The best Darren Barnet movies and TV shows include an eclectic mix of dramas, animated voice-over projects, and even an American dubbing of one of the best monster films of the century. Barnet was born in Los Angeles before his family moved to Florida when he was a child. However, he returned to LA after graduating from college, where he started his acting career. Once there, he found work in small roles in various TV shows.
While he started out acting in shows like This is Us, S.W.A.T., and Criminal Minds, he caught a break with a 2017 show on the Facebook Watch series Turnt. This led to him turning some heads, which finally led to his breakout role in 2020, when he joined the cast of the Netflix teen romantic comedy-drama series Never Have I Ever. Since that time, he has made his name by doing voice roles, both in animated cartoons and as an American dub in the 2023 monster movie Godzilla Minus One, and his future looks bright.
10 Road House (2024) Is A Jake Gyllenhaal-Starring Remake Of The 1989 Film
Darren Barnet Plays Sam
Amazon Prime Video remade the Patrick Swayze cult classic action movie, Road House, in 2024. The new version saw Jake Gyllenhaal take on the role of Elwood Dalton, based on the character Swayze played in the 1989 original, James Dalton. Unlike Swayze’s character, who was a professional bouncer, Elwood is a former UFC fighter who is hired to help clear up a bar called The Road House, which has fallen in stature thanks to a motorcycle gang and a local crime boss using it as a hangout.
Darren Barnet stars in the movie as Sam, one of the associates of Brandt (Billy Magnussen), the criminal kingpin who leads the motorcycle gang into causing problems in the Florida Keys. This means he is one of the villains who target Elwood when he comes in to clean up The Road House. This is a rare villain role for the actor, but he’s clearly having fun with the material. Road House received lukewarm reviews, with a 59% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was still a success and there is a Road House sequel in the works at Amazon.
Darren Barnet Plays Jonathan
Released in 2023, Anyone But You is a rom-com based on the Shakespeare comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, and it’s directed by Will Gluck, the man behind Easy A. Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Glen Powell (Twisters) star in the movie as law student Bea and Goldman Sachs employee Ben who meet and fall in love. However, this is an enemies-to-lovers story, and they initially can’t stand each other. Darren Barnet plays Jonathan, Bea’s former fiancé.
While he was her ex, the film didn’t make him a villain. Instead, Jonathan ends up getting together with Ben’s ex-girlfriend, Margaret (Charlee Fraser). Anyone But You was a huge success, making $220 million at the box office on a $25 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). The movie also received average reviews, sitting at 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, while also picking up three People’s Choice Awards nominations and one from the GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding Film.
8 Untitled Horror Movie (2021) Is A Video Chat Horror Film
Darren Barnet Plays Max
Untitled Horror Movie (2021)is perhaps Darren Barnet’s least-known film. It’s a low-budget horror film shot remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic that is mostly comprised of video chat screens and found footage style for other scenes. The experimental movie ended up live-streamed for its premiere in 2021 and then was made available on video-on-demand later that year.
Kal Penn plays Mark, and he’s Untitled Horror Movie‘s biggest star while the rest of the cast is comprised of young actors including Barnet, Katherine McNamara, Claire Holy, and Luke Baines. In the movie, an actor named Declan (Baines) tells the cast of his hit TV show, including Barnet’s Max, the “fun-loving actor” that it has been canceled via video chat. Soon, Kip (Timothy Granaderos) reveals a horror film he is working on, and invites them to take part.
Things go wrong after they shoot a séance, which somehow summons an evil spirit.
When the group starts working on it remotely, things go wrong after they shoot a séance, which somehow summons an evil spirit. The movie was low budget and not widely released, but it still received praise, with a high 83% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
7 Skull Island (2023-Present) Is An Animated Monsterverse TV Show
Darren Barnet Plays Mike
Darren Barnet has really started to carve out a niche as a voice actor, working on several animated series as well as dubbing roles for movies. One of the shows that he voices a character for is Skull Island, an animated series that is the first animated effort in the Monsterverse. This means the animated series on Netflix connects to the Godzilla and King Kong American releases that have been ongoing. Barnet voices the character of Mike in Skull Island.
They end up forced to fight large creatures and terrifying monsters.
Skull Island takes place in the 1990s when a group of explorers set out to rescue a woman named Annie (Mae Whitman) and end up shipwrecked on Skull Island. They end up forced to fight large creatures and terrifying monsters while surviving all the dangers of the island that birthed Kong, who also eventually arrives. Mike is a young man who, with his best friend Charlie, accompanies their dads on the expedition and ends up trapped on the island together.
Skull Island had eight episodes and ended up receiving positive reviews from critics when it dropped on Netflix. The overall Rotten Tomatoes score is an impressive 82%, with critics praising the attempts to add a little more adult twist to the idea of Kong encountering shipwrecked individuals, both young and old.
6 Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (2024-Present) Is The Animated Follow-Up To Camp Cretaceous
Darren Barnet Plays Kenji Kon
Darren Barnet has done some big voice roles in animated cartoons. He has worked in shows based on two of the biggest movie franchises going today, with both the MonsterVerse and Jurassic World series. When it comes to the latter, Barnet voiced a character in Jurassic World: Chaos Theory in 2024. This is a Netflix series that is a sequel to the popular Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous series that ran from 2020 to 2022. That original series saw a group of kids stranded on Isla Nublar.
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory sees the Nublar Six back together again, this time setting out to find out more about a conspiracy that threatens dinosaurs and humans. They also have to find out what happened to Brooklynn, one of the Nublar Six members they believe was killed. Darren Barnet voices Kenji Kon, replacing the original voice actor Ryan Potter. He is Darius’s (Paul-Mikél Williams) adoptive brother and a skilled climbing instructor.
This season of the Jurassic World series starts up six years after the events of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and has 10 episodes in the season. There will be a second season coming later in 2024. Critics praised the series, as it has a perfect 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
5 Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-2020) Depicts The Adventures Of Coulson’s Elite Team
Darren Barnet Plays Wilfred “Freddy” Malick (2 Episodes, 2020)
Darren Barnet has several one-shot roles in some big TV shows. However, in 2020, he got to star in two different episodes of the ABC series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This series started out as a spinoff from the first Avengers movie, where Agent Coulson was proven to have faked his death and is now tasked with continuing to lead an elite team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to protect the world. However, over time, the show moved away from the MCU and ended up carving its own path.
Neal Bledsoe played an older version of the character when the seventh season reached the 1950s.
This Marvel series got better and better as the series progressed, and Barnet appeared in the show’s final season, both the season 7 premiere and second episode, as a character named Wilfred “Freddy” Malick. This was the show’s final season and saw the team on an alternate Earth in the multiverse, as well as being sent back in time to the 1930s. Freddy was a very important character, the father of the future HYDRA leader, Gideon Malick.
4 Gran Turismo (2023) Is The Story Of Gamer-Turned Racer Jann Mardenborough
Darren Barnet Plays Matty Davis
Gran Turismo is one of the most popular PlayStation racing games since the console came into existence. However, the movie Gran Turismo is not based in the world of the game. Instead, it is based on a program started by a professional racing team that turned one of the best gamer racer, the real-life Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe), into a real professional racing car driver.
The Game Awards 2023 awarded it a nomination for Best Adaptation, although it lost to HBO’s
The Last of Us
.
Darren Barnet plays Matty Davis, a top GT Academy driver and one of Jann’s biggest rivals in the movie. He also later became a co-driver for Jann at the Le Mans race. Gran Turismo did decent at the box office, making $122.1 million on a $60 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). It also received average to positive reviews, with a 65% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Game Awards 2023 awarded it a nomination for Best Adaptation, although it lost to HBO’s The Last of Us.
3 Never Have I Ever (2020-2023) Is A Coming-Of-Age Show Created By Mindy Kaling
Darren Barnet Plays Paxton Hall-Yoshida
The role that made Darren Barnet a star was that of Paxton Hall-Yoshida in the Netflix series Never Have I Ever. The series was created by Mindy Kaling and is based on her childhood experiences while living in Boston. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Devi Vishwakumar, who starts off the series as a 15-year-old high school sophomore with a crush on two different boys: Barnet’s Paston Hall-Yoshida and Jaren Lewison’s Benjamin “Ben” Gross.
The series is also known for being narrated by some serious stars, with tennis legend John McEnroe narrating for Devi, Andy Samberg for Ben, and Gigi Hadid for Paxton. It ran for four seasons and 40 episodes and was a huge hit for Netflix. Never Have I Ever was not only a highly-watched series, but it was also critically lauded, with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the first season and a 93% for the show as a whole.
2 Blue Eye Samurai (2023-Present) Is An Animated Netflix Show About Revenge
Darren Barnet Plays Taigen
Blue Eye Samurai is an adult animated series on Netflix that has become a critically acclaimed hit for the streamer. The show premiered in 2023, and has a second season coming in 2026. It takes place in 17th-century Japan during the Edo period, and Mizu is a half-white, half-Japanese female warrior. Thanks to the racism of the period, her mother made her disguise herself as a boy for her protection, and she maintained this into adulthood.
The series sees her seeking revenge against four white men, one of whom is her father. Darren Barnet voices Taigen, a male swordsman who resents Mizu and wants revenge after she humiliates him in a duel. Critics praised the series, with a high 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. With eight episodes in the first season, the show also won six Annie Awards in seven nominations and four Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Animated Program.
1 Godzilla Minus One (2023) Is The First Godzilla Movie To Win An Oscar
Darren Barnet Voices Koichi Shikishima (English Dub)
Easily, the best movie that Darren Barnet has ever worked on was the 2023 monster release Godzilla Minus One. However, the twist here is that he didn’t star in the film and instead worked as a voice actor for the 2024 Netflix English dub. He voices the character of Koichi Shikishima, played by Ryunosuke Kamiki in the movie itself. This was something that the actor took great pride in (via Instagram):
“Being able to voice Koichi Shikishima in ‘Godzilla Minus One’ – was such an honor. Awesome film.”
There were two Godzilla releases in 2023, but it was Godzilla Minus One that received the biggest critical acclaim. It ended up as the highest-grossing Japanese-made Godzilla movie in history and also has a prestigious 98% Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score. The film won its only Oscar nomination, for Best Visual Effects, and critics praised its ability to focus on the human drama rather than just the monster action, helping it stand out from other monster flicks.
