25 movie stars who made the move to TV

Big Little Lies  was a massive “look, movie stars!” show. Hell, Meryl Streep joined the cast for the second season. However, the actor we are using as the stand-in for the Big Little Lies cast is Nicole Kidman, an Oscar winner and one of the biggest film stars out there for a time. Kidman also won an Emmy for the show because, come on, of course, she did.

Did you know Roberts did a TV show? It was not as splashy as Big Little Lies, even with Roberts’ status as arguably the quintessential actress of the 1990s. She was the star of the first season of Amazon Prime’s Homecoming, directed entirely by Sam Esmail.

Speaking of Esmail, he’s got a thing for movie stars making a move to TV. Slater had transitioned to being a TV guy before his turn on Mr. Robot, though. You would be forgiven for forgetting The Forgotten, which ran 17 episodes, or Breaking In, which ran 20.

We’re going old school here, back when moving to television was considered akin to heresy. However, the former star and famed femme fatale in Double Indemnity made the switch, which was significant for her career. Stanwyck starred in the Western show The Big Valley from 1965 until 1969, winning an Emmy and earning two more nominations. Owing to the divide back in the day, Stanwyck never appeared in another film after taking the lead role on The Big Valley.

Fox rode the classic arc of moving from TV stardom to movie fame. As a young actor, he made his name as Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. Then came Back to the Future, and he was off and running. Later in adulthood, Fox was perhaps less en vogue in film, and he returned to TV with Spin City, where he starred with aplomb until a Parkinson's diagnosis slowed his career.

He got an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, and he’s War Machine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Cheadle isn’t afraid of TV, though. Hey, he started on TV with The Golden Palace, a forgettable Golden Girls spinoff. After moving to film, he returned to TV to star in two series: House of Lies and Black Monday.

Once one of the top movie stars out there, Carrey’s career took a bit of a dip, and perhaps that’s why he decided to give prestige TV a shot. The only problem? His show Kidding didn’t necessarily take off. Now, he’s playing Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, where at least he seems to be having fun.

If you watched Aaron Sorkin’s movie about Ball and Desi Arnaz (which was a mixed bag), you got some of Ball’s story. She spent years working in film during the days of the studio system and got a chance to star in a couple of films. Then, the studios decided she wasn’t cutting it, and Ball was left adrift. Fortunately, television was beginning to grow as a medium, and Ball went ahead and produced and starred in I Love Lucy, one of the biggest hits of all time.

Both Dakota and her sister Elle made the move from movies to TV, but Dakota was probably more of the “movie star” of the two, though both were child stars in their movie heyday. The Fannings are quality adult actors, and Dakota costarred in the TNT drama The Alienist, which was an interesting change of pace for the network.

Kutcher truly began his career with That ’70s Show, and from a film perspective, he was the breakthrough star of the group. (He's also responsible for the cultural and TV phenomena, Punk'd.) Kutcher was all over the big screen for a while, mostly in romantic comedies, with the occasional ill-conceived dramas in the mix. Eventually, he returned to TV on Two and a Half Men , where he replaced another one-time movie star, Charlie Sheen. 

Apple wanted to make a splash with its original programming, and The Morning Show did just that. Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell are in the cast, and they were both movie stars at the time. However, they were once sitcom staples. Aniston will always be Rachel from Friends, and Carrell will always be Michael Scott from The Office. Witherspoon, though, basically was a movie star from the word go. Her appearance in The Morning Show felt like the bigger get.

You make a movie like The Love Guru, and you are going to find yourself in a weird place in your career. Myers was a massive comedy star, but blockbuster comedies all but went away. The actor took another strange swing by hosting The Gong Show in character as Tommy Maitland. Then, he created and starred in his own Netflix project, The Pentaverate.

It’s perhaps a little easier to get a movie star for a limited series, and we’re also sure Apple will splash the cash when need be. Hathaway has recently had a few odd movies added to her filmography, but she’s remained a star on that front. She dipped into TV, alongside Jared Leto, for the Apple TV+ series  WeCrashed, where both leads got good reviews.

It’s truly bizarre that Pacino, one of the most accomplished actors ever to do it, could be on a TV show and most people didn’t watch it, and there’s a good chance you haven’t even heard of it. Sure, he’s done his HBO films, but we aren’t talking about those. Pacino was in the cast of Amazon Prime’s Hunters, a show that came and went without making a splash. Again, that’s with Pacino in the cast!

In the midst of the peak of the McConaissance, the actor helped make people interested in True Detective . That first season was a genuine hit and cultural phenomenon. While Woody Harrelson was also in the cast, McConaughey’s Russ Cohle really became the character people honed in on.

After years of movie stardom, Williams’ return to sitcoms was greeted with fanfare. The erstwhile Mork was not only returning to TV, but the show co-starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and was created by David E. Kelley. Then, The Crazy Ones totally flopped. Williams returned to TV, and the show still only lasted one season.

Davis was in TV shows in the 1980s, and then her film career took off, and she gave us movies like Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own. After the 1990s, Davis spent the new millennium trying to get TV shows going but never quite found one that worked. There was The Geena Davis Show, Commander in Chief, and even the TV version of The Exorcist. She even joined the cast of GLOW, only to see the fourth-season order rescinded by Netflix.

Fonda waited a while to make the move to TV. She even did exercise tapes before she decided to give television acting a shot! We will note her 10-episode run on The Newsroom, but we are primarily thinking of Grace and Frankie , a long-running Netflix show she co-starred with Lily Tomlin.

Lange won an Oscar in her ingénue days and has had an interesting film career. She also has a huge fan in Ryan Murphy. Lange has been in several iterations of American Horror Story and also played Joan Crawford opposite Susan Sarandon’s Bette Davis in  Feud. Fittingly enough, Davis did some TV appearances late in her career.

He was a comedy star, and then he was Batman. Keaton’s career waned a bit in the 2000s, but he never made the move to TV. His film career got revitalized, and finally, he gave television a shot. Keaton was the star of the 2021 limited series Dopesick, for which he won an Emmy.

Bridges comes from an acting family, and he’s done it all in his film career. That includes finally winning an Oscar for Crazy Heart. It was not until he was in his seventies that Bridges had a regular TV role. He stars in The Old Man, an FX show about an aging former CIA agent pulled back into the game. Hey, it’s never too late to try something new.

Just like his son Charlie, Martin eventually moved to TV after starring in films like Apocalypse Now. However, Martin went with a prestige political drama as opposed to a broad sitcom. Sheen played President Bartlet on Sorkin’s The West Wing and would later have a supporting role on Fonda’s Grace and Frankie.

There is more than one way to turn to TV. Barrymore isn’t acting on television these days, at least not after the end of her show Santa Clarita Diet. Instead, she’s the host of The Drew Barrymore Show, a daytime talk show highlighted by Barrymore’s idiosyncratic hosting style.

These days, Stranger Things is thought of as the show that spawned several child stars. It’s a massive Netflix hit. However, before Stranger Things took off, the hook was that Ryder was starring in it. At a time when Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and even David Harbour weren’t really known names, Stranger Things was sold on Ryder’s name.

He was almost Indiana Jones, but instead, Selleck spent years starring in the successful show Magnum P.I. Then, Selleck got his chance to be a movie star with films like Three Men and a Baby, Quigley Down Under, and Mr. Baseball. His film stardom petered out fairly quickly, but the return to TV has gone well for him. He’s been starring on CBS’ Blue Bloods since 2010.

Ford, one of the biggest movie stars of all time, had never really been a TV guy. After he hit with "Star Wars," he basically only appeared in the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special" and a couple episodes of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles." Suddenly, though, you can't keep the guy off TV. He's on both the "Yellowstone" prequel "1923" as well as the comedy "Shrinking."

We mentioned Ford starring in a "Yellowstone" spinoff, and the original is one of the biggest shows on TV. It has led to something of a renaissance for Costner. After years of making movies about baseball, the actor has found a place in the realm of the TV Western, which feels about right for the man who starred in and directed "Dances with Wolves."

Stallone did what he could to keep on extending his movie career. There was "Creed," the "Expendables" films, and even another "Rambo" movie. Now, though, even Rocky Balboa is doing the TV thing. He's the star of Paramount+'s "Tulsa King."