Hugh Jackman is a bona fide movie star, but even among the A-list, this actor's range is impressive. He's a star of the stage and screen who is just as comfortable in a superhero's costume as he is a pair of tap shoes. His filmography is full of fantasy, science-fiction, romance, comedy, drama, and animation. He's been the hero and the villain, the dreamboat and the slimeball, fantasical creatures and biographical figures, and he seems to do it all with ease.
With Jackman's new film, the sci-fi mystery/thriller Reminiscence, premiering day and date in theaters and on HBO Max on Aug. 20, let's look back at some of the highlights of his career so far.
X2
Jackman has portrayed Wolverine nine times, and though the X-Men film franchise has had its share of flops, more than a few of his outings as the iconic mutant are worthy of this list. 2000's X-Men introduces us to his version of the character and proves he's definitely cut out for the role, but he really shines in X2, where Wolverine's personal stakes are considerably raised. The sequel sees him actively looking for answers about his past, battling threats like William Stryker and an escaped Magneto, all while embroiled in a more-heightened love triangle with Cyclops and Jean Grey.
X2 is streaming on Disney+.
The Prestige
Christopher Nolan's 2006 thriller about competing magicians in 1890s London provided Jackman with one of his most challenging roles: An ambitious obsessive who's neither hero nor villain, opposite the equally excellent Christian Bale. It's impossible to say too much about Jackman's character, The Great Danton, without giving away The Prestige's secrets. He and Bale's Alfred "The Professor" Bordon are both trying to master the same trick (with the help of David Bowie as Nikola Tesla), to the detriment of everything else in their lives, including their friends, families, and their own personal safety. The highly metaphorical last act makes the movie.
The Prestige is available to rent on most streaming platforms.
Missing Link
LAIKA's 2019 stop-motion film won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for an Oscar. Its charming style and tone took critics and audiences by surprise. Jackman voices Sir Lionel Frost, a British explorer and wannabe discoverer of mythical creatures who desperately longs to be accepted into the "Society of Great Men". When he's enlisted by an actual Sasquatch to travel to the Himalayas in search of his Yeti brethern, Sir Lionel finally gets his chance. Along for the journey are Timothy Olyphant's Willard Stenk, a bounty hunter hired by a rival, and Zoe Saldana's Adelina Fortnight, a fellow adventurer who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend.
Missing Link is streaming on Hulu.
Bad Education
Jackman could've conceivably won an Oscar for his role in 2019's Bad Education, had technicalities about its HBO release not kept it from being eligible. He received high praise for his portrayal of Frank Tassone, the seemingly upstanding superintendent of a model school district. Based on a true story, Bad Education details how a student reporter uncovered millions of dollars of fraud (not to mention some questionable personal behavior) committed by Tassone and his underlings while overseeing improvements to Roslyn High School, which, under his leadership, ranked fourth in the nation. This tense tale of scandal and cooked books might've been classified as a TV movie, but its rave reviews show it's worth the watch.
Bad Education is streaming on HBO Max.
The Greatest Showman
The Greatest Showman isn't everybody's cup of tea, but besides playing Wolverine, Jackman is probably best known as a song and dance man, having won a Tony and hosted the awards four times. This 2017 original musical about circus magnate P.T. Barnum garnered middling reviews, with some critics appreciating its, well, showmanship, while others panned its garishness and lack of accuracy. But The Greatest Showman was a long-running box office hit with audiences that has only grown its cultural relevance and fan base in the years since. Unless one wants to pay hundreds to see Jackman next year in Broadway's revival of The Music Man, this is the best way to see him in action.
The Greatest Showman is streaming on Disney+.
Eddie the Eagle
If viewers skipped 2016's Eddie the Eagle because it looked a bit cheesy, they could be forgiven, and they wouldn't be wrong. This inspirational sports movie, based on the true story of British skier Michael Edwards, is as feel-good and predictable as one would suspect. But it's actually good, and legitimately inspiring! Eddie the Eagle follows Edwards (Taron Egerton) on his impossible trajectory from disabled 10 year old to Olympic ski jumper, with the help (and sometime the hinderance) of his alcoholic coach, Bronson (Jackman). The film embraces what it is and was the top grossing film of the year in the UK, where audiences relished in its hometown pride and sentimentality.
Eddie the Eagle is streaming on Disney+.
Logan
We don't know if Jackman will ever suit up as Wolverine again, though officially he's retired from the role. If that turns out to be true, Logan is a fitting send-off for the character that will always be most associated with Jackman. In this third and final entry in the Wolverine trilogy, no mutants have been born for a generation, and an aging and ailing Logan is tasked with caring for an ever worse off Charles Xavier.
Logan then morphs into something much different than your average X-Men movie, and becomes part of a long tradition of westerns or western-style adventures in which a gritty protagonist must protect a special child from mysterious forces who do not have the child's best interests in mind (the most recent example of which is The Mandalorian). Logan is also Jackman's best-reviewed theatrical release, and is available to stream on Hulu.