10 Great Movies That Saved an Actor’s Career (#1 Wasn’t Even Supposed To Happen)

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Just missing the cut were Halloween (2018), which revitalized Jamie Lee Curtis’ career, Hustlers, which showed people for the first time since Out of Sight that Jennifer Lopez is capable of great performances, and Black Swan. One could make the argument that Winona Ryder’s career was brought back to life with Darren Aronofsky’s film, but it was really Stranger Things.

10) Birdman

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It took a while after Jack Frost in 1998 for Michael Keaton to be seen as a leading man again. There were some smaller movies and White Noise, sure, but he wasn’t as consistently seen as a bankable figure in the aughts.

One could look at his rebound as having started in 2010, with scene-stealing supporting roles in both Toy Story 3 and The Other Guys. But, really, it wasn’t until Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) in 2014 that he was officially back. The next year he was a major part of fellow Oscar heavyweight Spotlight, then he played Ray Kroc in The Founder in 2016, and got the role of Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

9) The Lincoln Lawyer

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Matthew McConaughey’s career resurgence was so well known it got its own name: the “McConaissance.” This period, which most agree lasted from The Lincoln Lawyer‘s 2011 release to the failure of The Sea of Trees in 2015, saw the release of critically lauded films that stood in stark contrast to his string of rom-coms.

2011 saw the release of The Lincoln Lawyer and the underrated duo of Bernie and Killer Joe while 2012 had Mud and Magic Mike (with only The Paperboy falling short). Then, in 2013, he had an iconic cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street and won an Oscar for his work in Dallas Buyers Club. The period was capped off with his role as Cooper in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. As for what came after The Sea of Trees that’s just as good as anything in that winner of a lineup, there’s Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) and The Gentlemen. The less said about Gold, Serenity, and The Dark Tower, the better.

8) Everything Everywhere All at Once

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Ke Huy Quan did very well as a child actor but then had a hard time securing roles as an adult. So, he served as a stunt choreographer for nearly 20 years, working on films such as the original X-Men.

He technically returned to acting via Finding ‘Ohana in 2021, but it was Everything Everywhere All at Once the following year that was seen as his true re-breakthrough. Since then, he’s voiced characters in Kung Fu Panda 4 and Zootopia 2, played a duel role in The Electric State, led Love Hurts, had a vocal cameo on The White Lotus, and had major roles in the Disney+ series American Born Chinese and Loki‘s second season.

7) Airplane!

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Leslie Nielsen worked pretty consistently from his mid ’50s debut to the release of Airplane! in 1980. He led Forbidden Planet and had roles in Tammy and the Bachelor and The Poseidon Adventure, but he was never really considered a big movie star.

That started to change with Airplane!, which showed he was the definitive master of deadpan line delivery. He then returned to this kind of zany comedy with Police Squad! in 1982. However, ironically, it wasn’t until Police Squad! was adapted for the big screen via The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! in 1988 that it became official that he was the ultimate spoof actor. From 1988 to his passing in 2010 he starred in 15 of them.

Stream Airplane! on MGM+.

6) Deadpool

Image Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Ryan Reynolds has worked pretty consistently since leading Van Wilder back in 2002. There were plenty of supporting roles throughout the aughts as well as a few lead roles peppered in there.

Then, in the 2010s, that trend switched to mostly lead roles with a few supporting roles peppered in. Unfortunately, during this period, those lead roles included the bombs Green Lantern, The Change-Up, and R.I.P.D. He succeeded with the smaller budget films The Voices and Mississippi Grind, but it was Deadpool‘s wild success in 2016 that re-established him as a bankable lead, with the subsequent The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Detective Pikachu, 6 Underground, Free Guy, and Spirited all finding their audience on the big or small screen.

Stream Deadpool on Disney+.

5) John Wick

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Keanu Reeves’ career has been going for 40 years now, and like with any other multi-decade filmography, there have been ups and downs. In Reeves’ case, the ups were almost always started by an action film.

After dramas and comedies in the ’80s, he co-lead Point Break in the ’90s. Then, in 1994, he had Speed, which officially made him an action star, though it was followed up by inferior vehicles such as Johnny Mnemonic and Chain Reaction. The Matrix once more injected some life into his career in 1999, keeping him active in studio films for the next eight years. 2009 through 2013 were pretty rough, but then John Wick once more made him an A-lister and, since that point, he’s had notable roles in Always Be My Maybe, Toy Story 4, and Bill & Ted Face the Music, among others.

Stream John Wick on HBO Max.

4) The Whale

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The Whale may not be a “great” movie, but it was great for Brendan Fraser’s career. After doing well in silly movies throughout most of the ’90s he became something of an action star via The Mummy, but for the most part he continued to lend his talents to goofy stuff such as Bedazzled and Monkeybone.

After Crash in 2004 he got a few other big roles, but it still wasn’t stuff that was being taken seriously, e.g. Furry Vengeance. Then, from Furry‘s release in 2010 to 2020, he did little more than the occasional vocal role. But in 2021, No Sudden Move gave him his most serious role and the following year he got serious Oscar clout with The Whale, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Since then, he’s worked with Martin Scorsese, voiced a Disney documentary on sea lions, and led the heartfelt comedy drama Rental Family. Soon he’ll be returning to action hero territory via the fourth Mummy film, so suffice to say his career has never been healthier.

Stream The Whale on HBO Max.

3) The Wrestler

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Mickey Rourke is one of the most versatile and intense performers of his generation, but his behind the scenes volatility got him largely excised from Hollywood throughout much of the ’90s and the first half of the aughts. When he did get a lead role, it was in something like Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.

Things started to pick up with his small roles in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Man on Fire, but a finger could be pointed towards Sin City as the beginning of his comeback, which was sealed via his Oscar winning work in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. That 2008 movie led to a major comeback that lasted all of three years before history repeated itself. Those three years saw him take part in the high-profile projects Iron Man 2, The Expendables, and Immortals.

2) Iron Man

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Throughout the ’80s Robert Downey Jr. could make even bad movies somewhat entertaining. And, in the ’90s, he added some real winners to his filmography via Soapdish, Natural Born Killers, Bowfinger, and Chaplin. But his tumultuous personal life made him effectively blacklisted in Hollywood, with Mel Gibson fighting to get him in The Singing Detective and Shane Black doing the same for him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Now, he had a few good years leading up to Iron Man after Kiss Kiss, with A Scanner Darkly and Zodiac serving as two of the best movies he’s ever been in. But, without a doubt, it was Iron Man that really changed things for him. He went from being seen as a liability to one of the biggest A-listers on the market practically overnight. He continued to star in MCU movies for 18 years now, intermittently throwing in a Sherlock Holmes or The Judge in here and there as well.

Stream Iron Man on Disney+.

1) Pulp Fiction

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Pulp Fiction is loaded with cast members fully in their element but, ironically, Travolta isn’t really one of him. That’s why his casting as Vincent Vega is so perfect, because everything he said and does was so against type for the Saturday Night Fever star. Originally, though, Quentin Tarantino had someone else in mind for Vincent, and that would be the late Michael Madsen, who played Vincent’s brother, Vic, in Reservoir Dogs.

This ended up being the precise project Travolta’s career needed. He had a few hits in the ’70s with Carrie, the aforementioned Saturday Night Fever, and Grease, and the ’80s got off to a great start with Urban Cowboy and Blow Out, but then Staying Alive, while a box office success, sent his star plummeting. The late ’80s and early ’90s saw him star in the three critically maligned Look Who’s Talking movies and basically nothing else. If it wasn’t for Pulp Fiction, he wouldn’t have returned to his bankable movie star status throughout the remainder of the ’90s, which was then once more derailed in 2000 with Battlefield Earth.

Stream Pulp Fiction on Disney+.

Which is your favorite of these career-saving movies? Did we miss any? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!