Tag: Travolta

Whether you recognize him as a sharp-tongued hitman or a singing high school greaser with a heart of gold, virtually everybody knows the name John Travolta.

Having made a name for himself on the popular sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, the young Travolta successfully jumped to mainstream film, almost immediately becoming a prominent movie star thanks to early starring roles in Saturday Night Fever and Grease.

While Travolta may be more well-known for those two movies, the actor has appeared in dozens of films throughout his career. Unsurprisingly, some of these movies — including his late ‘70s films and work in the early ‘90s — are far better than a handful of his other work over the years.

From decade-defining musicals to well-loved comedic crime films, here are some of the greatest movies to feature the Academy Award-nominated icon, John Travolta.

Grease

In the late 1950s, an Australian student newly enrolled in a local high school (Olivia Newton-John) reconnects with her summer love (John Travolta), a seemingly sensitive young man hiding beneath the guise of a street tough bad boy.

Few musicals are as universally popular as Grease, the greatest film to feature either Travolta or his on-screen love interest, Olivia Newton-John. Travolta is utterly charismatic as the greaser Danny, portraying a young man easily prone to social pressure and whose reputation is put at odds with his infatuation for Newton-John’s heroine.

Saturday Night Fever

Depressed by the grim reality of his lower-class Brooklyn environment, a 19-year-old (Travolta) escapes into the glamor and glitz of disco as his foremost hobby.

Aside from Grease, Saturday Night Fever is easily the movie Travolta is most closely associated with — if only for his impressive dance moves alone. Backed by a swinging soundtrack from the disco-heavy Bee Gees, Travolta makes dancing on a neon-lit club floor not only stylish but actually entrancing to watch.

Pulp Fiction

Presented in a nonlinear format, Pulp Fiction tells the interconnected stories of two hit men (Samuel L. Jackson and Travolta) embroiled in a job gone wrong, an eventful dinner with a mobster’s wife (Uma Thurman), a boxer (Bruce Willis) who refuses to take a dive, and a pair of thieves (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) robbing a small coffee shop.

The movie that jump-started Travolta’s then severely waning career, Pulp Fiction, also ignited the careers of Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, and Uma Thurman. An inventive and original crime anthology, the success of everything that came after for Travolta can be directly attributed to the popularity of this film.

Blow Out

Jack Terry (Travolta) works as a sound effects designer in Philadelphia. Out one night recording background sounds for a film he’s working on, Jack happens to see a fatal car accident. The more he listens to the recording of the incident, though, the more uncertain he becomes over whether it was an accident at all.

Unlike the three above-mentioned films, Blow Out contains little trace of Travolta’s usual brand of humor. Swapping laughs for chills and thrills, Blow Out is instead a taut psychological thriller, led by an exhausted-looking and paranoid Travolta as he tries to piece together what really happened on that fateful night.

Face/Off

To thwart a terrorist plot, an FBI agent (Travolta) undergoes a surgical procedure to swap faces with a psychopathic criminal mastermind (Nicolas Cage).

If you ever needed proof of Travolta’s versatility, this is the movie for you. It takes immense talent for an actor to play a character who’s, in turn, playing another character, but Travolta does so with ease. Initially playing the straight-laced, vendetta-driven FBI agent and then his sadistic, unhinged adversary, Travolta hands in two performances in one.

Get Shorty

Traveling to Los Angeles to collect a gambling debt, a Miami-based loan shark (Travolta) finds the film industry very similar to his current criminal career, opting to use his skills to become a Hollywood producer instead.

Adapted faithfully from Elmore Leonard’s novel of the same name, Travolta’s character in Get Shorty — the film fanatic Chili Palmer — might rank as Travolta’s most colorful protagonist. Able to alternate between hot-headed emotion and cool efficiency depending on the situation, the 1995 film cemented Travolta’s return to Hollywood after his career-saving role in Pulp Fiction.

Primary Colors

Henry Burton (Adrian Lester) works a political strategist hired to join the campaign for Southern Democrat and presidential hopeful, Jack Stanton (Travolta). Along the election trail, Burton’s political idealism is rocked when Stanton’s campaign is confronted with scandalous allegations.

Loosely based on the campaign and presidency of Bill Clinton, Primary Colors offers more than just Travolta doing his best Clinton impersonation. Instead, he embeds plenty of outward warmth and affection into his performance as Stanton, juxtaposed with the possibly sinister ulterior lifestyle he may be harboring beneath the surface.

A Civil Action

Jan Schlichtmann (Travolta) is a dedicated lawyer who risks his firm and reputation battling two megacorporations that he believes have polluted his Massachusetts town’s water supply, triggering widespread health issues for residents (including fatal instances of leukemia).

A Civil Action is perhaps the most star-studded film on this list, featuring such talented actors as Robert Duvall, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, and John Lithgow. A testament to Travolta’s star power, despite the numerous actors he appears alongside in the film, Travolta himself is never overwhelmed, occupying the screen with his tenacious portrayal of Schlichtmann.

Urban Cowboy

After moving to Houston and marrying a young woman (Debra Winger) he met at a bar, a young man from the Texas countryside (Travolta) protects his marriage from a recently-paroled convict (Scott Glenn) who has developed an infatuation with the man’s wife.

A relatively early role, seeing Travolta in a cowboy hat with a Southern accent only two years after Grease must’ve been an odd experience for audiences at the time. But Travolta’s performance was highly even-handed, marking one of his first major forays into more dramatic roles.

Hairspray

Addled by her favorite dance show’s lack of representation, a 1960s teenager (Nikki Blonsky) gets together with her friends to map out ways to integrate the show.

It’s not often you see a remake that’s every bit as enjoyable as the original film it’s based upon. Hairspray, though, is one such film, loaded with as many vibrant musical numbers, colorful performances, and skillful character actors as its predecessor. This is especially the case for Travolta’s performance as Edna Turnblad, the endlessly anxious mother of Blonsky’s protagonist who steals every scene she’s in.

Bolt

Bolt (Travolta) is a White Swiss Shepherd who stars in a popular TV series that depicts him as having superpowers. Believing he has these powers in real life, Bolt sets out to rescue his co-star (Miley Cyrus), who he believes has been kidnapped by nefarious forces.

Bolt might not rank as the best or most popular Disney film, but it’s almost assuredly among the most underrated. That description also applies to Travolta’s vocal performance as Bolt – a character coddled by his handlers and who’s never seen the real world. Through his eyes, it’s almost like we’re seeing the wonders and perils of his settings for the first time.

Carrie

Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a shy, withdrawn teenager bullied by her fellow students in high school and abused by her religiously fanatical mother (Piper Laurie). Discovering she has psychic powers, Carrie uses her abilities to get revenge on her tormentors, culminating in a tragic night at her school’s prom.

Figuring into the film as the oafish boyfriend of high school bully Chris (Nancy Allen), Travolta admittedly doesn’t have much screen time in Carrie. What little he’s given, though, he uses to pure perfection, butting heads with Allen’s Chris in an almost comedic performance in this otherwise downbeat Stephen King adaptation.