Six of Michael Douglas’ best movie performances
From Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko to Falling Down’s Bill Foster, the now 79-year-old created some of the 80s’ and 90s’ most memorable characters.
Like his father Kirk before him, Michael Douglas is an acclaimed, awardwinning actor who, at one stage, was the biggest star on the planet. For a period during the late 1980s and early 90s, the former Inspector Steve Keller in The Streets of San Francisco was almost a guarantee of box-office success, as he starred in a succession of hits that included Fatal Attraction, The War of the Roses, Black Rain and Disclosure.
Now, after a relatively quiet period, where he’s alternated between three seasons of The Komsinky Method and playing “scientific adventurer” Hank Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 79-year-old has returned to the spotlight to play the eponymous founding father of the United States in Apple TV+’s eight-part period drama Franklin.
To celebrate, Stuff To Watch has taken a look back through Douglas’ CV and picked out our six favourite movies to feature Catherine Zeta-Jones’ husband, while also letting you know where you can watch them now.
The American President (1995, iTunes, YouTube)
Sure, it might be a fairly sappy story at its heart, but this romantic-comedy about a widowed president (Douglas’ Andrew Shepherd) seeking a second term and a second chance at love (with Annette Bening’s environmental lobbyist) is memorable for many reasons.
Without it, there would have been no The West Wing (creator Aaron Sorkin wrote this script), or Spin City (Michael J. Fox honed his politico character here).
“The image of a chief executive as moonstruck single guy taps something buoyant and touching in our collective democratic imagination. And Douglas, wearing a fast-break smile in place of his usual frown, strikes a tender rapport with Bening,” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman.
Basic Instinct (1992, AroVision, AcademyOnDemand)
The film that transformed Sharon Stone from supporting act into a major star and caused plenty of controversy because of its combination of sex and violence.
A then very modern take on a classic film noir, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s lusty and lurid tale sees Douglas’ hapless San Francisco police detective Nick Curran (and his chunky sweaters) drawn into the world of (and an intense and passionate relationship with) enigmatic writer Catherine Tramell (Stone), when she becomes the chief suspect in the brutal murder of a wealthy rocky star.
“The harsh, politically incorrect truth about Basic Instinct is that it’s a tantalising, suspensefully correct thriller,” wrote Orlando Sentinel’s Jay Boyar.
The China Syndrome (1979, iTunes)
Not only was this the most “serious” of the wave of disaster movies that dominated the 70s, but it was also the most prescient – James Bridges’ nuclear power plant-set thriller hitting cinemas just 12 days before an accident at Three Mile Island.
Jane Fonda and Douglas play crusading journalists who uncover significant safety issues at California’s Ventana, but it was Jack Lemmon who took the Academy Award for his role as shift supervisor Jack Godell.
“A terrific thriller that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are,” wrote Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert.
Falling Down (1993, iTunes, YouTube)
Exposing the then intractability of McDonald’s breakfast menu timings and inspiring everyone from the Foo Fighters and Iron Maiden to The Simpsons’ Frank Grimes, Joel Schumacher’s psychological thriller still has a contemporary resonance three decades on.
Douglas is William “Bill” Foster, an unemployed defence engineer having an increasingly bad day as he attempts to navigate the chaos of Los Angeles in time for his daughter’s birthday party. Robert Duvall and Barbara Hershey also play key roles.
“Douglas’ intentionally robotic – and intense – performance holds its own. He's scary, normal and funny all at once …,” wrote the Washington Post’s Desson Thomson.
Romancing the Stone (1984, Disney+)
A rather blatant Indiana Jones rip-off it might have been, but Robert Zemeckis’ 1984 movie is also a rip-roaring adventure.
Douglas’ roguish Jack Colton and Kathleen Turner’s romance novelist Joan Wilder spar and spark in equal measure, while Danny DeVito gets all the laughs.
“Zemeckis spices up a deliberately oldfashioned matinee adventure with tonguein-cheek gags and top-of-the-range action,’’ wrote Radio Times’ Alan Jones.
Wall Street (1987, Disney+)
In creating the celluloid character that perhaps most epitomised the 80s, director and co-writer Oliver Stone and Douglas also tethered unscrupulous corporate raider
Gordon Gecko (the man who gave the world the mantra “greed … is good”) to a The Hustler-like drama that not only arrived with perfect timing just weeks after the American financial market’s Black Monday, but also, rather disturbingly, influenced many a subsequent financial career.
Douglas won the Oscar for Best Actor, while the film also teamed father-and-son Martin and Charlie Sheen.
“Stone’s most impressive achievement in this film is to allow all the financial wheeling and dealing to seem complicated and convincing, and yet always have it make sense,” wrote Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert.