Steve McQueen movies ranked from worst to best according to fans

Steve McQueen is returning to the director's chair for a blistering World War II epic, Blitz, which has been heavily tipped to take the filmmaker and his cast to the Oscars like 12 Years a Slave.

The visionary auteur has more than proven his place in the pantheon of great British directors after his 2008 feature film debut Hunger and his shocking 2011 follow-up Shame. McQueen has been able to reinvent himself and do something different each time he steps behind a camera, which has made each movie an event of sorts.

To mark the release of Blitz on Apple TV+, Yahoo UK will be taking a look back at McQueen's work in the industry thus far and how film fans have taken to them.

Steve McQueen movies ranked worst to best according to fans

7 | Occupied City

Before making Blitz, McQueen explored World War II in a very different way in the documentary Occupied City which explored the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam from 1940 to 1945. The story is told in juxtaposition of the experience of people during the Covid pandemic, and the 4 and a half hour film is epic in more than one way.

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Unfortunately for McQueen it is his lowest ranking film, with the documentary earning a solid 6.6 rating on IMDb, which is nothing to sniff at but isn't as strong as his other work.

IMDb rating: 6.6

Occupied City is available on Mubi.

6 | Widows

It was always going to be tough to follow a film like 12 Years a Slave, and McQueen tried his best to do so in 2018 with the A-list thriller Widows. Based on Lydia LaPlante's book of the same name, the story follows four women who find themselves unexpectedly connected when they're left behind with their respective husbands' debt and decide to take matters into their own hands.

Viola Davis led the film brilliantly, and she was joined by the likes of Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell, and Liam Neeson. A number of big names wasn't enough to make the film a hit, though, and it has just a 6.8 rating.

IMDb rating: 6.8

Widows is available on Netflix.

5 | Shame

Michael Fassbender became a household name thanks to his second collaboration with McQueen, Shame. The explicit drama about a sex addict named Brandon (Fassbender) whose life is turned upside down after his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) reappears in his life drew a huge amount of critical acclaim both for McQueen and his cast.

While his first film made him a name it was Shame that put McQueen on the map, and he used its success to jump into his most renowned project. While it is regarded as one of the director's best works, for film fans it comes in the middle of the pack with a 7.2 approval rating.

IMDb rating: 7.2

Shame is available to buy and rent.

4 | Hunger

McQueen's feature film debut was also his first time working with Fassbender, a dark and deeply moving look at IRA member Bobby Sands' imprisonment and his leading of a hunger strike in 1981. The film, which McQueen wrote with Enda Walsh, earned McQueen a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and showed his skill as a director and storyteller.

The independent film, which also stars Liam Cunningham, earned a strong 7.5 rating amongst film fans.

IMDb rating: 7.5

Hunger is available to buy and rent.

3 | Uprising

McQueen has worked with the BBC on several occasions, the second of which was for the documentary series Uprising. The three part series examines events that took place in the UK in 1981 that began with the New Cross house fire which resulted in the deaths of 12 Black teenagers.

No one was ever charged with the fire, and the lack of justice resulted in a call for change including a march of 20,000 people across London for an event known as Black People's Day of Action. The documentary is one of McQueen's best loved works, and has garnered a 7.7 rating amongst film fans.

IMDb rating: 7.7

Uprising is available on BBC iPlayer.

2 | Small Axe

McQueen created the anthology film series Small Axe with the BBC which was released in late 2020, and which explored the experiences of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s. Small Axe consisted of five films, which star Letitia Wright, John Boyega, Shaun Parkes, Malachi Kirby, and Michael Ward amongst others.

As a whole the BBC film series is regarded as one of McQueen's best works, earning an average 7.9 rating on IMDb, with the individual movies earning between 8.0 and 6.8 rating.

IMDb rating: 7.9

Small Axe is streaming on BBC iPlayer.

1 | 12 Years a Slave

It earned him an Oscar so it shouldn't be too surprising that 12 Years a Slave is regarded as McQueen's best film to date. Based on Solomon Northup's heartbreaking memoir, the equally moving film examines Solomon's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) experience as a free Black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

The 2013 film rightly earned a number of Oscars for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong'o. Ejiofor narrowly missed out on earning Best Actor, which went to Matthew McConaughey for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club.

IMDb rating: 8.1

12 Years a Slave is available to buy and rent.