Worldwide recognition
Eckhart's next project was Thank You for Smoking, in which he played Nick Naylor, a tobacco lobbyist whose firm researched the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. Eckhart said that he felt challenged playing the role: "You have to say these words that are crazy, and yet do it with a smile on your face and have the audience like you. At one point, I'm doing a talk show with a kid who's dying of cancer, and he's going through chemotherapy and the whole thing, and I spin it so the anti-smoking people are the bad guys and I'm the good guy, and I'm this guy's best friend. I mean, it's whacked out." The film was screened at a special presentation at the 30th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. It had a limited release in March 2006 and was released worldwide the following month. For his performance, Eckhart received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. A contributor of USA Today wrote that he gave a "standout, whip-smart performance" citing that as Nick Naylor he kept him "likable even in his cynicism." In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer review of the film, it was reported that "Under his chummy but compassionless smile" Eckhart radiated charm and "Naylor's true joys: manipulating arguments, steering debate, cooking words."
In this same year, he starred with Helena Bonham Carter in Conversations with Other Women (2006). While promoting this film, Eckhart revealed that he wishes not to be typecast or repeat himself, saying he does not want to play any more villains. He appeared in the 2006 film noir The Black Dahlia—based on a real 1947 crime—as Sergeant Leland "Lee" Blanchard, a detective investigating the murder of Elizabeth Short, later dubbed the "Black Dahlia". The film premiered at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival. Reception for the movie was mixed, but many critics enjoyed Eckhart's performance; Time Out magazine praised Eckhart and co-star Hilary Swank for their performances, writing "...both [are] great in their secondary roles."
Internationally viewed as a sex symbol, he was named one of People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in 2006. The following year, Eckhart was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He starred in No Reservations (2007), a remake of the 2001 German romantic comedy Mostly Martha. He starred opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones as an up-and-coming hotshot chef. The film was met with mixed reviews and was unfavorably compared to the original film. Eckhart starred in the 2008 comedy Meet Bill, in which he played the eponymous character, a sad executive working at his father-in-law's bank. He gained 30 pounds and donned a fat suit for the role.
Also in 2008, Eckhart portrayed the comic book character Harvey Dent in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the sequel to the 2005 film Batman Begins. Nolan's decision to cast Eckhart was based on his portrayal of corrupt characters in the films In the Company of Men, The Black Dahlia, and Thank You For Smoking. He noted in his depiction of the character that "[he] is still true to himself. He's a crime fighter, he's not killing good people. He's not a bad guy, not purely", while admitting "I'm interested in good guys gone wrong." The Dark Knight was a big financial and critical success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With revenue of $1 billion worldwide, it became the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, and the highest-grossing film of Eckhart's career. Roger Ebert opined that Eckhart did an "especially good job" as his character in the feature, while Premiere magazine also enjoyed his performance, noting that he "makes you believe in his ill-fated ambition ... of morphing into the conniving Two-Face."
Following the success of The Dark Knight, Eckhart next appeared in Alan Ball's Towelhead (2008), an adaptation of the Alicia Erian novel of the same name, in which he played a Gulf War Army reservist who sexually abuses his 13-year-old Arab-American neighbor. The film was screened under the name Nothing is Private at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. When asked about the sex scenes, Eckhart said: "Those were difficult times .... The way I did it was to really trust Alan. It was in the words. I really trusted Summer [Bishil], and I tried to get her to trust me, to build a relationship when we were doing physical scenes. We'd really rehearse them mechanically, and I'd say, 'OK, I'm going to put my hand here, I'm going to do this.' ... I think I found it more difficult." Towelhead was critically and financially unsuccessful.
He next co-starred with Jennifer Aniston in the romantic drama Love Happens, released in September 2009, as a motivational speaker coming to terms with his own grief. The movie received ambivalent reviews, with a contributor of the Orlando Sentinel reporting that Eckhart plays "broken" for the whole movie. The following year he starred alongside Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole (2010), an adaption of David Lindsay-Abaire's 2005 drama of the same name. The feature premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2011, Eckhart starred in Jonathan Liebesman's science fiction film Battle: Los Angeles, in which he portrayed a combat veteran Marine platoon sergeant. The film was set in modern-day Los Angeles during a global alien invasion, and followed a platoon of U.S. Marines who are joined by an Air Force special operations sergeant and some Army infantry soldiers in combat operations against the alien enemy. He appeared alongside Johnny Depp, Richard Jenkins, and Amber Heard in Hunter S. Thompson's novel adaptation The Rum Diary, directed by Bruce Robinson. In the film, Eckhart played Sanderson, a wealthy landowner, who believes everything has a price and introduces Paul Kemp (Depp) to a different standard of living. He starred as a U.S. President who is taken hostage, in the 2013 action thriller Olympus Has Fallen, opposite Gerard Butler, and reprised the role in its 2016 sequel London Has Fallen.
In 2019, he starred in Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster movie Midway, which also starred Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson.
