Josh Brolin makes anger specific, from a father's grief to a preacher's pleasure in his own fury. We rate that precision, though his forceful presence cannot give an underwritten part everything it needs.
Fi1m perspective
At the pulpit in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025), Josh Brolin's Monsignor Jefferson Wicks has a congregation ready to be told whom to hate. Brolin gives them what they came for, without a wink or an attempt to make Wicks agreeable. We felt uneasy during that first sermon because he made the man's enjoyment of his own anger so plain. Rian Johnson gets a useful severity from him, though the satire could hardly be called subtle.
The important turn came well after the teenage part in The Goonies (1985). With No Country for Old Men (2007), Joel and Ethan Coen gave Brolin's grounded, reactive acting the film that helped renew his career. His subsequent studio work has included Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Gurney Halleck in Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two (2024).
In Zach Cregger's Weapons (2025), he gives Archer, whose son is among the missing children, a different kind of anger. This father seems to have chosen fury because grief would require him to admit how helpless he is. Brolin makes that choice readable, and it gives us something human to hold on to when the horror grows louder and sillier.
Edgar Wright's The Running Man (2025) needs a quieter threat. Brolin's Dan Killian is a producer in a good suit who scarcely needs to raise his voice. The low delivery makes the man frightening without much apparent effort. It is effective casting in a film whose repetition and timid finish he cannot correct.
The Dog Stars (2026) shows the limit of that casting. As Bangley, Brolin brings force to his scenes opposite Jacob Elordi's subdued Hig, and their contrast gives Ridley Scott's film some life. The screenplay still leaves them too little individual character to sustain the attention it asks for. Choose Weapons if horror is your sort of evening, rather than expecting him to rescue The Dog Stars.
Biography
Josh Brolin is an American actor. He was born on 12 February 1968 in Santa Monica, California. The son of actor James Brolin, he began his career as a teenager with a role in the adventure film The Goonies (1985).
After a period of lower-profile work, Brolin gained renewed attention for his performance in No Country for Old Men (2007). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for portraying Dan White in Milk (2008). His later film roles include True Grit (2010), Sicario (2015), and Dune (2021). He is also known for playing Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Cable in Deadpool 2 (2018).
Brolin reprised the role of Gurney Halleck in Dune: Part Two (2024). In 2025 he appeared as Archer in Weapons, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and Dan Killian in The Running Man.
