Brendan Fraser quickly gained popularity and prominence as an actor when he started acting in the early 1990s. He began in films including School Ties, George of the Jungle, Gods and Monsters, and The Mummy, alongside famous stars such as Matt Damon, Ian McKellen, and Rachel Weisz. However, his career took a toll and massively slowed down from the late 2000s and 2010s due to health and personal problems.

RELATED:'The Whale' Trailer Teases Brendan Fraser's Triumphant Return to Cinema

Everything changed when the world heard about The Whale, a film where Fraser would play the leading role of Charlie, an English professor who struggles with his weight and body image. Fraser’s heartbreaking yet heartfelt role in The Whale has been referred to as his comeback performance and a big step forward to reviving his acting career.

‘Doom Patrol’ (2019-present)

Doom Patrol

Based on the DC Comics superhero team, Doom Patrol follows a team of outcast superheroes: Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby), and Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero).

They each suffered tragic accidents that gave them their superhuman abilities, but despite this, those incidents have also left them scarred and damaged. The only silver lining is that The Chief (Timothy Dalton) brought them together as an unbreakable team whose mission is to protect the Earth at all costs.

‘No Sudden Move’ (2021)

No Sudden Move

Set in 1950s Detroit, Doug Jones (Brendan Fraser) recruits small-time gangsters Cury Goynes (Don Cheadle), Ronald Russo (Benicio del Toro), and Charley (Kieran Culkin), to carry out a blackmail scheme: hold a family hostage to retrieve a document from his boss’ safe.

When their heist goes south, they search for the man who hired them to discover his true intentions. Their desperate search for the answer sends them through a web of twists and problems.

‘The Mummy’ Trilogy (1999, 2001, 2008)

Evie, Rick, Jonathan, and two American men looking in the same direction in The Mummy

The first The Mummy film was released in 1932 and directed by Karl Freund. Since then, there have been a number of The Mummy reboots, such as the Stephen Sommers series, which started in 1999. The Mummy (1999) follows Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), an American explorer who discovered Hamunaptra, the city of the dead. A few years later, he meets his love interest, a librarian, Evy Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), and her brother Jonathan (John Hannah). However, as Evy accidentally revives the mummy of an Egyptian priest in Hamunaptra, they must all stop the mummy from gaining power and destroying the city.

The Mummy (1999) is followed by its sequel The Mummy Returns (2008), and later The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2001). There have been no other action heroes that could compare with Brendan Fraser’s starring role as adventurer Rick O’Connell in The Mummy franchise.

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‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ (2008)

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Elizabeth drops off her 13-year-old son, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), to be looked after by his volcanologist uncle, Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), for ten days. She also leaves Trevor with a box of items that used to belong to his brother, Max (Jean-Michel Pare), who disappeared ten years ago. In the box, Trevor finds the Journey to the Center of the Earth book by Jules Verne, and Max’s written notes in it. To learn more about the notes, Trevor decides to go to Iceland with his nephew Sean, who he was initially reluctant to bring.

During Trevor and Sean’s expedition in Iceland, the daughter of a volcanologist, Hannah (Anita Briem), offers to assist them in any way she can. While hiking a mountain, a lightning storm strikes which forces them to hide in a cave. However, the cave collapses, and they have no choice but to explore the deeper parts of the cave. What they thought was an abandoned mine turned out to be a magical yet dangerous world - that is the center of the Earth.

‘Crash’ (2004)

Crash

Set in Los Angeles, Crash follows three separate but interconnected stories about race, class, family, and gender. Among the characters are District Attorney Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser), his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock), who recently experienced a carjacking; the two carjackers Anthony (Ludacris) and Peter (Larenz Tate), the bigoted Sergeant John Ryan (Matt Dillon), his constable partner Detective Graham Walters (Don Cheadle), who hates him for being racist, and other characters who are each dealing with personal underlying issues.

Acts of racism, hostility, and fear become inevitably intertwined into one storyline.

‘The Quiet American’ (2002)

The Quiet American

When British journalist Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) introduces his Vietnamese mistress, Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), to a young and charming “aid worker” Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), a dangerous love triangle develops between them.

Based on the 1955 classic Graham Greene novel, the love triangle tale of The Quiet American is set against the background of 1950s Vietnam, when the French forces fought the Communist Viet Minh rebels, and American involvement led to a full-blown Vietnam War.

RELATED:Reports of Actor Michael Caine Retiring Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

‘Blast from the Past’ (1999)

Blast from the Past

Set in the Cold War era, a 35-year-old man, Adam Webber (Brendan Fraser), has spent his entire life living in a fallout shelter built by his survivalist father, Calvin Webber (Christopher Walken). Calvin believed that the United States was under a Soviet nuclear attack even though, in reality, it was a plane that had crashed into their house.

For the first time in 35 years, Adam finally emerges from the shelter and learns that the nuclear apocalypse never happened and did not understand why he and his family had spent all those years living in an underground shelter. As Adam explores a brand-new world, he meets and falls in love with the ever-charming Eve Rustikov (Alicia Silverstone), who shows him how to be a modern man.

‘Gods and Monsters’ (1998)

Two men looking in the same direction in the movie Gods And Monsters.

Gods and Monsters is based on Christopher Bram’s 1955 novel Father of Frankenstein, recounting the partly fictionalized last days of the life of James Whale (played by Ian McKellen), the director of films such as Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Whale has long retired from his glamorous life as a Hollywood director and spends most of his days at home due to poor health. Not only that, his tragic experiences of World War I have left him a fragile, troubled, and depressed man.

Housekeeper Hanna (Lynn Redgrave) is a loyal worker to Whale but disapproves of his homosexuality. Meanwhile, Whale develops an unlikely bond with his young gardener, Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser). As time passes, they get increasingly close but also problematic when Whale wants more than just a friendship, but Boone doesn’t feel the same way.

‘George of the Jungle’ (1997)

George of the Jungle

Inspired by the character of Tarzan, George of the Jungle follows the character of George (Brendan Fraser), who was raised by a talking gorilla, Ape (voiced by John Cleese), and lives with his two other friends, Shep the elephant and Tookie the toucan, after a plane crash left him stranded in the jungle. After years of living in the wilderness, George finally experiences his first human encounter when he rescues explorer Ursula Stanhope (Leslie Mann) from a lion and is shot as a result.

Ursula's fiancé, Lyle Van De Groot (Thomas Haden Church), who accompanied her to the jungle, and two other poachers, Max (Greg Crutwell) and Thor (Abraham Benrubi), decide to tranquilize and capture Ape after being shocked by the fact that he is a talking gorilla. But as George is wounded, Ursula must take him to San Francisco for medical help before being able to return to the jungle to rescue Ape.

RELATED:‘George of the Jungle’: The Right Way to Adapt a Cartoon to Live-Action

‘School Ties’ (1992)

School Ties

A 17-year-old David Greene (Brendan Fraser), who comes from a working-class Jewish background, receives a football scholarship to the exclusive St. Matthew’s Catholic boarding school for his senior year. On the first day of school, he meets the school’s most popular students, who are also his football teammates; Rip Van Kelt (Randall Batinkoff), Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon), Jack Connors (Cole Hauser), and roommate Chris Reese (Chris O’Donnell).

However, it's not long before David learns about the school's negative and stereotypical views toward the Jewish community. As a result, he chooses to hide his ethnicity from everyone in the school. But when Charlie learns about David’s true identity, he reveals it to the whole school, leaving David to endure being hated and alienated by his friends and teammates.

KEEP READING:From 'School Ties' to 'No Sudden Move': Best Dramatic Brendan Fraser Performances