The 20 best roles of John Travolta’s career

As the son of an actress, John Travolta knew from an early age he wanted to act, so he dropped out of his New Jersey high school and moved to New York City to begin his career. Ironically his breakout role was as a high school student on the hit ABC sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter” from 1975 to 1979. Of course, calling Vinnie Barbarino a student is a bit of a stretch. Sure, the cocky Italian-American attended Brooklyn’s James Buchanan High, but he was more focused on being the “unofficial official” leader of the Sweathogs and chasing girls than he was with learning anything from “Mista Kah-Terr.”

Like Vinnie Barbarino, Billy Nolan of “Carrie” is also a high school student, but he isn’t nearly as funny as the former. Instead, Billy is a delinquent punk who spearheads the prank pulled on Carrie (Sissy Spacek) and even tries to run her over in a car at one point, but…well, things don’t end well for Travolta’s little dirtbag. However, the actor stole some scenes and displayed his range along the way, even while playing another meathead.

To be perfectly honest, “Saturday Night Fever” is one of our favorite films. It seamlessly combines scenes of both drama and humor with impressive dance sequences and a disco soundtrack featuring some of the best songs in the genre, including a heaping helping of the Bee Gees. The role of Tony Manero — a kid from Brooklyn who’s a nobody on the street but a god on the dance floor — has become so iconic that when most people picture John Travolta, they picture him in his white, flared polyester suit from “Saturday Night Fever.” The 1977 film busted a move to the tune of $237 million at the box office and earned Travolta Best Actor nominations at both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

“Grease” has one of the best-selling soundtrack albums of all time, but it was actually only the second-best soundtrack of 1978 thanks to “Saturday Night Fever,” which was still going strong in the charts a year later. Of course, none of this mattered to John Travolta, who is the star of both films (or Barry Gibb, who was featured on both albums). Hopefully you don’t need us to tell you about how Travolta plays Danny Zuko, a teenage greaser who falls for a transfer student named Sandy played by Olivia Newton-John — and that they go together like rama lama lama ka-dinga da-dinga dong. After all, who hasn’t seen “Grease”? When it was first released, “Grease” garnered $395 million at the box office and earned nods at both the Oscars and Golden Globes — and it has been introduced to numerous new generations since.

For an odd-sounding romantic drama where John Travolta plays a cowboy who moves to Houston, lives in a trailer and participates in mechanical bull competitions opposite a girl named Sissy (Debra Winger), “Urban Cowboy” was actually a solid and entertaining film, not to mention inspiring. Americans loved the 1980 movie so much that mechanical bulls became a popular sight at bars across the country, and sales of Texas chic and western-style clothes went through the roof. “Urban Cowboy” also inspired fans to flock en masse to Houston to visit the enormous Gilley’s Club, which in another surprise, is actually a real local honky tonk.

When “Blow Out” was released in 1981, the box office earnings couldn’t even cover the film’s $18 million budget. That’s surprising, considering the fact that it was written and directed by Brian De Palma and featured John Travolta (alongside John Lithgow and Dennis Franz) in a compelling role as a man caught in the middle of a political assassination. Despite a lack of popularity in the ‘80s, “Blow Out” nevertheless received critical praise at the time and was eventually re-released by the Criterion Collection, which eventually propelled the thriller to cult classic status.

Only a dozen years after playing a teenager, Travolta was cast in his first role as a dad in the 1989 comedy “Look Who’s Talking.” Well, sort of. NYC accountant Mollie (Kirstie Alley) has an affair and baby with a married man (George Segal) but has a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that he won’t be a good father to young Mickey (voiced by Bruce Willis). She spurns the advances of several other men, including James (Travolta), the cab driver who drove her to the hospital when she was giving birth. Of course, since “Look Who’s Talking” is a lighthearted comedy, she eventually comes around on James, and the generally acclaimed film that earned nearly $300 million at the box office led to two entirely unnecessary sequels.

After finding a foothold with 1992’s “Reservoir Dogs,” Quentin Tarantino firmly established himself as a brilliant director two years later with the release of the neo-noir masterpiece “Pulp Fiction.” At the same time, Travolta, after floundering for most of the ‘80s, re-established himself as a leading man with the role of Vincent Vega. And although “Pulp Fiction” was basically a hodgepodge of loosely related vignettes that also featured Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames, Travolta was undoubtedly the star because not only did he command the audience’s attention with his quietly cool portrayal of a badass hitman and not only did he appear in more storylines than any other character, but he also earned an Oscar nod for Best Actor.

Speaking of quietly cool dudes, let’s talk about “Get Shorty” for a moment. In the darkly comedic gangster flick, Travolta plays Chili Palmer, a loan shark who works for some shady characters but soon develops an itch to make movies after collecting a debt from a Hollywood producer (Gene Hackman). Everywhere you look there are more famous faces — Danny DeVito, Rene Russo, James Gandolfini, Dennis Farina, Bette Midler — but Travolta was the only one to receive a Golden Globe nod (for Best Actor in a Comedy)...and he won!

Like some other Travolta films, the premise to 1997’s “Face/Off” was a little hokey. A domestic terrorist (Nicolas Cage) falls into a coma, and to find out where in Los Angeles he has hidden a bomb, an FBI agent (John Travolta) undergoes a face transplant so he can impersonate Cage’s character and gain the necessary intel from his cronies. Not only was “Face/Off” a box office hit that earned $245 million, but it also nabbed an Academy Award nomination and was praised for everything from its acting, depth and humor to its John Woo-directed action sequences and unique plot. Keep in mind that this sci-fi action film was released a full 13 years before the first successful face transplant surgery!

A favorably reviewed romantic drama and posthumous release of screenwriter John Cassavetes, “She’s So Lovely” features Travolta as the second husband of Maureen (Robin Wright), a recovering alcoholic who has to deal with the return of her mentally unstable ex-husband, Eddie (Sean Penn). Penn won Best Actor at Cannes, and Wright earned a nod for Outstanding Actress at the SAG Awards, even though Travolta was singled out just as often in the 1997 film’s generally favorable reviews for his edgy, honest and slyly humorous portrayal of Joey.

John Travolta received his fifth Best Actor Golden Globe nomination in 1999 for his role as Gov. Jack Stanton in “Primary Colors.” If you didn’t live through the early ‘90s, the movie’s plot might not immediately seem familiar, but most of us recognize it as a loose retelling of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and the affair allegations that surfaced during that time. Praised for both its brutally honest look at the dark side of American politics and Travolta’s portrayal of the Clinton-esque Stanton character, “Primary Colors” was reviewed favorably by critics even though it failed to break even at the box office.

There’s little doubt that “The Thin Red Line” was an outstanding film. It earned nearly twice its $52 million budget, won the Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear, netted seven Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Director) and featured a cast of Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Adrien Brody, John C. Reilly, John Cusack, Jared Leto, Woody Harrelson and John Travolta. However, the first cut of the 170-minute epic actually ran a full five hours and had to be heavily edited — a process that took nearly seven months. By the end, the parts of Harrelson, Cusack and Travolta were whittled down to mere cameos and actors Bill Pullman, Mickey Rourke and Lukas Haas had characters that were cut completely. Still, Travolta was a perfect fit as Nolte’s superior officer and foil, Brig. Gen. David Quintard, despite his handful of scenes not even amounting to two minutes of screentime.

Let’s not sugar coat things: “Battlefield Earth” was a terrible embarrassment of a film that is basically just Scientology propaganda. (Travolta, a longtime Scientologist and producer of the film, had lobbied for years to get it made.) It owns a 3 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as 11 Razzies nominations and nine wins, including Worst Actor (Travolta), Worst Screen Couple (for “John Travolta and anyone sharing the screen with him”) and Worst Picture of the Decade. Once you accept all that, “Battlefield Earth” can actually be quite enjoyable in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way. (Travolta plays an alien! He has dreadlocks! His species are called “Psychlos”!) In fact, the sci-fi catastrophe has actually developed a cult following for this very reason.

In a way, the final scene of 2002’s “Austin Powers in Goldmember” was sort of like the ending of “Get Shorty.” Except instead of Barboni (Dennis Farina) turning around to reveal he’s actually Harvey Keitel playing Barboni on a Penny Marshall-helmed Hollywood movie set, Goldmember (Mike Myers) turns around to reveal he’s actually John Travolta playing Goldmember in a Steven Spielberg-directed movie. Since it’s a Myers film, Travolta gets to drop a bit of profanity, crack a joke and do a silly little dance — to the delight of both the audience watching the movie within the movie, and us, the true audience. What can we say? We’re suckers for a good cameo, and in “Goldmember” we got Travolta, Spielberg, Danny DeVito and Tom Cruise all in one scene.

In the various iterations of “Hairspray,” the role of Edna Turnblad has been traditionally played by a male in drag (including Harvey Fierstein, who won a Tony playing her on Broadway in 2007), but seeing John Travolta play the obese, agoraphobic mother of Tracy was nevertheless surprising. However, the producers wanted the veteran actor due to his previous musical success, and it paid off. As part of an ensemble cast that included Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Zac Efron, Queen Latifah and Allison Janney, Travolta helped propel the rom-com to critical acclaim and $202 million in theaters. However, Travolta’s role actually divided film fans, critics and award shows. For instance, the actor earned a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe nomination but was also elected to the Women Film Critics Circle’s Hall of Shame.

Bolt isn’t a superdog, but he played one on TV. In fact, Bolt, the canine protagonist of the Disney animated film of the same name, played one for so long that he actually started to believe he had superpowers, which came in handy when he had to rescue his owner/TV sidekick (Miley Cyrus) from a kidnapping. Well, actually, the kidnapping was just part of an episode storyline, but Bolt didn’t know that, so he broke out of his acting trailer and set off across the country to find her. Sweet, funny and entertaining, “Bolt” ended up earning a slew of various nominations — including two Golden Globes and an Oscar — but lost almost every one to “WALL-E.” Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, John Travolta voices Bolt.

John Travolta has shown he can play the bad guy, but his role in the 2009 remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123” puts him on an entirely different track. Sure, his performance wasn’t totally convincing; we all know Travolta is good at playing the nice guy, so making him a mustachioed, neck-tattooed domestic terrorist who takes an entire subway car full of New Yorkers hostage is already a stretch of the imagination. Personally, we enjoyed Bad Travolta, and seeing him play opposite Denzel Washington was an added bonus. As for the nay-saying critics who took this pure action thriller way too seriously and expected it to be Oscar material? They can go lick the third rail.

It’s not always easy to put out a Western nowadays, and the $61,797 made at the box office by 2016’s “In a Valley of Violence” is evidence of that fact. Still, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics for paying proper homage to the genre, weaving some humor in between the gunfights and violence and casting two solid actors — Ethan Hawke and John Travolta — in the starring roles as a drifter and a town marshal, respectively. As for which one is truly the “good guy” and which one is the “bad guy,” that’s up for debate, showing that the plot and characters of “In a Valley of Violence” are a bit more complex than you’d find in your average Western.

Based on the Jeffrey Toobin book “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” the first season of the FX true crime anthology “American Crime Story” aired in 2016 and centered on the former football player’s infamous 1994 murder trial. In the series, Travolta played Simpson “dream team” attorney Robert Shapiro, and dammit if he didn’t play him well. Sure, Travolta looked more like a mobster than a lawyer, and critics were still skeptical following the first few episodes. But by the time the season ended, the actor had earned Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Emmys, Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Television Awards. Some even called it his best performance since “Pulp Fiction.”