Harrison Ford Is at His Best On-Screen When He’s Pissed Off

Surly, irritated, agitated, pissed-off, angry, dyspeptic, bellicose, aggravated. These are just a few of the words you can use when describing Harrison Ford‘s acting style when he’s at his best. He’s made one hell of a career by looking like he is in a constant state of having his gears ground.

For his new comedy-drama streaming on Apple TV+, Shrinking, in which he stars opposite Jason Segel, you could aptly use any one of them to characterize his mood as Dr. Phil Rhodes, the owner of a private psychiatry practice that employs the likes of bumbling therapists like Segel’s Jimmy Laird and the well-meaning-but-nosy, Gaby (Jessica Williams). Granted, playing a character that has to deal with the likes of these two on a daily basis is going to have you reaching for the Pepto-Bismol, but as long as it’s Ford, we don’t want it any other way. Some of the actor’s greatest moments on film have captured Ford in a less-than-stellar mood. Think about it; in his roles as Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Dr. Richard Kimball, and Jack Ryan, the most memorable moments from these characters are when Ford is one of the words used in the first sentence of this article.

Related: TV’s Worst Therapists, From ‘Shrinking’ to ‘The Sopranos’

Why Would Han Solo Ever Be Anything but Cranky?

Aside from the moments he spends with his boo, Princess Leia, when is Han Solo anything less than irritated or on the verge of being pissed off? He’s a rogue smuggler of contraband who has to barter with the likes of Greedo and Jabba the Hutt just to keep the Millennium Falcon clicking at top speed to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. And then of course there’s Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams). When he’s not selling out his old poker buddy to Darth Vader so he can end up encased in carbonite, he’s making a play for Han’s main squeeze, the Princess. That is not a buddy, and Ford has always delivered the perfect grimace to let us know that he’s not happy about it. And don’t even get us started on what it takes to not blow your top with a young Luke Skywalker at times. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Chewbacca, Han would probably be in therapy, himself. Any of those characters are going to bring out the worst in a person, and we are here to celebrate that Ford can capture that guy well.

Indiana Jones Doesn’t Have Time for Nazis!

You’re a brilliant archeologist who has to teach a bunch of nitwit undergrads, and in your only vacation time is spent in booby-trapped caves teeming with tarantulas with giant boulders ready to flatten you like a pancake. And let’s say you make it out of that, then you have a freaking Nazi, like Belloq (Paul Freeman), just sitting there waiting to wrestle away the very rare and valuable fruits of your labor, and send a group of deadly African tribesmen to kill you. Or another Nazi, like Major Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey) biding his time to take the medallion that you came all the way to the Nepalese mountains for. We’d all be in a bad way if it happened to us.

Even his own father, Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery) drives him up the wall, and these make for some of the best scenes in the entire franchise. When they’re tied up back-to-back about to be burned alive, Indy’s irritation turns to flat-out life-and-death apoplexy. Surely you knew that having your dad along for your quest for the Holy Grail would not turn out well. Henry’s not cut out for field work, we all know that, but it doesn’t matter. And do you want to know why? Because an angry Harrison Ford is a home run, titan of the big screen, money-in-the-bank stallion, that’s why.

It Was the Man With One Arm!

Calm down, Dr. Richard Kimball! On second thought, don’t, because a pissed-off Dr. Kimball in The Fugitive is the one we dropped 20 bucks to see and another $85 for popcorn and a drink! This is what we want to go to the movies for, right here — to see Harrison Ford angry for two full hours as he fights to clear his name for the murder of his own wife, Helen (Sela Ward). From respectable doctor to member of a chain gang to a fugitive from justice jumping out of sewage tunnels to elude the grasp of someone like U.S. Marshall Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), how can that kind of downward spiral not rub you the wrong way six days a week and twice on Sunday? It was the man with one arm, for Pete’s sake, and your good friend and former colleague, Dr. Charles Nicholls (Jeroen Krabbe) paid him to do it. That’s why Kimball is angry, and he has every right to be. In fact, we encourage it. The angrier Ford gets, the more we want to hand him an Oscar nomination, nay, an Oscar statue.

Did that IRA soldier (Sean Bean) just threaten CIA analyst turned field agent, Jack Ryan’s family in Patriot Games? Perfect. We can’t think of anything that will get Harrison more riled up than that. And when you tried to run his wife, Cathy (Anne Archer), and precious little girl, Sally (Thora Birch) off the road sending them careening into a guard rail and within an inch of their lives? There’s that look we love. Harrison Ford with his lips pursed and veins popping out of his forehead. Now the movie can officially start, because up until that point, the calm, cool, and collected Ford just wasn’t sitting right with us. We were squirming in our seats over how normal and not-contorted his face looked. Everybody relax. Harrison Ford is pissed off, and we love every minute of it.