MOVIEWEB: Rotten Tomatoes Critics Think Cillian Murphy's Best Movie Is the One Where You Never See His Face
July 4, 2025
What's Cillian Murphy's highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes? In a twist of cinematic fate, it's one where we never actually see him. Kensuke's Kingdom (2024), the animated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's children's novel, sits on the trusted movie reviewing site at an impressive 97%. Murphy's contribution is solely a voice performance, making this animated beauty an anomaly in his physically demanding career.
Directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, with a screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Murphy voices Dad (Mr. Morpurgo) in the film, alongside Sally Hawkins as Mum, and Ken Watanabe as Kensuke. Following young Michael, who becomes shipwrecked on a remote island, he must learn to survive with the help of a mysterious Japanese man. While Murphy's vocal performance is part of the film's success, it's a shift from the intense performances that have defined his career.
Choosing projects that challenge both him and audiences, an animated moment is a sharp contrast to Murphy's other works, where his face, especially the windows to the soul, adds to the power of his performance. This is seen in his portrayal of the traumatized soldier in Dunkirk, where director Christopher Nolan captured every micro-expression of shell shock across Murphy's features. His eyes communicated the devastation of war without much dialogue. In the dream within a dream narrative of Inception, again by Nolan (clearly a Murphy fan like us), Murphy's presence as the conflicted Robert Fischer expresses the character's struggle between loyalty and liberation through his facial expressions.
Murphy's breakthrough role in 28 Days Later established him as competent to portray fragility, while no other could have embodied Tommy Shelby in the BBC series Peaky Blinders so well. But it's Oppenheimer that represents the culmination of Murphy's career so far, earning him an Academy Award for Best Actor. Nolan's biographical epic saw Murphy carry the narrative's weight as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who led the Manhattan Project. The character's scientific mind, twined with the anguish of creating the atomic bomb, called on all the tools in Murphy's arsenal.
The Story of Kensuke's Kingdom
When Michael's family embarks on a sailing venture of epic proportions, a disastrous storm tears him and his dog from their boat, casting them onto the shores of an uncharted island. Struggling to survive in this wilderness, the boy realizes he's not alone — a mysterious Japanese man named Kensuke has lived there in secret since World War II, initially hostile to this intrusion into his solitude. But when outsiders threaten their paradise, the pair must overcome their differences and unite to protect the island they both call home.
The film's aesthetic captures the beauty of island life through hand-drawn 2D animation, including black-and-white sequences in a delicate Japanese watercolor style to tell Kensuke's backstory. Its sound and vision place viewers alongside the characters in their world, where a Western story unfolds in an Eastern style, reflecting the cultural divide that Kensuke and Michael must cross. Composer Stuart Hancock told Animation World Network: "We were all very much on the same page of understanding that Kensuke's Kingdom was a traditional adventure story with traditional hand-drawn animation and that we were going to be in the sound world of the orchestral music from adventure films we all adored as kids ourselves."
Using the Voice as the Leading Tool
The success of Kensuke's Kingdom adds an unexpected chapter to Murphy's filmography. While films like A Quiet Place Part II, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, and Breakfast on Pluto have proved his versatility across genres, the animated format strips away his most recognizable assets, leaving the essence of his performance distilled into pure vocal acting. In Kensuke's Kingdom, Murphy's voice acting abilities match the caliber of his on-screen performances. His portrayal of Mr Morpurgo in this family-friendly adventure is warm and caring, complementing his more famous roles as tortured or morally complex characters, like Thomas Shelby.
The Race to the Top Is Tight
Although Kensuke's Kingdom is Murphy's top-rated film, the others aren't lagging, with The Dark Knight at 94%, Oppenheimer at 93% and Dunkirk at 92%, creating a paradox where his most highly rated work is without all the elements that made him famous. As animation technology advances and voice acting gains greater recognition as a legitimate dramatic artwork, Kensuke's Kingdom's success backs what critics and audiences have long recognized about Cillian Murphy: he remains unfussy as an actor, getting the job done quietly, confidently, and excellently.
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