Focus on directing and Broadway debut (2014–present)
In 2014, Clooney co-wrote, directed and starred in The Monuments Men, an adaptation of The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel. The film starred an ensemble cast of A-list stars including Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Bob Balaban, as well as European stars Hugh Bonneville and Jean Dujardin. The film was a critical misfire and a box-office failure. Many historians were critical of the film for its historical inaccuracies. The Guardian's film critic Andrew Pulver panned the film, writing that the film was "filled with unearned patriotic sentiment, sketchy to the point of inanity, and interrupted every few minutes with neurotic self-justification". In the same year Clooney produced August: Osage County (2013), an adaptation of the play of the same title. The film stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
His next film was Tomorrowland (2015), a science fiction adventure film in which he played Frank Walker, an inventor. Later in the year, he was featured as himself in the Netflix Christmas musical comedy A Very Murray Christmas, starring Bill Murray. The following year, he starred in Hail, Caesar!, a comedy from the Coen brothers set in the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s, which premiered in February 2016. Clooney portrayed Baird Whitlock, a Robert Taylor-type film star who is kidnapped during the production of a film. Josh Brolin co-starred as fixer Eddie Mannix. Clooney reunited with Julia Roberts for the Jodie Foster-directed thriller Money Monster (2016), playing the host of a television show that investigates conspiracies on commerce and Wall Street, who is taken hostage by a bankrupt viewer given a bad tip.
In October 2017, his directorial project Suburbicon a 1950s-set crime comedy was released. It stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac, from a script written by the Coen brothers in the 1980s, that they had originally intended to direct themselves. He received the 2018 AFI Life Achievement Award on June 7, 2018. The award was presented to him by Shirley MacLaine, and was honored by Julianna Margulies, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Anna Kendrick, Jimmy Kimmel, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and his wife Amal Clooney. In 2019, Clooney returned to television, starring, directing and producing the Hulu historical miniseries Catch-22, based upon the novel of the same name by Joseph Heller. Clooney was initially cast in a main role in the series; however, he opted to take a smaller supporting role instead. The series premiered on May 31, 2019, to critical acclaim.
After a four-year absence from acting in film, Clooney starred in the science fiction film The Midnight Sky—a film he also directed and produced, based upon the Lily Brooks-Dalton debut novel Good Morning, Midnight, for Netflix. He co-starred opposite Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo. The film received mixed reviews and was a financial flop. It went on to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. He also directed The Tender Bar, based upon the memoir of the same name by J. R. Moehringer, for Amazon Studios with Ben Affleck in the lead. The coming-of-age film had its nationwide premiere on December 22, 2021, and began streaming on Amazon Prime Video on January 7, 2022. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film earned Affleck Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
In February 2021, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Clooney's Smokehouse Pictures would be teaming with Sports Illustrated Studios and 101 Studios to produce a docuseries about the Ohio State University abuse scandal, and that the series would be based on an October 2020 Sports Illustrated article by Jon Wertheim. HBO announced in June 2022 that the documentary, now a feature-length film, had started production with a planned debut on HBO and HBO MAX. The film, titled Surviving Ohio State, was released on June 17, 2025.
In 2022, he reunited with Julia Roberts for a romantic comedy film Ticket to Paradise directed by Ol Parker. It was initially set to release in theatres on September 30, 2022, but was pushed by a month to October 21, 2022. In 2023, Clooney reprised the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman in a cameo in The Flash. Clooney next film as a director was the biographical sports drama The Boys in the Boat which was released on December 25, 2023. The film starred Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton and received mixed reviews. The film was based on the book of the same name by Daniel James Brown.
Clooney re-teamed with Brad Pitt for the Apple TV+ thriller film Wolfs (2024) written and directed by Jon Watts which premiered to positive reviews at the Venice International Film Festival. In 2025, Clooney made his Broadway debut as an actor in the stage adaption of Good Night, and Good Luck where he is currently portraying Edward R. Murrow. He and Grant Heslov also serve as the playwrights having adapted the play from their 2005 film of the same name. The production received mostly positive reviews with critics praising Clooney's performance, his sincerity to the material, its timely subject matter, and its lavish scenic design. Jesse Green of The New York Times praised Clooney's performance describing it as being full of "wit, integrity and charming modesty." Sara Holden of Vulture wrote, "Clooney - probably the closest thing contemporary Hollywood has to a Cary Grant - carries [a] sense of responsibility onto the stage". The production was nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Actor in a Play for Clooney. The production was aired live, the first for a Broadway show, and was shown on CNN and HBO and was a ratings success. In 2025, Clooney starred alongside Laura Dern and Adam Sandler in the Noah Baumbach dramedy Jay Kelly from Netflix.
