Eddie, the show’s producer and the sometimes love interest of Anderson’ fading star.