Kevin Bacon's most memorable co-stars and collaborators

Kyra Sedgwick is legally one degree away from Bacon because they've been married since 1988. She's also co-starred with her husband in "The Woodsman" and "Murder In The First," did a voice for "Cop Car" and also appeared in "Loverboy" (which her husband directed). Sadly, we never got a Kevin Bacon appearance on "The Closer" because, like TNT, he knows drama.

Before he was Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne played a drug dealer named "Voodoo" in the bike messenger adventure "Quicksilver." Bacon plays a Wall Street trader-turned-bike-messenger-turned-Wall-Street-trader again. Fishburne is effectively menacing, but it's hard to completely buy into the drama of a drug dealer's threats when the dramatic conclusion comes down to a bicycle chase.

John Lithgow won an Emmy for playing Winston Churchill in "The Crown," but his first experience with on-screen political leadership came in "Footloose," as the reverend who bans dancing and rock music in a small town. Of course, Kevin Bacon shows him the error of his ways, and the town allows dancing and rock along with insane amounts of glittery confetti that appear out of nowhere. 

John Belushi died 35 years ago, but he's still been in a movie with Kevin Bacon. Bluto Blutarsky and the Delta House spend the whole movie locked in combat with the arrogant Omegas, whose creepy and sadistic streak is typified in the treatment of freshman pledge Kevin Bacon, who takes a paddling and replies, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

Jack Nicholson might have ordered the Code Red, but it's still a mystery who ordered the smoldering bromantic tension between opposing lawyers Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men." They're opponents and also friends, but the biggest betrayal comes when Cruise explodes that Bacon is a "lousy f---ing softball player!" Some words you can't take back, Tom!

There's perhaps no more '90s romantic comedy than "Picture Perfect."  Not just because it stars a cast member from "Friends" (Jennifer Aniston), the plot involves a fake relationship and a wedding photographer, and the soundtrack has a Macy Gray song, but because it imagines a world where Jay Mohr is more of a catch than Kevin Freakin' Bacon. 

Jennifer Aniston isn't the only Must See TV NBC sitcom star that Kevin Bacon has a connection to. His breakthrough role came alongside Paul Reiser in "Diner" as well as Mickey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg and Daniel Stern. Bacon has a drinking problem and an expiring trust fund, and desecrates a nativity scene. You could say he's Mad About Booze.

Completing his Must See TV triumvirate, Kevin Bacon appeared in an uncredited role as a caller to Doctor Frasier Crane's radio show. You'd think Grammer would be jealous of Bacon's luxurious hair, but he still allowed him to come on his show. Bacon's character, Vic, is abandoned by Frasier mid-call, forcing call screener Roz to step in:

Roz: So, Vic, uh, what's this trouble you're having with women?

Vic: I don't know. You know, I have a good job, I think I have a good personality.  'Course, I made more money when I was modeling, but I'm doing O.K. at the law firm.

Roz: Tell me more!

Earlier in Kevin Bacon's career, Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue would have played his love interest. But mid-career Bacon was much more into playing creeps, like the scientist who turns invisible and psychotic in "Hollow Man." Bacon doesn't romance his ex; he just spies on her in the bedroom with her new boyfriend. It's also the first time Bacon plays a Sebastian, a character name he'd revisit in "X-Men: First Class."

Kevin Bacon served as executive producer on "Wild Things," a film that introduced America to the cinematic threesome. Not only does Bacon play a corrupt police detective who witnesses the Campbell-Richards tryst, in full late-'90s Bacon sleaze mode, but "Little Kevin" makes an appearance in a shower scene.

Kevin Bacon has always played music with his brother Michael, but their country-rock duo The Bacon Brothers has only been an official band since 1995. Since then, they've toured the country, put out eight albums, played late night talk shows and done more for bacon in rock 'n' roll than anyone since Mama Cass. On his own, Michael's written numerous TV soundtracks, including an Emmy-winning effort for "The Kennedys," which proves he truly understands powerful brothers.

Not only was Kevin Bacon the lead in John Hughes' "She's Having A Baby," but he makes a delightful wordless cameo in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," as the guy who aces Steve Martin out of a cab and begins his travel nightmare. Bacon might have been slightly too old for "The Breakfast Club," but it's a shame Hughes couldn't have found a lunch club or even an afternoon snack club for KB.

Though the new generation of "Queer Eye" is dominating Netflix right now, there's one thing the original cast had that they don't: Kevin Bacon. Kevin himself is stylish enough that he doesn't need the assistance of the Fab Five, but that's not true for his brother Michael. He got spiffed up by the crew, and then the Bacon Brothers entertained them in song. It also means that Kevin Bacon is arguably just two degrees away from countless slovenly heterosexual men.

Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn co-starred in "Mystic River" in 2003, a movie that won Penn his first Best Actor Oscar. But they also worked together 20 years earlier on Broadway in "Slab Boys," a play that also starred an unknown Val Kilmer. You'd never believe it looking at this photo, but Penn is actually two years younger than Bacon despite looking 15 years older in this film.

Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon co-starred in the spooky resuscitation thriller "Flatliners" – the 1990 original, not the 2017 remake that no one saw. They take turns confronting childhood ghosts and bringing each other back from the dead, but unlike many of Julia's co-stars from the '90s, Bacon managed to avoid getting engaged to her. 

He's never won an Academy Award himself, but Kevin Bacon has acted alongside plenty of acclaimed actors — including the most acclaimed of all, Meryl Streep. She and Bacon both received Golden Globe nominations for their roles as a whitewater rafting expert and an armed robber, respectively. The film also stars future Oscar nominees David Strathairn and John C. Reilly, making Bacon effectively a step-"Step Brother."

The most recent Best Actor winner, Gary Oldman, has been in three different films with Kevin Bacon. In "JFK," the two didn't interact, as Oldman's Lee Harvey Oswald doesn't run into Bacon's male hustler. They have some intense physical interactions in "Murder In The First," where Oldman savagely beats Bacon as warden of Alcatraz. But their first collaboration was in 1988's forgettable "Criminal Law," where Oldman's lawyer defends Bacon's rich playboy — before realizing he's a serial killer. Great actors. Bad, bad movie.

Yes, Kevin Bacon has teamed up with Britney Spears, in a commercial for Apple Music UK. Not since "Footloose" has Bacon demonstrated his stellar dancing abilities so well. What's more impressive is how a man in his mid-50s still fits into a skin-tight bodysuit. If you're playing the Kevin Bacon game at home, that means he's just two degrees away from Britney's ex, Kevin "K-Fed" Federline.

Kevin Bacon made his directorial debut with "Losing Chase," a movie he made starring Helen Mirren and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick. It was originally made for Showtime, but after a positive reception at the Sundance Film Festival (and eventually three Golden Globe nominations), it got a theatrical release as well. It's a beautiful story about Mirren, an older woman who suffered a nervous breakdown doing something all too familiar to Bacon: falling in love with Kyra Sedgwick.

Continuing his parade of future Oscar-winning co-stars, Kevin Bacon stars alongside Colin Firth in "Where The Truth Lies," as a Martin-and-Lewis-esque comedy team in the '50s who were implicated in a mysterious murder. It's an Atom Egoyan film, and it's a 2000s Bacon film, so of course there's plenty of kinky sex. But with these two handsome dudes in tuxedos, how could there not be?

Kevin Bacon finally made a superhero film with "X-Men: First Class," even though he's arguably a supervillain in "Hollow Man." He plays Sebastian Shaw, a Nazi scientist who has energy-absorbing powers that de-age him, which might be the explanation for Bacon's own ageless appearance in real life. Bacon gets United States one degree away from World War III, but J-Law, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender thwart him. 

"JFK" came out in 1991, right around the time Kevin Bacon's agent told him, "Forget about the size of the role; forget about the size of the check. Let’s get you one or two really cool character roles." Conveniently enough, she was also Oliver Stone's agent, and that's how he ended up alongside another Oscar winner in Kevin Costner in Stone's J.F.K. conspiracy epic. Bacon plays a male prostitute, possibly the official start of the Dark Bacon Era — kicking off a decade of killers, con men and creeps. His career momentum wasn't slowed; it just went back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

In a movie whose African sequences have not aged well, Kevin Bacon plays a college coach who discovers a giant basketball prospect in "The Air Up There." While the plot hinges on explicit cultural imperialism, Bacon still plays basketball better than Michael J. Fox in "Teen Wolf." The African prospect himself, Charles Gitonga Maina, didn't have a cinematic career. At 6-foot-9, he's too tall for almost any Hollywood roles but still too short for the NBA. Maybe they can make a sequel where he joins the BIG3.

Before Christopher Guest became the master of highly improvised comedies, he made the Hollywood satire, "The Big Picture," starring Kevin Bacon as a young Midwestern director chewed up by the filmmaking machine. The film stars many of Guest's frequent collaborators like Michael McKean, but an uncredited Martin Short steals the movie as Bacon's chain-smoking agent. He has a crazy wig and a crazy voice, while delivering perhaps the funniest knitting performance in movie history.

Kevin Bacon played a Boston-based FBI agent twice in as many years — in "Patriots Day" and "Black Mass" — on the heels of playing an FBI agent in "The Following." However, it's "Black Mass" that stands out, featuring the heavily-made-up Johnny Depp — just a few years away from completely blowing $650 million — and a cast full of character actors who, like Bacon, have worked with everyone. There's Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Adam Scott and more, to the point where Bacon claims it's ruined his Six Degrees game forever, since the cast reduces it to four degrees, max.

Speaking of ruining the Kevin Bacon game, his "City On A Hill" co-star Jill Hennessy also shrinks the degrees, as the Law & Order universe now directly abuts the Baconverse. Not to mention, Bacon's now directly linked to the Crossing Jordan-verse, including Doctor Jordan's brief crossover into the Las Vegas television universe. Hennessy is also a musician, so if things go well on "City," perhaps she could tour with him as the lost Bacon Sister.