Overrated/Underrated/Just Right : Brad Pitt

He actually has two Oscars (even if one isn't for acting)... So I'd say overrated.

Depends by which metric you judge by, because he's either underrated as an acting talent or overrated as a leading man.

I think in terms of his acting nominations, he's been recognized far too much for work that I don't think is representative of his true skills and talents. 12 Monkeys is really the only performance he was nodded for that I agree with wholeheartedly. I think he's solid in Benjamin Button (but the film's middle section does drag ass, and he's dragged along with it), I can't stand Moneyball or his performance in it, and I think he's pretty good in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (though his sections are the film's weakness because it's where I feel Tarantino really let himself down, but it has nothing to do with Pitt's performance). But I think things like Se7en, The Assassination of Jesse James and Burn After Reading are much more representative of what Pitt's strengths are.

I think Pitt's really only as good as the role he's given. If he is tasked with just being a conventional romantic lead or having to play a default, vanilla role to hold a movie together, he can be rather boring. He doesn't have the natural wattage that someone like Clooney or DiCaprio have. But give him an outsized persona or a crazed loon to play, and he can duke it out with the best of 'em. The Redford comparisons he's labored under for ages really do apply, both as a negative and as a positive. The older Pitt's gotten, the more interesting I find him, primarily because he's aging out of the Hollywood hunk demographic and he's able to play roles that suit his skill set.

Do I think he's one of the greatest actors ever? No. Do I think he's given some great performances? Definitely. Do I have an issue with his Oscar win? Only that it's category fraud.

Yeah this is closer to my POV (as usual not voting in my own poll) but I'd feel fairly comfortable giving an odd answer like "maybe overrated for serious drama" and "very underrated for comedy" .......not that he can't do drama it's just his strengths lie for me in comic works.

Outside of Twelve Monkeys, Burn After Reading, and Inglourious Basterds......I'd say overrated. I love him in Basterds, don't get the indifference to that performance. I thought it plays right into his strengths. He's a comic actor. He's the 2nd incarnation of Steve Buscemi. Anytime he does drama, he's bland and boring. Can't imagine Steve doing anything outside of that chipper-mouthed nervous dude. And similarly that's how I see Brad Pitt..... a character actor. His best performances...... Burn After, Twelve Monkeys, and IB can all be lumped up into a group.... comic scenary chewing.

I'll give him credit. He was an absolutely horrible actor before Twelve Monkeys. Painful to sit through all his pretty boy performances, but starting from Twelve Monkeys he got better, and then a 2nd resurgence in the late 00s....'07-'09.   I also feel like I like him in Benjamin Button more than most people, but he didn't do a whole lot, but he was still nice feeling anyways.

He's given so many great performances that haven't even had any awards discussion. He pretty much nails every role. ONe of the biggest stars ever and lots of though. Probably just about right...definitely not overrated though.

It's a cliche to say at this point, but Pitt's "talent" tends to come out most in character, supporting, ensemble or lighter roles. He's never had that much gravitas generally speaking and he's often disappointing as a leading man. I think in  recent things like Allied, he reverts back to a kind of wooden "serious" leading man mode that you used to see all the time from him in things like Meet Joe Black and Seven Years In Tibet, where you could have replaced him with a mannequin and it'd have made little difference. Even his work in Ad Astra felt much in that vein, where Pitt is trying to carry a film again in serious dramatic mode, and turns into a dull cypher. He's got some good dramatic work, but when you get 50 chances to fail like someone like Pitt, you'll eventually get something good out of him. He's similar to Natalie Portman in that sense. Both can be empty and floudering vessels when not given much to work with or strong enough direction, but the right filmmaker can mould them in the direction they want.

He's probably got more talent than he's given credit for, but he's very, very far away from being the most talented movie star. And I'd say DiCaprio is definitely more talented than him, and a far superior leading man. Pitt is much more likable though, and his likability (on-screen and off) as well as his looks have gotten him through stretches on inconsistent or mediocre performances.

Oh you and everyone else, I'm comfortable being in the minority but I'll always take Pitt's groundedness to DiCaprio's effort. But you're right, Pitt's resume is quite spotty but he knows how to deliver when the material's right (Ad Astra was not the right material btw, I can't think of anyone who would've  done better with that same screenplay). As far as DiCaprio, I just don't think acting should look as hard as it does whenever he's is in front of the screen. All I see in his acting is blood, sweat, and tears, it doesn't matter who he's playing he always looks and sounds the same. Three decades of performances that all bleed into each other. Have him take on a Travis Henderson-type role and we'll see how he does.

Using any scene from Revolutionary Road in defense of DiCaprio's acting is off to a bad start.

But my point is that he displays those kinds of histrionics in literally every film he's been in, to the point that you can't differentiate any of them. These are supposed to be "acting moments" but for Dicaprio those moments are universally identical. You can take his screaming in Revenant when he's pulling himself out of the grave and literally transplant it onto his outbursts Revolutionary Road, WoWS, Django Unchained, and even Titanic frankly (give or take some snot and an accent). Subtlety goes out the window because all these moments feel the same for him and operate at the same emotional extreme, and he's too quick to go to that extreme. I was rewatching Django the other and was thinking how much more effectively menacing his Calvin Candie performance would've been if he kept it restrained instead of giving in to those 0 to 100 impulses that he defaults to whenever there's a moment of stress in any film.

^ Pretty much .......

Too often we advocate that a (quiet?) "naturalism" or a degree of effortlessness is as important as vividness or context.

It is not and that is not what real life is like either anyway.

Very often (not always) - more than we would think actually - if you can't visibly see some noticeable effort in a performance .........very often (not always) you aren't looking at a performance that's actually worth seeing anyway. 

Hard to say if he's just right or underrated, but I'll just go on and say that his acting prowess is sometimes overlooked by his looks, or his naturalistic acting style. I've read some people who think detective Mill's breakdown in the end of Se7en is bad acting (?) or that he is horrible in Inglourious Basterds. Anyways, he's given more excellent performances than the awards would have recognised. What I most appreciate is that no performances from Pitt are ever the same. A nice example is Mr and Mrs Smith and Allied, both co-lead performances with a generally similar plot. Pitt in the former oozes charisma as the leading man with on-point comic timing, but unlike Tyler Durden or Rusty Ryan. He plays the character with an undertone of vanity and stupidity in the way he speaks and eats. In Allied he's a ruthless and calculated man who has mastered the skill of masking emotions, and you see that in his mannerisms and facial reactions. He plays the character with a perpetual tiredness and sadness. Pitt as the leading man is not to be undermined either despite how few there are. They are what propelled him to fame/ popularity in Legends of the Fall, Meet Joe Black and Troy. Then there's also Moneyball, TCCoBB and just last year Ad Astra, all excellent and widely-different leading performances.

It's hard to compare Pitt and DiCaprio because they have such different acting styles. I can't imagine Pitt in The Wolf of Wall Street, neither can I imagine DiCaprio play such a muted character in Allied or as Billy Beane in Moneyball.

Here are some of the best Brad Pitt performances that didn't receive much award attention, and perhaps didn't have to.