Scottish actor Gerard Butler has been headlining some of Hollywood’s biggest, most successful, and most talked-about blockbuster releases for three decades. If any 2000s action star has a claim to A-list status, it’s him. However, it still feels like not enough people discuss his acting talents.

For most of his career, Butler has prioritized a kind of unapologetically corny and popular cinema that often skews … controversial, to say the least. Good and campy fun is Butler’s bread-and-butter — whether it’s action, romance, adventure, or a musical.

The key to appreciating him as a performer is to understand this fact and fall in love with the easy-watching pleasure these movies provide. However, it’s also worth noting what deeper dimensions Butler brings to these roles, too.

So here’s an appraisal of the 12 best Gerard Butler movies. For the unacquainted, these picks will help viewers fall in love with the man’s unique brand of crowd-pleasing entertainment.

12. Nim’s Island

20th Century Fox

What better way to start a list of the best Gerard Butler movies than with one where he plays two classic Butlerian roles?

Adapted from the eponymous children’s story by Wendy Orr, “Nim’s Island” brings together the headline-worthy trio of Butler, Jodie Foster, and Abigail Breslin — then just two years removed from her Academy Award nomination for “Little Miss Sunshine” — for a breezy, old-fashioned adventure tale with a playful meta twist.

A girl named Nim (Breslin) lives on a remote South Pacific island and swaps emails with an adventure book author (Foster), who, despite the intensity of her stories, is agoraphobic and deeply neurotic. The author gets pushed to face her fears when the girl finds herself in real-life tropical peril.

Butler plays Jack Rusoe, a widower marine biologist and father of Nim, and Alex Rover, the fictional adventurer created by Foster’s Alexandra Rover. While sequestered in her house, Alexandra imagines herself having conversations with Alex.

The film is a fun, family-friendly romp buoyed by its strong performances. But what makes it interesting in the context of Butler’s filmography is that the dual role allows him to display two vital facets of his star persona: The buff, manly action man, and the sensitive and emotionally accessible father figure-slash-love interest.

11. Gamer

Lionsgate

It takes a certain amount of willingness to properly appreciate Butler’s action filmography. His work in the genre is brash, noisy, excessive, testosterone-laden, unsubtle, and, yes, fundamentally ridiculous.

While that flavor of cinema can go many ways, the fact remains that, when it does deliver, it delivers handsomely. A good Butler action vehicle whisks the viewer into a realm of pure, unmitigated sensory excitement. To showcase these gloriously trashy Butler vehicles, there’s no doubt which one I’d choose first. When you have Neveldine-Taylor, go for Neveldine-Taylor.

In the short but vital directorial oeuvre of the American filmmaking duo, Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine (“Crank”), “Gamer” stands out as a brazen feat of bizarro cinema. Set in a dystopian future where nanite technology allows gamers to control humans as their avatars in video games, the film follows John “Kable” Tillman (Butler).

Out of the many death row inmates using a video game, “Slayers,” to gain a pardon, he’s the most popular and successful. He longs to reconnect with his estranged wife, Angie (Amber Valletta), a paid actress-avatar in the “Sims”-like life simulator “Society.”

Conspiracies, insurrections, and sci-fi twists ensue — as well as buckets of gonzo sound, fury, and violence that only this particular star-director alignment could yield.

10. P.S. I Love You

Warner Bros. Picures

Butler is not the first leading man to spend his career moving between the realms of action and romance. But he’s definitely among the ones who seem uncannily made for both genres.

Consider his chemistry with Hilary Swank in “P.S. I Love You:” Other actors might have been intimidated by the challenge of playing a character who provides the contextual fodder for the highly emotional performance of a two-time Best Actress Oscar winner.

Yet Butler embraces the task with gusto, projecting the warmth and self-evident charm required to make the film’s ludicrous premise work.

When I say “ludicrous,” I do mean ludicrous. Like “Ghost” by way of a scavenger hunt, “P.S. I Love You” follows Holly Kennedy (Swank), a woman gradually healing from grieving her late husband Gerry (Butler) by … her late husband Gerry?

Before his death, he left her 10 messages to be delivered at strategic moments during her healing process. The film’s uninhibited, louder-for-the-people-in-the-back sentiment was met with some resistance by critics at the time.

Ultimately, it struck a winning chord with audiences, allowing it to become a worldwide hit. Like the best of Butler’s work, it’s a movie that understands the immense and fantastical power that a “more is more” philosophy has in popular cinema.

9. RocknRolla

Warner Bros. Pictures/StudioCanal

Some directors have lanes, and Guy Ritchie decidedly has his. Following his early career success with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” his subpar films ventured outside of his range. But “RocknRolla” marked a return to form by Britain’s quintessential director of stylish postmodern gangster flicks.

“RocknRolla” is one of the projects that allows Butler to combine his chops as a brawny action star with more substantial character work. Here he plays a wittier, more self-aware character.

Even though Butler’s One-Two is the film’s ostensible protagonist, the cast around him offers just as much reason to give “RocknRolla” a watch: Thandiwe Newton, Tom Wilkinson, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, Toby Kebbell, and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges all lend their talents to the film’s ensemble-based fun.

Ritchie lets each of them take turns stealing the show from one another while Butler anchors the whole thing with impressive confidence. The plot could be described as a sort of gangster rat race, featuring a land scam that leaves millions of pounds up for the taking — bringing London’s criminal scene into a no-holds-barred fight for the gold. It’s slick Ritchiean fun all the way down!

8. The Phantom of the Opera

Is “The Phantom of the Opera” a good movie? Whole arias have been written in favor of and against that hypothesis.

But 19 years later, the film community can’t agree on an answer to that or the similarly pressing question: “Does Andrew Lloyd Webber make good musicals?” Half the people who read this list will disagree, but here we’re going with a resounding YES on both counts.

Can Gerard Butler sing? His gruff, smoky, yet surprisingly melodic baritone makes a counterintuitive musical casting. But what can’t be denied is that it was a memorable choice for the role.

If the stage version of “The Phantom of the Opera” — much like Webber’s oeuvre — is defined by its kitschy, operatic opulence, Butler turns out to be just the right guy to translate that into an understandable emotional language for mainstream film audiences.

In Joel Schumacher’s 2004 film adaptation, Butler’s take on the Phantom is as simultaneously fearsome and seductive as it should be. Gaudy maximalism in the musical and the film’s take on Gaston Leroux’s Gothic tale of forbidden backstage romance has always made them something of an acquired taste.

But those who do possess said taste should be broadly satisfied by this film. Arguably, this pick earns the distinction of being the “most over-the-top Gerard Butler movie.”

7. Mrs Brown

Miramax Films/Buena Vista International

In 1997, there was no such a thing as a “Gerard Butler persona” — which might explain why “Mrs Brown” finds him giving one of his most open, delightful, and least recognizable performances. Following a few early stage roles, this was Butler’s big-screen debut.

The John Madden-directed period drama tells the story of the famed, controversial close relationship between the recently-widowed Queen Victoria (played, for the first of two times in her film career, by Judi Dench) and her late husband’s trusted Scottish servant, John Brown (Billy Connolly).

Produced by BBC and originally intended as a television movie, “Mrs Butler” was purchased and released in theaters by Miramax. Its story of friendship and kinship blossoming under the constraints of royal obligation found significant commercial success — largely due to the typically stellar performances of Dench and Connolly.

Dench received her first Oscar nomination for the film, a year before her supporting actress win for “Shakespeare in Love.” But the two seasoned stars weren’t the only ones who received attention for the film.

Many viewers were quick to notice the handsome, fresh-faced, supernaturally charming 27-year-old actor playing John’s concerned younger brother, Archie Brown. The rest, of course, is Scottish history.

6. Chasing Mavericks

20th Century Fox

For whatever reason, there aren’t that many great surf movies out there. Outside of “Point Break” and, uh, “Surf’s Up,” it’s hard to come up with a proper canon for that subgenre. But one movie that necessarily belongs on any list of must-see surf movies worth its saltwater is “Chasing Mavericks.”

Notable as the last directorial effort of Curtis Hanson and the second-to-last directorial effort of Michael Apted — who took over as director when Hanson’s health troubles increased — “Chasing Mavericks” tells the story of real-life surfer Jay Moriarty (Jonny Weston).

At age 16, Moriarty became notable for successfully riding Mavericks — the massive Northern Californian swell that has made the names of multiple big wave surfers. The film tells the story of how he pulled that off, aided by his trusted teacher and best friend Richard “Frosty” Hesson (Gerard Butler).

It’s no secret that Butler has the gravitas and charisma required to ace a mentor role. But an even more impressive element of his performance in “Chasing Mavericks” is the degree to which he sells the surfing scenes.

Per Los Angeles Times, the actor studied under big wave surfer Grant Washburn to make sure he got it right. His dedication to the role comes through fully in the film, which contains some of the most riveting (fictional) surfing sequences ever shot.

5. Coriolanus

Lionsgate

Spartan king, gangster, surfer, jungle adventurer, Viking chieftain, hero pilot, and first-person shooter video game avatar? Sometimes, it feels as though Butler is deliberately collecting the Infinity Stones of pop-cinema masculinity.

Thanks to “Coriolanus,” we can add “Italic army commander” to that list. Talk about a guy who likes to face down powerful armies in the Classical Antiquity era.

“Coriolanus” is the strongest of the many screen adaptations of the eponymous William Shakespeare tragedy. The film makes the curious creative decision to preserve the original text while nonchalantly transposing it to a contemporary visual setting.

Directed by Ralph Fiennes, the film also stars Fiennes in the role of Caius Martius Coriolanus, the Roman general banished from the city and retaliated by leading its enemies, the Volscians, in an assault against Rome.

Butler plays Coriolanus’ rival-turned-ally Tullus Aufidius, the commander of the Volscian army, in a performance that decisively proved he could acquit himself perfectly well as a classic thespian. After all, the film sees Butler more than hold his own while delivering Shakespearean dialogue alongside the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, and Brian Cox.

Not that his comfort with this text should be a surprise! “Coriolanus,” the play, had a major role in Butler’s trajectory as an actor: Per Biography.com, his first break in the London theater scene came when he got the chance to play the title role in a 1996 production directed by Steven Berkoff.

4. Reign of Fire

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Every superstar actor has two or three cult movies in their catalog — those controversial, initially panned films that eventually find a small but passionate audience. There’s an argument to be made that, forgettable assembly-line actioners aside, Butler’s career is made up of nothing but cult films.

With a few exceptions, the entries on this list aren’t exactly “universally acclaimed” films: They’re films deeply cherished by the right viewer, on the right wavelength, with the right amount of appreciation for a certain kind of face-first genre cinema.

Out of all the Butler films rejected by the critical mainstream yet treasured by specific subsets of devout fans, one stands tall as not only the cult-iest but the best: “Reign of Fire.”

Although remembered for the distinction of being the first blockbuster to make “realistic” CGI dragons a feasible onscreen proposition — enough to influence everything from “Game of Thrones” to “Harry Potter” — Rob Bowman’s “Reign of Fire” is no mere technical landmark.

The film is one of the most rousing, satisfying, and gorgeous fantasy sagas that Hollywood made in the 2000s — pans and underwhelming box office be damned. Its post-apoc story of human survivors in a world overtaken by dragons hits just the right spot between soothing familiarity and awe-inspiring newness … and boasts an ideal leading man trio in Butler, Christian Bale, and Matthew McConaughey.

3. How to Train Your Dragon 2

Sometimes, stunt casting in animated films can be grating. Other times, it works wonders. Butler as an unfeeling Viking dad named Stoick could have gone either way, really, as could have the “How to Train Your Dragon” series as a whole.

Thankfully, this was the franchise that proved DreamWorks was just as capable as Pixar of delivering earnest, visually stunning, dramatically serious CGI animated masterpieces. Fittingly, it also provided Butler with one of the best roles of his career.

“How to Train Your Dragon 2” is not quite as phenomenal as the first film. (A tough bar to clear, to be fair.) But it’s an even better showcase for Butler’s voice work as Stoick the Vast, as the plot finds the mighty chieftain of Berk settling into a softer, vulnerable, and more emotionally flexible version of himself after the events of the first film.

He’s immediately challenged in his journey of personal growth by the reappearance of his long-lost wife, Valka (Cate Blanchett), who brings all of Stoick’s repressed grief, fear, and love straight to the forefront. Even in animated form, Butler turns out to have impeccable romantic chemistry with his screen partner, and the film allows him to complete Stoick’s arc beautifully.

2. Dear Frankie

Pathé Distributors / Miramax

Butler, regrettably, hasn’t done a lot of small-scale indie dramas — ones you find in the program of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. But “Dear Frankie” is so good that it’s worth a whole career of them.

Directed by Shona Auerbach from a script by Andrea Gibb, the film boasts subtlety, a sense of place, and a generous spirit — matching the best of British working-class cinema.

The plot follows Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer, also in one of her best film roles), a mother who brought her nine-year-old deaf son Frankie (Jack McElhone) to the coastal town of Greenock, Scotland to steer clear of her abusive ex-husband.

Without the heart to tell Frankie the truth about his father, Lizzie claims he’s working far away as a merchant seaman. Through a series of coincidences, Frankie believes that his father has finally come to see him, forcing Lizzie to enlist a man known only as The Stranger (Butler) to pretend to be Frankie’s dad for one day.

Although that logline could have made for something schlocky or sensationalist, “Dear Frankie” is never less than honest and deeply-felt. This film allows Butler to sink his teeth into a stunningly understated and complex role. It’s comfortably the best live-action film of his career, and a reason to hope he returns to the arthouse drama world in the future.

1. How to Train Your Dragon

Paramount Pictures

The first place on this list couldn’t be anything else. “How to Train Your Dragon” is not only one of the best American films of the 21st century, but also one of precious few mainstream movies that have taken Butler seriously: He’s an imposing leading man and a platonic old-school macho figure, yes, but dammit, the man also has a heart!

The film captures those two dimensions of Butler and layers them on top of one another, allowing Butler’s prowess as a heartrending dramatic performer to erupt through the cracks of his — ahem — stoic persona. No single line delivery in Butler’s oeuvre has ever been more gut-wrenching or unforgettable than the simple words: “I did this.”

That isn’t to say there isn’t lots of fun to be had with Butler’s performance, too. Before anything else, this is a deeply entertaining movie. Butler’s wholehearted committed to the goofily serious Viking voice, so you almost forget it’s him. He makes for a perfect match with Jay Baruchel’s winking, modern-sounding take on Hiccup. Together, they forge a father-son bond for the ages.