Sometimes, an actor’s career just falters. Whether it’s because of a scandal, a series of box office bombs, or simply poor choices of roles, these actors start to slip into oblivion. There are many ways to make a big comeback, however, and perhaps the most effective (certainly the flashiest) is to act their way to an Oscar nomination, pretty much the highest honor that a thespian of the cinema can aspire to.
It could be Matthew McConaughey putting the cherry on top of the McConaissance with his Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club. Or it could be Katharine Hepburn slapping the critics who had labeled her “box office poison” with the Oscar nod she got for The Philadelphia Story. No matter the case, an Oscar nomination is certainly guaranteed to help the recipient make a big splash in an industry that was starting to forget them.
Matthew McConaughey — ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ (2013)
At some point around the early 2010s, Matthew McConaughey decided that he no longer wanted to just be known as the rom-com heartthrob that his name had come to be associated with. In 2011, The Lincoln Lawyer launched the start of the McConaissance, a period during which the actor starred in far more serious, dramatic, and prestigious roles than anyone could have predicted during the 2000s.
There’s no question about when the McConaissance reached its pinnacle: It was surely when McConaughey beat Leonardo Di Caprio‘s tour-de-force performance in The Wolf of Wall Street for the 2014 Best Actor Oscar, thanks to his powerhouse turn in Dallas Buyers Club. It’s one of the most essential movies of 2013, and that’s in no small part thanks to how complex and physically transformational its lead actor’s performance is.
John Travolta — ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
Throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s, John Travolta was the man. Thanks to projects like Saturday Night Fever and Grease, the actor was on fire. His career started careening off a cliff during the mid-’80s, however, and by the time the ’90s rolled in, Travolta had been mostly written off by Hollywood. The helicopter meant to take him back out of that cliff? Quentin Tarantino‘s Palme d’Or-winning sophomore feature, the legendary Pulp Fiction.
It’s nothing short of one of the best movies of the last 100 years, an undeniable masterpiece that led Travolta to his second Oscar nomination (which he lost to Forrest Gump‘s Tom Hanks). From there, the actor went on a streak of notable box office hits and cult classics like Face/Off—a streak that, of course, would infamously end in 2000 due to the disastrous Battlefield Earth. But despite that tragic ending, Pulp Fiction was undeniably a comeback for Travolta, allowing him to show off his range with that delightful Tarantino dialogue that just rolls of the tongue.
Jackie Earle Haley — ‘Little Children’ (2006)
Todd Field‘s criminally underappreciated dark melodrama Little Children is a multi-story film, following the tales of a tumultuous affair between two lovers married to other people, a disgraced ex-police officer, and a registered sex offender. The incredibly tricky and daunting role of the sex offender was taken on by Jackie Earle Haley, who had quit acting all the way back in 1992.
Taking such an immensely complicated part for his comeback role was definitely a choice, but it was ultimately one that paid off with Haley’s first Oscar nomination, where he lost against Little Miss Sunshine‘s Alan Arkin. The result is one of the best actor comeback movies ever, where Haley shows off incredible emotional depth and range. Projects like Watchmen, Shutter Island, and 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street followed, and the rest is history.
Demi Moore — ‘The Substance’ (2024)
Coralie Fargeat‘s The Substance took the world by storm. Campy body horror projects aren’t typically the type that people immediately associate with the word “prestige,” but Fargeat’s sophomore feature was such a knockout that it made its way to great renown during the 2024-25 awards race, including five Oscar nominations. One of those was for Demi Moore‘s stunning leading turn.
For a long time, Moore seemed like the frontrunner in the Best Actress race, before she lost to Anora‘s Mikey Madison. Even still, this was a tremendously hard-hitting comeback for Moore, who was once one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the ’80s and ’90s. One of the best psycho-biddy movies ever made, The Substance allows its lead to go big and explosive, but also to display several bits of quiet subtlety that work wonderfully. The movie’s metatextual analysis of the entertainment industry’s tendency to discard female stars as they age only adds further richness to Moore’s timeless performance.
Ke Huy Quan — ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (2022)
Ke Huy Quan was once of the biggest and most beloved child actors of his generation, elevating movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies with his mere presence. As he grew older, however, that hyper-successful career as a child actor didn’t transform into an equally prolific adult career. Finally, after the 2002 Hong Kong film Second Time Around, Quan stepped behind the camera as a stunt choreographer and assistant director.
It took the actor 19 years to step in front of the camera again, for the 2021 Netflix family film Finding ‘Ohana. It wasn’t until 2022, though, that Quan truly burst into the mainstream again. Everything Everywhere All At Once took full advantage of Quan’s stunt work and martial arts experience, but also gave him enough chances to show off his acting range for him to win the 2023 Best Supporting Actor Oscar. His acceptance speech arguably remains the best of the 21st century.
Michael Keaton — ‘Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)’ (2014)
The protagonist of Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), the movie that made the Mexican auteur a three-time Academy Award laureate, is Riggan Thomson. He’s a formerly popular actor who used to play a superhero, but whose career hasn’t been nearly as big since. The fact that said character is played by former Batman star Michael Keaton, who hadn’t had any noteworthy roles in years, is probably no coincidence.
Keaton ended up losing against The Theory of Everything‘s Eddie Redmayne in a remarkably close race.
Those meta layers are among the many reasons why this is one of the best comedies to ever win Best Picture. Keaton ended up losing against The Theory of Everything‘s Eddie Redmayne in a remarkably close race, but his performance remains one of the best Oscar-nominated performances of the 2010s nonetheless. His performance brings a raw vulnerability to the character of Riggan, but also a dark sense of humor that the film simply wouldn’t work without.
Joan Crawford — ‘Mildred Pierce’ (1945)
Of course, nowadays, all cinephiles fondly remember Joan Crawford as one of the greatest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Throughout the ’20s and ’30s, she built up one of the most glamorous star personas in Hollywood, having once said “if you want to see the girl next door, go next door.” But during the late ’30s and early ’40s, her career started declining. She was starting to age, which only contributed to MGM handing her increasingly weak material, eventually leading critics to call her box office poison.
That all changed in 1945, once Crawford had already moved to Warner Bros. Not only did Mildred Pierce, one of the year’s biggest classics, prove that Crawford still had the sauce: It won her an Oscar and breathed new life into her career, proving to youth-obsessed Hollywood that older actresses were not to be underestimated. It’s one of the most memorable performances of the ’40s, and certainly deserving of its Academy Award.
Katharine Hepburn — ‘The Philadelphia Story’ (1940)
Katharine Hepburn was another actress who had been labeled box office poison by the late ’30s. She was starring in rather unpopular films, she was notoriously difficult with the press, and she had a demeanor and sense of style that the public deemed “too boyish.” Hepburn wasn’t the kind to wait around for opportunities to fall down from the sky, however. She manufactured her own comeback by starring in the stage play The Philadelphia Story in 1939, and its film adaptation one year later.
Everything went according to Hepburn’s plans. The movie, a massive success, was her ticket back to the Hollywood stardom she had once enjoyed. Funny, vulnerable, and imposing, it’s perhaps the best performance of Hepburn’s career. Though she lost the Oscar to Kitty Foyle‘s Ginger Rogers, the notoriety of the movie and her work in it nevertheless ensured that she’d never fall back into the pit she had managed to fall back on. Today, she remains the thespian with the most Oscar wins ever, the only one to ever earn four.
Brendan Fraser — ‘The Whale’ (2022)
During the ’90s and early 2000s, Brendan Fraser was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, starring in cult classics like Encino Man and huge blockbusters like the Mummy franchise. Due to a tragic range of issues in his personal life, however, Fraser both distanced himself from and was blacklisted by Hollywood. He didn’t stop acting, but he took a significant step back from the spotlight.
That was until the 2022-23 awards race, when Fraser’s knockout performance in Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale made him a clear frontrunner for the Best Actor Academy Award, which he did end up taking home. Since then, Fraser has kept acting in popular projects both big and small, and the fans who have been loyal supporters of his movies for years couldn’t be happier.
Marlon Brando — ‘The Godfather’ (1972)
Saying that Francis Ford Coppola‘s The Godfather is one of the greatest must-watch crime movie masterpieces of all time would be an understatement. Many would consider it the single greatest film ever made, with one of the most impressive ensemble casts of any movie of the ’70s. This cast includes a man who, though definitely controversial, could very well be considered the best and most important actor in the history of Hollywood, Marlon Brando.
However, it’s easy to forget that by the time the early ’70s rolled in, Brando was considered a has-been. Paramount executives were very much against the decision to cast him as Vito Corleone, despite him being screenwriter (and author of the book the film is based on) Mario Puzo‘s preferred choice for the role. Of course, Brando did end up being cast as Vito, and the rest is history. The performance, easily the most iconic of his career, very deservedly ended up winning him his second and last Oscar victory. It was a turning point for his career, and it allowed him to keep getting big roles throughout the rest of his career, even if his problematic behavior never went away.
