Not Only Aragorn From 'LoTR': 5 Best Viggo Mortensen Movies, Ranked by RT

For millions of viewers around the world, Viggo Mortensen will forever be Aragorn, the noble heir to the throne of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

The charismatic ranger, wielding his sword with a steely gaze, became one of the most beloved characters in cinematic history. However, it would be a major oversight to reduce this versatile actor's career to just that role.

5. 'The Road', 2009

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%

It is a lifeless, post-apocalyptic world where no greenery has grown in ages. People have turned into beasts, banding together and resorting more and more to cannibalism.

Viggo Mortensen plays the unnamed Man, who travels toward the ocean with his son. They cling to the faint hope that a normal life still exists there.

This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel has appeared on so many "underrated" lists that practically everyone knows about it, not least because it inspired the creators of the hit game The Last of Us.

4. 'Green Book', 2018

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%

The 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner is a charming dramedy about a road trip taken by a sophisticated African-American musician and Tony Lip, a boisterous, unrefined Italian-American. Together, they travel through states where racial prejudice is still prevalent.

Viggo Mortensen, better known for playing noble or rugged characters, here transforms into a loud, irrepressible roughneck who never stops talking.

With his disarmingly simple outlook on life, he changes his passenger's world – and learns a thing or two himself.

3. 'Captain Fantastic', 2016

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

This indie drama is about a family living in the forest in perfect harmony with nature. Viggo plays the father, who teaches his kids hunting and quantum physics. He requires them to discuss the books they have read and encourages them to learn multiple foreign languages.

However, at one point, the family is forced to return to civilization, a life for which, despite their apparent preparedness, they are completely unready.

Captain Fantastic features a host of amazing actors, but it is Mortensen's character who serves as the moral center of this story about the clash between tradition and progress.

2. 'A History of Violence', 2005

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Tom Stall is an ordinary, small-town family man who works at a local diner. He has never had any trouble with the law and was never seen as a fighter – until two gangsters showed up at his diner and he killed them with astonishing ease.

Tom is now a national hero, yet he is far from happy about the fame – he simply wants to return to his quiet life.

The reason becomes clear when dangerous strangers arrive and reveal that he is not Tom, but Joey – a hitman and the brother of a Philadelphia mob boss – who vanished one day.

1. 'Eastern Promises', 2007

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

A young Russian woman dies while giving birth. Anna, the midwife, was left with the infant and a diary that she had found among the woman's belongings. Horrified by the story revealed in the diary, Anna begins her own investigation, which leads her straight to the heart of the Russian mafia.

In the process, she meets Nikolai, who helps her unravel the tangled mystery. Anna has no idea that Nikolai is actually a hitman for a Russian crime syndicate.

Viggo plays Nikolai, a gangster covered in criminal tattoos and an enigmatic hitman who is far more complex than he first appears.