With the 78-year-old Michael Douglas set to reprise his role as Hank Pym in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we want to take a look back at the veteran actor's very impressive filmography. In his almost sixty-year career, Douglas has earned a slew of accolades and awards including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the crowned jewel Cecil B. Demille Award recognizing an outstanding career and contributions to the arts. He's played a wide array of characters ranging from action-adventure heroes to scheming husbands and high finance tycoons. Narrowing down his performances to the twelve best is not an easy thing to do, but we gave it a shot.
Liberace in 'Behind the Candelabra' (2013)
Douglas made the most of his rare small screen appearance as the iconic pianist and entertainer, Liberace, in HBOs Behind the Candelabra. His embodiment of the flamboyantly talented but troubled singer in this biopic is astounding as he transformed into the effeminately flashy and bejeweled performer who struggles in a relationship with Scott Thorson (Matt Damon). Behind the opulent facade, Douglas' spot-on depiction of a man trying to balance fame, love, and sexuality earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and will always be one of his best performances.
Oliver Rose in 'The War of the Roses' (1989)
The actor is in top form in this hilariously dark comedy about a married couple that goes through a divorce from hell. Douglas has always had the ability to make us laugh at his misfortune, and his role as Ollie Rose is the quintessential conflicted part that the actor shines in. When Ollie discovers that his wife, Barbara (Kathleen Turner) no longer loves him after almost twenty years of marriage, the gloves come off and the war over their possessions is on to see who will be left standing. The chemistry between Douglas and Turner was already established as they had previously worked together in Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile earlier in the decade.
Professor Grady Tripp in 'Wonder Boys' (2000)
The role of Grady Tripp was a little bit of a departure for Douglas, who plays the slick and smooth characters so incredibly well. In his portrayal of a somewhat hapless, unorganized professor of creative writing at a prestigious university in Wonder Boys, we are treated to a much more vulnerable Douglas. Tripp is far from in control trying to mentor a bright but mysterious student, James Leer (Tobey Maguire) while carrying out ill-advised relationships with both his English Department head Sara Gaskill (Frances McDormand) and a young student, Hannah Green (Katie Holmes). All the while, he has to rein in his eccentric editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) who is constantly hounding him for some publishable work in the field of fiction.
William Foster in 'Falling Down' (1993)
Another wonderful portrayal from Douglas carried the 1993 film Falling Down to over $40 million at the box office and is still considered one of his most underrated roles. As William Foster, Douglas gets to cut loose as a divorced, unemployed engineer who decides one day while stuck in Los Angeles traffic, that he's had enough - of everything. Foster leaves his car on the road carrying a duffel bag full of guns and goes on a one-man crime spree lashing out at all the aspects of society that he considers absurd and unreasonable. Sergeant Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) is just a day away from retirement when he's tabbed to track the crazed Foster down before he can harm his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Barbara Hershey) who has custody of their little girl. One of Douglas' most underappreciated performances for sure.
Detective Nick Curran in 'Basic Instinct' (1992)
Although Basic Instinct may be remembered as the film that launched Sharon Stone's career into the stratosphere (largely due to a certain police interview scene) in the early 90s, Douglas never takes a back seat - in any film. As Detective Nick Curran, Douglas reprises some of the hard-boiled cop characters that we saw earlier in his career in The Streets of San Francisco and Black Rain. When he meets the beautiful and mercurial murder suspect, Catherine Tramell (Stone), after a gruesome stabbing attack, he must tread lightly between the undeniable physical attraction he has for her, and keeping her close to the top of his suspects list in an unsolved homicide case. The film was huge, pulling an amazing $353 million on just a $49 million budget, making it one of Douglas' most commercially successful films.
Nicholas Van Orton in 'The Game' (1997)
A gem of a performance by Douglas highlights this tense, psychological action thriller that sees the actor take on the role of the wealthy investment banker, Nicholas Van Orton. Initially, The Game gives us the slick, suave, and debonair actor that we have seen in many of his movies, but everything starts to fall apart when his younger brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), shows up on his birthday. Van Orton's world is turned upside down when a series of strange events start to see his lonely-but-simple high society life become unraveled at the seams. After a circuitous path of mysterious twists and turns eventually leaves him bankrupt and stranded in Mexico, Van Orton is a disheveled mess. Director David Fincher is superb at convincing the audience that everything we see may not actually be real in a terrific film with a twisty ending.
United States President Andrew Shepherd in 'The American President' (1995)
Rob Reiner directed this love story from Aaron Sorkin between a sitting President of the United States, Andrew Shepherd (Douglas), and environmental lobbyist, Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). We rarely get to see Douglas get all googly-eyed over a woman as he does in this excellent film that won a slew of award nominations including a Golden Globe nod for Douglas as Best Actor. It's a light-hearted piece in line with other projects that we've seen from Reiner, but again, Douglas brings his A-game to a role that required both nuanced sensitivity and a firm political hand in the Oval Office. The film also benefits from an Oscar-nominated musical score from Marc Shaiman, and a terrific supporting cast of Bening, Martin Sheen, and Michael J. Fox.
Gordon Gekko in 'Wall Street' (1987)
The Academy came knocking after Douglas left audiences gobsmacked as the ruthless corporate raider on Wall Street who coined the phrase, "Greed, for lack of a better word...is good." His headfirst dive into Gekko earned the actor an Oscar for Best Actor and is still considered the paragon of Wall Street, high finance gurus on film. Douglas is deliciously diabolical as the mentor of an up-and-coming broker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), who makes a play on Fox's father's small company, Bluestar Airlines. Fox fights back and turns the tables on Gekko while also sacrificing himself to the SEC for insider trading, but not before taking his former mentor down with him. Richard Gere was offered the part by director Oliver Stone but turned it down. It is absolutely impossible to see anyone other than Douglas in this role
Dan Gallagher in 'Fatal Attraction' (1987)
Men reconsidered having one-night stands after Fatal Attraction hit the big screen in 1987. Douglas is solid as the philandering Dan Gallagher, but it was Glenn Close who put the fear of God in the male population when this movie came out. Douglas has never had to act so petrified in his career after he blows off the wrong woman, Alex Forrest (Close), after what he thought was a casual fling. A kidnapped kid and boiled rabbit later, Douglas is regretting ever meeting the psychopathic Forrest. The world was his oyster as he was climbing the ladder at his law firm, and had a wonderful wife and little girl, but he crossed paths with a mentally unhinged woman, and it gets very ugly when he won't return her calls.
Robert Wakefield in 'Traffic' (2000)
Steven Soderbergh's Traffic has Douglas rubbing elbows with some of the biggest power players in Washington D.C. (real politicians like Orrin Hatch and Diane Feinstein make cameos) as the former State Supreme Court judge from Ohio moves up a rung to become the President's appointed czar on the war on drugs. Little does he know, his own daughter is a heroin addict. It's a unique performance from Douglas in that he plays a concerned father trying to balance his love for her and her health with a public image that he has worked so hard to mold. And despite his position as the top drug watchdog, he is powerless when it comes to his daughter's addiction. Soderbergh deftly dovetails Douglas's character arc with several others in a way that feels like a documentary to tell the riveting story of our country's botched and inept war on drugs.
Jack T. Colton in Romancing the Stone (1984)
Romancing the Stone is an important milestone in Douglas' career for a couple of reasons. One, because it was the first film that the actor would also produce, and also because it marked a turning point for the actor from more serious dramas like The China Syndrome and The Star Chamber to more box-office-friendly action adventure material that would allow him to be more selective in the late 80s, heading into films like Fatal Attraction and Wall Street. It's a fun film and another pairing with Kathleen Turner as the two romps through the Colombian jungles to save her sister who is being held captive by the fearsome Danny DeVito! It was also notable for being the first film in which he shouldered a good bit of the load and succeeded.
Steven Taylor in 'A Perfect Murder' (1998)
Douglas took on the lead in yet another suspense thriller in this Andrew Davis film in which he stars opposite Gwyneth Paltrow. In the film that was adapted by the famous Dial M for Murder, the actor proves that he still has the knack for playing the smooth-talking, wealthy husband who finds himself plotting the murder of his wife after he discovers that several bad business deals have left him almost bankrupt. His wife, Emily (Paltrow), has a wealthy family and a hefty life insurance policy that will get him back on his feet. Douglas has an uncanny ability to play these parts where he seems so harmless on the surface, but is actually a seeming and devious scoundrel who is motivated only by the almighty dollar.