10 Actors Who Are Amazing at Swearing

Plenty of legendary actors never really got the opportunity to swear up a storm on screen, mostly those who were only active before movies got a little more relaxed with how much profanity was allowed. So, yes, someone like Humphrey Bogart showed that it was possible to be cool without swearing, but who knows what an F-bomb-dropping Bogart could’ve done. And maybe Clark Gable wanted to say more than just “damn” on screen.

American actors got progressively filthier dialogue to chew on once the Hays Code ****ed off, with more swearing appearing in movies from the late 1960s on. TV took a little longer to catch up, but all bets were off once HBO and other cable stations started rising in popularity. In celebration of swearing, here are some of the actors who do it best, focusing mostly on movies but including a couple of TV stars, too.

10 James Gandolfini

Most profane in: 'The Sopranos' (1999-2007)

The Sopranos, like various gangster movies before it, is filled with angry characters not just swearing up a storm, but swearing up enough to rival the worst of the worst hurricane seasons out there. It did this on TV, too, and at a time when such swearing on the small screen might've been shocking; one of many reasons it was groundbreaking stuff. Of all the great actors on the show, none shone brighter than James Gandolfini, given how consistently amazing he was in the lead role, playing Tony Soprano.

Nowadays, the death scenes on the show are probably more likely to make jaws drop than the language, but Tony is still a frequently angry and almost always potty-mouthed protagonist. Gandolfini also gets to swear a lot in a few of the movies he starred in (In the Loop has tons of creative profanity and insults, for example), but he’s at his sweary best in The Sopranos.

9 Seth Rogen

Most profane in: 'Pineapple Express' (2008)

Though he’s more recently been branching out into less comedic roles (see The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg), Seth Rogen rose to prominence – as far as movies are concerned – with some pretty profane comedies. Some of these heavy-hitting films packed with bad language include The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, Sausage Party, This Is the End, and Pineapple Express.

It’s probably the latter that’s best representative of Rogen’s penchant for swearing, and perhaps also the one where his character swears the most (though it would take hours to figure that out for sure; sometimes, you just have to go with your ****ing gut). Pineapple Express is also packed with drug use and some surprisingly gnarly violence, but it’s also a good time. It’s chaotic and distinctly 2000s in its approach to comedy, but that kind of thing is becoming weirdly nostalgic now, given the 2000s was – as hard as it is to acknowledge – two decades ago now.

8 Leonardo DiCaprio

Most profane in: 'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013)

Thanks to working more than once with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to find himself playing characters with a keenness for swearing with decent regularity. He gets to have plenty of outbursts in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and then in The Departed, just about everyone seems to love dropping F-bombs.

Then there’s The Wolf of Wall Street, of course, which is one of the most profane movies of all time and DiCaprio’s character gets to narrate the whole thing in a typically vulgar fashion. Going by the quantity of swears, DiCaprio’s career is a fruitful one, but it’s also the quality of the swearing that matters. Given Leonardo DiCaprio is unafraid to chew scenery, he tends to make the most of the bad language his characters often end up deploying.

7 Adam Sandler

Most profane in: 'Uncut Gems' (2019)

Honestly, without playing the lead role in Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler might not actually be a true contender when it comes to crowning the actors who swear the best on screen. He’s been in plenty of broad comedies where he gets to yell a lot, sure, but many of them don’t exceed having PG or PG-13 ratings, which means Sandler’s characters are ultimately limited in the range of swear words they can use.

There are no limitations when it comes to Uncut Gems. It is a relentlessly loud, chaotic, and profanity-filled movie, being filled with such constant stress and various agitated characters that it makes sense for there to be hundreds of F-bombs throughout. Sandler’s sworn in other movies, sure, but consider his placement here ensured by the perfectly profane movie that is Uncut Gems alone.

6 Jonah Hill

Most profane in: 'Superbad' (2007) and 'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013)

So, the data backs it up: Jonah Hill has sworn more than any other actor in movie history, much to the disbelief of Samuel L. Jackson who will soon be getting a shoutout, because this is more about the quality of the swearing than the quantity. But… quantity helps, and Jonah Hill has excelled in that regard, especially considering he’s relatively young compared to some of the other professional swearers out there.

Like Leonardo DiCaprio, Hill got to drop tons of dirty words throughout The Wolf of Wall Street, with various other comedies like Superbad and This Is the End (ones the aforementioned Seth Rogen also appeared in) contributing to his count. And Jonah Hill just knows how to milk the most out of such words, usually for comedic effect. Few actors of his generation can so reliably play crude, oftentimes immature, and persistently heightened characters.

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5 Robert De Niro

Most profane in: 'Goodfellas' (1990) and 'Casino' (1995)

Undeniably being a go-to actor when it comes to gangster films, Robert De Niro has been swearing it up on screen for more than 50 years at this stage. Similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, much of this salty language has been a result of starring in a good many Martin Scorsese movies, including the likes of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino.

De Niro is also good at playing villains, be they scenery-devouring or a little more quietly menacing, and writers will know that it’s hard to resist making bad guys lash out with their choices of words sometimes (the cruder the better, depending on the genre at hand). Whether the profanity feels partly improvised or whether it comes across as tightly scripted, De Niro’s always been good at swearing. Even well into the 21st century, and beyond the age of 70, he can still be a Dirty Grandpa.

4 Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Most profane in: 'Veep' (2012-2019)

When Julia Louis-Dreyfus starred on Seinfeld, she and her co-stars had to be funny without relying on much by way of profanity, owing to that being a network show that had some real restrictions content-wise. Things were very different when she starred in Veep, though, with all seven seasons of that political satire show being packed to the brim with people saying very awful (and often very funny) things.

Veep is all about the quality of the bad language; just how creatively disgusting it could get, and how venomously the actors (most of them playing pretty awful people) can deliver such dialogue. Louis-Dreyfuss was the MVP, much like how James Gandolfini was the most valuable swearer on The Sopranos. Funnily enough, the two also starred together in something a little gentler and not nearly as profane, the 2013 rom-com Enough Said.

3 Al Pacino

Most profane in: 'Scarface' (1983)

Al Pacino is just as legendary as Robert De Niro when it comes to acting in crime movies, but Pacino has debatably gone over the top more often than De Niro. As such, it feels as though he swears on screen more often, and perhaps even swears better on screen than his aforementioned contemporary. Anyone who’s seen the mammoth-length (and wonderfully excessive) Scarface can potentially confirm the validity of such a statement.

Aged hasn’t worn down Pacino’s penchant for profanity, either, because he gets various opportunities to cut loose in 2019’s The Irishman. Who knew hearing an old man yell, “I am sitting in a room... full of ****ing idiots. You dumb mother****ers!”, and then continue along that line for another few minutes, could be so entertaining? Well, anyone who’d seen any prior Al Pacino crime movie, maybe.

2 Samuel L. Jackson

Most profane in: 'Pulp Fiction' (1994) and 'Jackie Brown' (1997)

Samuel L. Jackson has a reputation for being one of the best-equipped actors to tackle profanity-laden dialogue, and rightly so. There’s something about his voice and the intensity he oozes on screen that makes F-bombs coming from his mouth sound so right, with this capacity for masterful swearing best displayed by his roles as very vocal characters in both Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.

Having multiple collaborations with Spike Lee has helped Jackson’s reputation as far as profanity is concerned, too, given films like Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever have some quite explosive language. Even more impressively, Samuel L. Jackson remains a famously great swearer even though some of his best-known roles don’t let him drop F-bombs aplenty; namely, playing Nick Fury in the MCU, and voicing Frozone in The Incredibles movies.

1 Joe Pesci

Most profane in: 'Casino' (1995)

No actor has done as much for the act of swearing as Joe Pesci, with every single curse word that’s left the actor’s mouth being a genuine delight to hear. He frequently plays high-strung and particularly aggressive characters, and exploding while saying all sorts of terrible things is something Pesci has proven himself excellent at time and again. Even when he has to resort to saying gibberish that sounds vaguely like swearing (as in Home Alone), he’s incredible.

Like Pacino and De Niro, he was also in The Irishman, but playing a more reserved character than usual… though he still gets to show off how good he is at swearing in a more subtle manner. He’s perhaps the all-time best dropper of F-bombs for his gangster roles from the 1990s alone, because the way he swears in both Goodfellas and Casino has to be heard to be believed.

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