Brendan Fraser isn’t back — he never left, baby. The release of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale marks the apex of a now-yearslong reappreciation of one of the great screen stars of the past 30 years. Fraser’s career comes with plenty of peaks and valleys and a legitimately powerful offscreen arc. He’s a nostalgic favorite for ’90s kids but has every bit the talent to back up the hype. He was a singular leading man in the ’90s and early aughts and has reinvented himself as a wildly compelling thespian capable of leading a film or providing support for other players. His career is the sort that lends itself well to a cumulative review. Let’s get to it.
Given the sheer volume of titles Fraser’s appeared in, the following aren’t included on this list: TV shows/movies, voice-acting roles, cameos (with apologies to his work in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star), and direct-to-DVD films.
30. Crash (2004)
The reality of ranking every Brendan Fraser movie is that, as top-tier a talent as the guy can be, it’s far harder to determine his worst movie than his best. There are, unfortunately, a whole lot of contenders. Ultimately, what sets 2004’s Best Picture winner (??!!??) Crash apart from the Furry Vengeances of his oeuvre is that at least the Furry Vengeances have the decency to basically not exist. Crash exists. Crash very much exists. It’s clumsy, offensive, and racist. Is there, objectively, more of merit in its craft than, say, Gimme Shelter? Probably. But at least Gimme Shelter came and went quickly. Crash’s legacy lives on to this day, specifically during awards seasons when movies like Green Book take top honors.
29. Furry Vengeance (2010)
To be clear, Furry Vengeance is an embarrassing movie for anyone to have been involved in.
28. The Air I Breathe (2007)
The Air I Breathe is probably the most watchable bad movie in Fraser’s filmography, which is not to say it’s good but rather that it’s the sort of self-serious bad that often crosses into camp. It’s like a less competent Crash, and that lack of competency is what stops it from veering into being fully offensive and instead keeps it firmly in “LMAO†territory.
27. Gimme Shelter (2013)
Gimme Shelter is rough — a poorly conceived take on a would-be inspirational true story about a pregnant teenage runaway. Fraser’s role in it is pretty minimal but also pretty grim as he plays the shitty biological father of Vanessa Hudgens’s Apple.
26. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
This one probably has a bit more built-in goodwill than the rest of Fraser’s lower-tier hits, but, boy, it’s a stinker. The crown jewel of Fraser’s filmography goes out on a bummer note in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, a film so inept it can’t even be saved by the addition of a star as magnetic as Jet Li. Much of the blame lies on Rob Cohen, stepping in as director after Stephen Sommers, but Rachel Weisz not returning as Evie Carnahan is also a pretty stiff blow to the film. Fraser phones it in pretty hard in his final outing as Rick, though that’s perhaps understandable given his experiences filming the sequel (more on that later). A once-mighty trilogy concludes in wildly disappointing fashion here, and even nostalgia isn’t enough to save the viewing experience.
25. Dudley Do-Right (1999)
Inferior to its old-cartoon-turned-live-action-film sibling George of the Jungle in every way, this lazy slog manages to waste a collection of leads (Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Alfred Molina) that should make for a sure thing.
24. With Honors (1994)
An early-’90s collegiate dramedy featuring Fraser, Patrick Dempsey (with a silly little goatee!), Joe Pesci, and Moira Kelly should be more watchable than this.
23. The Scout (1994)
The bar for baseball movies is pretty high. To say The Scout doesn’t reach it is perhaps an understatement — it misses it by a mile in the opposite direction.
22. The Last Time (2006)
The Usual Suspects didn’t invent the twist ending, but it certainly invented a weird little subgenre of late-’90s and early-aughts films with narratives conceived entirely around a twist ending. The Last Time is among the worst of the bunch, so much so that the third-act twist the film is built on isn’t even worth spoiling here. A film featuring Fraser and Michael Keaton shouldn’t be this forgettable.
21. Mrs. Winterbourne (1996)
A drab, forgettable costume dramedy. Fraser’s in cutie mode in this thing for sure, but even that is hardly enough to justify a watch.
20. Extraordinary Measures (2010)
There was a time when Fraser seemed to be the heir apparent to Harrison Ford (more on that below). It’s a bummer, then, that the medical drama in which they finally share the screen is such a dull outing.
19. Inkheart (2008)
The post–Harry Potter YA fiction boom of the ’90s and early aughts led to gems and duds alike. The cinematic adaptations of most of those books, regardless of quality, tended to skew on the dud side. Inkheart is far from the worst of them (Eragon takes that honor), but that’s not saying much. It’s the sort of film that you might hold a teensy, tiny bit of nostalgia-fueled affection for if you saw it at just the right age, but anybody who didn’t grow up with this one is likely to be bored by it.
18. Blast From the Past (1999)
A high-concept romantic comedy (a boy spends his entire life in a fallout shelter watching classic ’50s TV and emerges into the world with the demeanor of a Leave It to Beaver character) starring Fraser and Alicia Silverstone as love interests makes this just about the most ’90s movie Fraser ever starred in (a tall order given some of the films on this list). It’s not without its charms, but it hasn’t aged particularly well, making it a way tougher watch these days than it may have been upon release.
17. Twenty Bucks (1993)
Twenty Bucks is one of those movies that draws together an ensemble cast (this one featuring Fraser, Steve Buscemi, Elisabeth Shue, David Schwimmer, and Christopher Lloyd among others) through a series of story threads following the journey of an inanimate object — in this case, the titular $20 bill. It’s a perfectly solid watch, though nothing extraordinary, and Fraser is far from a standout.
16. The Whale (2022)
The Whale features some of the best work of Fraser’s career. The accolades coming his way this awards season are well earned, and as of my writing he’s the front-runner for Best Actor at the Oscars. It’s largely responsible for creating the feel-good Brendan Fraser moment we’re all living through right now, and for that it deserves its laurels. That being said, the movie itself is a bit of a mess. I’d watch George of the Jungle a dozen times before putting this one back on.
15. The Mummy Returns (2001)
Look, any movie featuring Fraser and Weisz as the O’Connells has an inherent watchability to it. Those two are a damn spark plug of charisma and chemistry. Still, this one doesn’t hold up particularly well. Even setting aside the shoddy CGI (the shot of the Rock as the Scorpion King is particularly infamous), it’s just not as tight or compelling a story as the first film with Imhotep brought back via plot nonsense and the Scorpion King never quite coming together (even if he proved compelling enough at the time to give a spinoff). On top of all that, it’s got a rough child performance with Freddie Boath as Evie and Rick’s kid, Alex. It gets by on its magnetic leads and some old-school adventure vibes, but this one probably isn’t as fun as you remember.
14.
School Ties (1992)
There’s a Letterboxd review that calls this one “Wal-Mart Dead Poets Society,†and that’s more apt a take on School Ties than anything I could say about it. This movie is the reason I’ll never trust Matt Damon.
13.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of whips? It’s well paced, charming, and never gives you time to get bored with it, which is about the best you can say for a mid-aughts family-adventure film. It’s also the last great leading-man performance Fraser gives for over a decade.
12.
Bedazzled (2000)
Bedazzled is low-tier Harold Ramis but high-tier Brendan Fraser. The Faustian comedy sees Fraser’s Elliot sell his soul to the devil in exchange for seven wishes, all of which he uses to try and become the sort of guy his work crush would want to date. It’d be forgettable with anybody else in the lead roles, but Fraser is pretty electric alongside Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil. It’d probably be the best Fraser movie of them all if they ended up together in the end (spoiler alert).
11.
Still Breathing (1997)
This is one of those movies that’s hard not to grade on a bit of a curve when watching today just because they feel a bit harder to come by as of late — a quiet, low-key romantic dramedy with a simple hook (two people begin having dreams about each other, pushing them together) and two solid performances holding the thing together. It doesn’t hurt that Fraser is in full heartthrob mode, traipsing about Los Angeles in dirtbag art-bro clothing, long hair, and stubble. Maybe it doesn’t totally hang together by the time the credits roll, but it’s hard to not be charmed by this one.
10.
Monkeybone (2001)
Henry Selick’s Monkeybone is fully insane, just absolute gonzo nonsense that I dare you to watch and not in some way respect even if it isn’t quite for you. It’s got a stop-motion monkey voiced by John Turturro who serves as the personification of Fraser’s wiener. At one point, Chris Kattan plays a reanimated corpse possessed by Fraser’s character, sent back from a purgatorial hellscape by Death, played by Whoopi Goldberg, to take back control of his body (which has been possessed by the aforementioned wiener monkey). Your mileage may vary with this one, but it’s sure to work for those who enjoy watching big-budget fever dreams.
9.
Encino Man (1992)
Pauly Shore may have been the main draw for audiences who showed up for Encino Man in theaters, but Fraser’s performance as Link, a caveman trapped in a block of ice who thaws out in sunny Encino circa ’92, is why they watched it on loop via cable reruns for the next 15 years. It was a box-office smash and, despite lousy reviews, something of a guarantor for what his career would become. It’s very much one of those “you had to be there†movies that isn’t going to hit the same if you watch it for the first time today, but for a certain generation of Fraser fans, this is required viewing.
8.
George of the Jungle (1997)
Would you believe this one kinda sorta holds up? Late-’90s Fraser had an undeniable screen presence that could elevate even the most nonsense movie a star rating or so, but for a live-action adaptation of a ’60s animated series, it’s kinda surprising how well the thing works front to back as a functional comedy. It’s silly and self-aware, sort of the precursor to the live-action Scooby Doo films.
7.
The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)
The Passion of Darkly Noon is one of those indie flicks you discover and, if you’re the sort of person for whom it works, can’t wait to show your friends next time they come over for a movie night. Phillip Ridley’s deeply strange, idiosyncratic psychological thriller defies summation. Suffice to say it’s the oddest entry in Fraser’s catalogue and maybe the most overlooked in comparison to its merits. It’s the sort of movie that feels like a creative team taking a big swing. Whether or not that swing connects is in the eye of the viewer, but you’ve got to acknowledge the effort regardless.
6.
Gods and Monsters (1998)
Bill Condon’s biopic of the last days of director James Whale (Ian McKellan) has become a queer-cinema staple and serves as the rare biopic that doesn’t flinch in depicting the realities of living as an out gay man in the 1950s. There’s a fair conversation to be had about the friendship (one between Whale and his gardener, Clayton Boone, played by Fraser) being a work of fiction, but vaguely sensationalizing the life of the man who brought Frankenstein’s monster to life feels like the sort of homage he’d prefer.
5.
Airheads (1994)
I don’t know if Airheads is good. I just know that Airheads features Fraser, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi as a dipshit hard-rock band hijacking a radio station so they can finally get their song on the air. Chris Farley and Rob Zombie are in it. It’s a daytime-cable-TV classic, but, more important, it’s a damn Brendan Fraser classic.
4.
The Quiet American (2002)
Fraser made his name early in his career as a heartthrob with a real knack for physical comedy. He sets aside both in The Quiet American, a somber spy thriller taking place in the early days of the Vietnam War. The spotlight is firmly placed on Michael Caine in this one (he earned a much-deserved Best Actor nomination at the Oscars for the film), but Fraser holds his own and does so through a sterner, quieter performance than we’re used to seeing from him.
3.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
The movie credited as one of the biggest flops of Fraser’s career also happens to be one of his best. Joe Dante’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action rules — it rules hard, y’all. Back in Action feels like the heir apparent to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? With a whip-smart meta take on Hollywood and Looney Tunes lore alike, it centers its emotional arc around the long-contentious relationship between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Dante’s the perfect director for the film, and there were few actors in the early aughts better equipped to hold their own onscreen against the Tune Squad than Fraser. I’d go so far as to say he’s their best live-action co-star of all time with only minimal apologies to Michael Jordan.
2.
No Sudden Move (2021)
True, Fraser’s a bit further down on the call sheet in this one. Still, his work as the charmless, straight-shooting mob recruiter Doug Jones is pretty chilling stuff. On top of that, the movie is the best of Soderbergh’s recent straight-to-streaming run (and that’s saying something — man’s been throwing heaters since High Flying Bird) and features a can’t-miss ensemble alongside Fraser including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, a pre–heel turn Julia Fox, and the best cameo of 2021 (don’t let anyone spoil it for you).
1.
The Mummy (1999)
For years now — decades even — Hollywood has been desperate to find the next Harrison Ford, the guy with that undeniable devil-may-care charisma who can deliver punches as well as he can one-liners and whose stock isn’t diminished when he’s on the receiving end of either. They’ve forced Chris Pratt down our throats, insisting he has that juice, and even tried to set up Shia LaBeouf as the next at bat in an Indiana Jones movie. They were never the ones, and whoever they set up next won’t be either. The reality is that finding the next Harrison Ford is damn near impossible.
Except.
Except for Brendan Fraser in The Mummy, a lantern-jawed powerhouse of charisma. Fraser’s Rick O’Connell is one of the greats. He’s as self-aware as he is self-effacing, toeing the line between parody of the pulp adventurers he’s modeled after and sincere homage. He’s got an all-time scene partner in Weisz’s Evie and a killer supporting cast, anchored by Arnold Vosloo doing work as the titular mummy, Imhotep. It’s funny. It’s scary. It’s an all-out thrill. Most important, it’s Brendan Fraser at his absolute best.