Everyone loves a good comeback story and this one couldn’t be any more perfect. All eyes are currently set on Hollywood legend, Michael Keaton during the next four weeks thanks to the much-anticipated UK release of BIRDMAN on January 1st, 2015, which will no doubt see Keaton back on the top of the box office – exactly where he deserves to be. Â
He was Hollywood’s leading man for many during the 1980s, after donning that infamous black cape for Tim Burton and wheedling around like a crazy man in Beetlejuice. Having racked up over 80 credentials to his ever expanding list, we decided to take on the challenge of whittling down his CV to find his best 10 performances from his illustrious career – and it has been no easy challenge, we can tell you!Â
Here is Film and TV Now‘s list of Top 10 Michael Keaton Films:
1 – Beetlejuice
Michael Keaton may be most famously known for dressing up in his leathers and wearing the black cape and mask as Batman, but first he donned a ghoulish pinstripe suit for Tim Burton in this still one-of-a-kind comedy that continues to thrill audiences even today. In the movie we saw actors-of-the-moment Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play a deceased couple whose house is being taken over by the living.
Keaton’s Beetlejuice is crazy, funny, rude and is very much like marmite – you either love him or you hate him. Â Regardless of his madness, Keaton is sublime in the role and if the long-rumoured sequel does go ahead, we hope to see Keaton back on board once again.
2 – Batman Returns
Starring in another Tim Burton film and in Keaton’s second appearance as Batman, his involvement in this film is still highly regarded today as one of the best Batman performances that still holds its own against Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films, and easily outdoes them in the humour stakes.
3 – Birdman
Michael Keaton is back on the big screen this month and we couldn’t be happier. His latest box office outing is Birdman, which tells the tale of an actor famous for having played an iconic superhero decades ago and now that he is broke and struggling, he has decided to try and put on a play. Keaton is simply outstanding in this career-defining, genre-defying superhero film and when it swoops into cinemas on January 1st, 2015, this film should definitely be added to your must-see list.Â
4- The Dream Team
Keaton plays Billy Caufield, unofficial leader of a small band of psychiatric patients who run into misfortune when a trip to a baseball game goes wrong. The patients are off their medication and predictably all kinds of chaos ensues. Keaton is funny, engaging and of course, the one person in the film that you just have to watch and admire.
5 – Jackie Brown
As ATF agent Ray Nicolet, Keaton is the cop looking to foil Samuel L Jackson’s money-smuggling plans. Having not been in a hit since Batman Returns, Keaton needed to do well to grab the spotlight again and he certainly did whilst playing Nicolette. Keaton went on to reprise the role a year later in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight in a cameo as Jennifer Lopez’s love interest.
6 – Jack Frost
There is no denying that some eyebrows may rise seeing this film in the list, but it certainly has the ability to tug on the heartstrings, as we see Keaton play a father returning from the dead to visit his family as a friendly (but slightly creeping-looking) snowman. It’s certainly an odd plot, but it definitely created a lot of attention.
7 – Gung Ho
In this Ron Howard–directed comedy about the Japanese buyout of an American car company, Keaton plays a car-maker who suddenly gets over his head when the Japanese workers who’ve come to take over the Pennsylvania plant he works at. Keaton is great in the film and of course is the stand-out actor in this movie.
8 – Clean and Sober
In this 1988 film, Keaton took on one of his most challenging roles playing drug addict, Daryl Poynter. Finding the girl he spent the previous night with unconscious in his bed from a cocaine overdose, Daryl decides the best way to keep his distance from the police is to go into a drug clinic. During his time there, he plays his part well alongside a young Morgan Freeman. The standout moment of the film is when he delivers an utterly heartbreaking scene during a phone call to his mother and begs her to give him whatever she and his dad have laid out for him in their will.Â
9 – Night Shift
Keaton starred in Howard’s directorial debut film during the early 1980s in this comedy set in New York City. This was the role that catapulted Keaton to the attention of the world and indeed casting directors who were all falling over themselves to have the charismatic actor in their film after seeing him in this hilarious and entertaining movie.
10 –Â Live From Baghdad
Based on a book by Robert Wiener, Live From Baghdad is the only performance which Michael Keaton has been nominated an award for – although with the impending release of Birdman and all of the hype already surrounding the film, we suspect that will change. In this movie, Keaton plays a CNN executive producer in Baghdad at the start of the Gulf War, who works for a TV station and the role provided him with a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Made-for-TV Movie.
So there you have it, our very hard-to-put-together-because-we-are-spoilt-by-choice list of the best performances by Michael Keaton. Of course, you can watch him on the big screen once again soon, when BIRDMAN hits UK cinemas on January 1st, 2015.
Here’s the trailer for the brilliant, new movie:
