Michael B. Jordan's Highest Rated Movie on Rotten Tomatoes Is a Shocking Superhero Film

Michael B. Jordan’s role as Erik Killmonger in Black Panther solidified his status as a movie star (real fans knew him as the guy from Friday Night Lights before that), but his highest-rated movie — according to Rotten Tomatoes — actually came out five years earlier. And no, we’re somehow not referring to the brilliant and devastating Fruitvale Station, directed by Black Panther and Sinners filmmaker Ryan Coogler. We’re actually talking about Jordan’s first-ever superhero movie, the direct-to-video DC Comics animated feature Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.

Yes, before he was Smoke and Stack, before he was Adonis Creed, and before he was even Johnny Storm (can’t leave that one out), Michael B. Jordan played Cyborg in The Flashpoint Paradox — a movie with a rare and undeniably impressive 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (though ratings can change). Again, it was a straight-to-DVD animated film, so it doesn’t remotely have the number of critic reviews that a major, theatrically released superhero movie would have, but it also has a 93 percent rating from thousands of Rotten Tomatoes users.

What Are Michael B. Jordan’s Highest Rated Movies on Rotten Tomatoes?

Other than The Flashpoint Paradox, Michael B. Jordan’s top movies on Rotten Tomatoes are pretty obvious. Sinners is right below it, with Black Panther, Creed, and Fruitvale Station right below that (it’s no wonder he likes working with Coogler so much). Josh Trank’s Chronicle is on there as well, and so is Jordan’s courtroom drama Just Mercy, which also stars Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson.

Perhaps the more interesting thing about Jordan’s Rotten Tomatoes ratings is the huge gap between the good ones and the… less good ones. Creed II has a rating of 83 percent, which is good, and the next one in order is his Amazon action movie, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, at just 45 percent. Further down, you’ll find That Awkward Moment and Fantastic Four, with the latter sitting at nine percent. The man hasn’t been in that many movies, but it’s pretty clear at this point that, when he shows up, you’re either getting something great or something genuinely terrible. And, against all odds, this Justice League movie is the best one.

What Is ‘Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox’?

Based on the universe-destroying “Flashpoint” event from DC Comics, created by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert, The Flashpoint Paradox is about Barry Allen (the Flash) waking up in a near-dystopian alternate reality where nearly everything is wrong in some way — Aquaman and Atlantis are at war with Wonder Woman and the Amazons, no one’s ever heard of Superman, and Thomas Wayne became a violent vigilante known as Batman after his son Bruce was murdered in Crime Alley. Also, most suspicious of all, Barry’s mother — whose death has haunted him since his childhood — is alive and well. (This is the basic setup for The Flash as well.)

Michael B. Jordan’s Cyborg doesn’t have a huge role, though it was the “Flashpoint” storyline in the comics that led to the character getting a bigger spotlight and becoming a regular member of the Justice League (later leading to him being a big part of Zack Snyder’s Justice League movie). It’s basically perfect casting, even if there was no way the people involved knew it at the time: Cyborg is on the cusp of becoming an A-list superhero at this moment in time, just as Jordan was on the cusp of becoming an A-list movie star.

The Flashpoint Paradox kicked off an ongoing straight-to-video cinematic universe for DC’s animated movies that ran for 10 years, ending with an adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2024. Many of them are streaming on HBO Max, as is the record-breaking Sinners, if you want to tie it back to Michael B. Jordan.