Which version of Hugh Grant is your favourite? The British actor used to be the rakish, plummy king of romantic comedy but, as he’s got a little older, he’s become more adventurous with his film roles. Our Hugh can now pop up on the big screen playing anything from a con artist in Dungeons and Dragons: Honour among Thieves and a cannibal in Cloud Atlas to Daniel Craig’s apron-wearing other half in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Back in the 1990s, when he was fresh of face and floppy of hair, Grant was a reliable presence in the best period dramas of the time, with pivotal supporting roles in The Remains of the Day and the brilliant Emma Thompson version of Sense & Sensibility - not forgetting his startling breakthrough in the early Merchant-Ivory production Maurice.
His best-known and best-loved performances, however, will forever be in the run of rom-com hits written by Richard Curtis that started with Four Weddings and a Funeral, where Grant heads up a gang of British friends who are constantly pulling on their best suits, piling into cars and attending other people’s lavish weddings. With Grant’s halting, awkward effort to woo Andie McDowell at its heart, the film encapsulated his special brand of stuttering English charm and made him a superstar.
Grant and Curtis collaborated further on Notting Hill, where Grant is a humble - but posh and extremely attractive - bookseller who has an unlikely liaison with a Hollywood A-lister played by Julia Roberts; and Love Actually, where his British Prime Minister is an adorable eccentric who still finds time to be wonderfully rude to his American colleagues when necessary. For the dark side of Hugh Grant: The Blundering Dreamboat Years, there are the two Bridget Jones movies, where he’s less lovable and more of a rogue.
When Grant was at the peak of his fame, many people tried to dismiss him as just a pretty face and a cut-glass accent, but underneath that flustered exterior there has always been a seriously gifted comic performer. You can see it in his work in American romantic comedies, where even if the movie isn’t the best, Grant is always terrific in his role - and in the likes of Two Weeks Notice (co-starring Sandra Bullock) and Music & Lyrics (with Drew Barrymore), the films aren’t too bad at all.
But there’s no pretty woman for Grant to win over in the movie that’s our pick of the best film he has ever appeared in, even if Four Weddings will always be the favourite for his fans: the pure joy that is Paddington 2. Grant is the villain of the story, flamboyant thief and failed actor Phoenix Buchanan - if you saw the film at the cinema and left as soon as the credits started rolling, you missed Grant showing a whole new side of himself in an uproarious closing song-and-dance sequence.
Now Grant is in the new one by Paul King, director of the Paddington films: in Wonka, a prequel to the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he’s Lofty the Oompa-Loompa. There could be one more genre of Hugh Grant movies to add to the list: the ones where he has green hair and an orange face…
Where to watch Hugh Grant movies and TV shows
In this guide you can find out where to watch the best Hugh Grant movies and TV shows currently available on streaming services in the United Kingdom. This includes the latest streaming offers on the most popular streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Apple TV+. We'll also show you whether you can watch each movie for free to stream on services such as iPlayer and ITVX.