Hollywood’s Hottest Movie Comebacks

Known for his hip-tastic dance moves in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and afro-fabulous role on the late-70s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, John Travolta two decades later was something of a bell-bottomed relic. But all of that changed in 1994: As Pulp Fiction's pompadoured, dance-off-winning hit man Vincent Vega, Travolta harnessed a potent mix of nostalgia, husky sex appeal, and Tarantino kitsch to inspire cult fandom and relaunch his career for a new generation.

In 1997, Burt Reynolds broke out his big hair and mustache to play porn filmmaker Jack Horner, an auteur who's resistant to change in an industry in flux. By the mid-1990s, Reynolds's own career was in flux too, after his widely panned 1996 film Striptease bombed at the domestic box office and his finances had taken a turn for the worst amid a messy divorce. In 1997, Reynolds's fortunes changed: Boogie Nights scored the star an Oscar nomination—and a brand-new future in Hollywood.

In the late 2000s, Debra Winger was largely on the cinematic sidelines. Having racked up a handful of Oscar nominations, she took a break from Hollywood in 1995, returning in 2001 to play a series of roles in smaller productions, to mixed reviews. In 2008, she took the role of Abby, the estranged mother of Anne Hathaway's Kym and her on-screen sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) in indie drama Rachel Getting Married. The film became a film-festival darling and blazed through the awards circuit, winning accolades, and igniting a new chapter in Winger's career.

Starting her career at the tender age of 6 in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Drew Barrymore had faced her fair share of child-star issues by her mid-teens. But it was with her role as an abused young woman in the road-trip movie Boys on the Side that allowed Barrymore to cross a threshold into theatrical adulthood. The rest—from the campy Charlie's Angels (2000) to the serious Grey Gardens (2009)—is a happy Hollywood ending.

Once a leading figure in American comedy, Eddie Murphy had hit a career slump by the mid-'90s. Gone were the edgy hits of his past, like Coming to America (1988) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Instead, there were Murphy films like The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), which gained notoriety as one of the biggest box-office losers in the history of film. It wasn't until 2006 when Murphy was back in full effect, as James "Thunder" Early in the critically acclaimed musical Dreamgirls. The role allowed him not only to flex his performance muscles, but to return to Hollywood legitimacy, with rave reviews and an Oscar nomination.

In the mid-1990s, America's favorite leading lady found herself in a series of underperforming films, culminating in a Razzie nomination for her role in Mary Reilly (1996), in which she starred as the lover of Dr. Jekyll (and yes, Mr. Hyde). Luckily, career revival came quickly for Roberts in the form of feel-good rom-com My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), in which she starred alongside Dermot Mulroney and Cameron Diaz. Roberts's star status was thus restored, and America could fall in love again. Three years later, Roberts would seal that star status with an Oscar win for her title role in Erin Brockovich (2000).

Nearly a decade after winning an Oscar for her role in 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny, Marisa Tomei's career had lost some luster, and saw her starring in less acclaimed fare, such as the 1998 TV-movie, Only Love, and the 2000 crime-thriller, The Watcher, which was derided by critics worldwide. Then came 2001's indie thriller, In the Bedroom. Tomei starred as a single mother in a New England fishing town, where her relationship with a younger man catalyzes a murderous turn of events. The film catalyzed a major career comeback for the star, nabbing her an Oscar nomination, and opening audition doors for high-brow films across Hollywood.

There are comebacks, and then there are total, unequivocal knockouts, with a one-two punch to career resuscitation. In Darren Aronofsky's 2008 indie drama The Wrestler, ex-sex symbol Mickey Rourke made a masterful return to acting legitimacy as a character whose story arc faintly resembles the actor's own turn of fate. Like his character Randy "The Ram" Robinson, Rourke was washed up and facing what he thought was the end of his career, following turbulent years and a hiatus from Hollywood. But once The Wrestler picked up awards steam—including an Oscar nomination for Rourke—he was ready to get back in the acting ring.

Long ago, Neil Patrick Harris was synonymous with genius teen doctor Doogie Howser, M.D., the TV role that defined his career until adulthood. Following the series end in 1993, Harris appeared mostly in TV guest roles, never quite losing his identity as the brilliant doc. Finally, in 2004, Harris appeared as a tripped-out, womanizing version of himself in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. The self-parody allowed him to shed the scrubs for good and go on to win multiple Emmys, including honors for his hosting of the 63rd Annual Tony Awards and for his guest role on Glee.

The matriarch of 1970s blaxploitation films, Pam Grier was an ass-kicking action hero. But her star power lost steam as the genre faded from favor. The actress would continue to work steadily in the 1980s and '90s, appearing on TV series like Miami Vice and The Sinbad Show, but her status as a headliner was long gone. It wasn't until 1997 that Grier's career kicked back into high gear, when Quentin Tarantino cast her as the star of the action thriller Jackie Brown. The film payed homage to the past while restoring her cult status for a new era.

Sex, drugs, and arrest are a familiar story in Hollywood—but that doesn't make them small hurdles when it comes to career rehab. For Robert Downey Jr., the triple-punch combo had rendered him a liability by the early 2000s, after early career triumphs like Less Than Zero (1987) and Chaplin (1992). But as journalist Joe Wershba in George Clooney's 2005 historical drama Good Night and Good Luck, Downey Jr. reminded Hollywood that he had talent to spare, and that his darker days were behind him.

By the early 1990s, it was clear that Rocky Balboa's box-office muscle had sagged, and with it, so had Sylvester Stallone's career. The man known alternately as a gun-toting badass and a boxing behemoth had lost his movie mojo. Ultimately, it wasn't action-hero antics that brought Stallone back to favor, but a role as an earnest sheriff caught in corruption in the indie thriller Cop Land (1997). The film was lauded by critics and allowed the star to find a new place for himself in Hollywood—with or without boxing gloves.