It’s no secret that Eddie Murphy’s filmography is varied, full of both hits and misses. Perhaps the most infamous of the misses is Norbit, a 2006 film that came out around the same time that Murphy was an Oscar front-runner for his role in Dreamgirls. Norbit was received so poorly that the conventional wisdom is that it cost Murphy the Oscar. (“[T]he image of him in a grotesque fat suit and hot-pink bikini as Rasputia—a malevolent, flatulent Big Momma-type who terrorizes everyone she encounters—spurred his precipitous decline,” says a 2009 A.V. Club feature referencing the two movies.) But Murphy still likes the movie, and wouldn’t even rate it as his worst. 

When asked his Mount Rushmore of movies he’s made during an interview with Complex, Murphy quipped, “It’d be easier to name my four worst movies.” He only actually gets around to naming two—2002’s The Adventures Of Pluto Nash and 1998’s Holy Man—before getting derailed to defend Norbit as at least better than those other two. “I love Norbit,” Murphy says. “You know, Norbit came out right after I got the Oscar nomination, so there were articles like ‘How can he get an Oscar, he did this!’ … I wrote Norbit with my brother Charlie, and we think Norbit is funny. And here’s the thing with Norbit… when it came out, it got voted for Razzies for Worst Actor Of The Decade, Worst Actor, and Worst Actress… I was like come on, the shit ain’t that bad!” 

Murphy goes on to say that he did Holy Man instead of Rush Hour. “They came to me, it was two scripts. [There’s] Rush Hour, and it’s going to be action, comedy, and you’re gonna be with Jackie Chan… summertime, running, all this physical stuff. And this other one was you in a robe, in Miami. I was like… this is a no brainer! And we went to Miami, made a horrendous film, but it was easy.” As for the actual best films Eddie Murphy has made, the comedian cites The Nutty Professor, Coming To America, Shrek, and Dreamgirls.