Kevin Bacon Movies

Want to know the best Kevin Bacon movies?  How about the worst Kevin Bacon movies?  Curious about Kevin Bacon box office grosses or which Kevin Bacon movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Kevin Bacon movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Kevin Bacon (1958-) is an American actor and musician.  He is known for his roles in 1984’s Footloose, 1991’s JFK, 1992’s A Few Good Men, 1995’s Apollo 13, 2003’s Mystic River and as the “Thank you sir may I have another” frat boy in 1978’s Animal House.

His IMDb page shows 86 acting credits since 1978.  This page will rank 55 Kevin Bacon movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television roles, cameos, shorts and straight to DVD movies were not included in the rankings.

Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn in 2003’s Mystic River

Kevin Bacon Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Kevin Bacon Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by movie titles and trailers to the movies
  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Kevin Bacon movie received.
  • Sort Kevin Bacon movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

Kevin Bacon in 1984’s Footloose

Possibly Interesting Facts About Kevin Bacon

1. Kevin Norwood Bacon was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1958.

2. Kevin Bacon left home at age 17 to pursue a theater career in New York City.   In 1978 he secured a small but funny role in 1978’s Animal House.  In 1980 he had a bigger role in Friday the 13th.  40 years later and Bacon is still going.

3. Kevin Bacon inspired a game called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, whereby people have to link any given actor to him by no more than six steps.

4.  Though Kevin Bacon was initially dismayed by the game, the meme stuck, and Bacon eventually embraced it, forming the charitable initiative SixDegrees.org, a social networking site intended to link people and charities to each other.

5. Kevin Bacon formed a band called The Bacon Brothers with his brother, Michael. The duo have released six albums.

6. Kevin Bacon has been married one time.  He has been married to actress Kyra Sedwick since 1988….they have two children.

7. Kevin Bacon is a distant relative to Richard Nixon.

8. Roles Kevin Bacon either turned down or was seriously considered for: Sean Penn role in 1983’s Bad Boys, Charlie Sheen role in 1999’s Being John Malkovich, Woody Harrelson role in 1993’s Indecent Proposal, Patrick Swayze role in 1990’s Ghost and Jeff Bridges role in 1984’s Starman.

9. Footloose (1984) trivia:  (1) Kevin Bacon based his hairstyle on rocker Sting’s spiky hairdo as he was a big fan of The Police at the time.  (2) Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe were also considered for Bacon’s role.  (3) Kevin Bacon broke out in hives around his midsection when he had to film the City Council scene where he makes the case for holding a prom dance. The actor says he is uncomfortable when speaking in public, but has never had a reoccurrence of hives.

10. Check out Kevin Bacon’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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19 thoughts on “Kevin Bacon Movies

  1. A name I know…”Thank you sir, may I have another?” As I was scrolling through counting how many movies I have seen, I saw Animal House. At first I was like, he was in that? Then it hit me…lol. Really surprised I haven’t seen more of his movies, now I’m sure there were more not listed but oh well. On to the data…

    Seen: 12/36 or 33%
    Favorite Top 10: Real close between Apollo 13, A Few Good Men and Crazy, Stupid, Love.
    UMR Snub (Too High or Too Low): Balto, way too low, although animated, lots of memories watching this as a kid, and now I live in Alaska.
    Guilty Pleasure: Hollow Man and let’s not forget punch dancing in a warehouse.
    Loverboy is listed twice.

  2. Hi Bruce,
    Interesting and comprehensive look at Kevin Bacon’s career in the movies. He strikes me as one of these actors who can be as equally effective playing the hero or a menacing villain. He seems to have become a bit less active in films in recent years but has had success on TV with his series, The Following.

    It’s true that while Bacon has been a leading man since the early 80s, in his biggest and most successful films, he has usually been a second lead or supporting player, with the important exception of his breakthrough role in Footloose, and a few others. The best films I remember him in are: A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River, and X-Men: First Class, where I think he was delightful as the super villain.

    Among his leading roles, I think one of his best and most critically acclaimed performance was in The Woodsman, though I see from your list that it bombed at the box office. One film I’ve been wanting to see for a while is Sleepers – seeing Bacon, de Niro, Hoffman and Pitt together in the same film should be interesting. If I can borrow a phrase…vote up as well!

    1. Hey PhilHoF17
      1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Mr. Kevin Bacon.
      2. I agree he excels in both hero and bad guy roles….I really liked his bad guy role in River Wild.
      3. The Woodsman is a very dark movie…which is why it is barely remembered…..but I agree with you that it is a quality movie. Critically it ranks 10th….which is pretty impressive.
      4. I like Sleepers…..but it was more for seeing all these stars together…than the story which was not as impressive.
      Thanks for the vote up.

  3. HI BRUCE
    1 Kevin Bacon has played many leading roles according to Wiki’s posters and cast lists but
    I have always tended to regard Kevin Bacon as predominately a supporting actor and can personally recall seeing him in just 6 movies in which he could be said to have had the lead role or an equal leading part to other main performers– Wild Things, Tremors, Stir of Echoes, Hollow Man, Sleepers and my personal favourite Criminal Law.

    2 However my very favourite Bacon role was in the supporting part of prosecuting military lawyer “Smiling” Jack Ross [as Cruise nicknamed him] in A Few Good Men. He was also in a delicious little cameo at the start of Planes, Trains and Automobiles where he beats Steve Martin to a scarce taxi that Steve thought was his and Kevin smirks at Martin as he does so. In fact Kevin’s role is described in cast lists as Taxi Racer.

    3 However one defines Bacon’s star status it can certainly not be argued that he was ever a vertiginous box office performer in the Hanks/Willis league but again your site earns my admiration for nevertheless recognising the work of undoubtedly talented performers who have given great service to the cinema down the years. Accordingly I welcome this new page and have pinched a Lensman “Voted up” to award to it.

    1. Hey Bob Roy
      1. Thanks for checking out our new Kevin Bacon page.
      2. I would say….in his high profile movies he is in a supporting role in most of them….but he has been the main star in many movies.
      3. Of his UMR Top 20…..I would say he has one leading man role….Footloose….but when looking at his remaining 35 movies….I would say he was the leading man in 19 of the movies…..so that would be 20 leading man and 35 supporting roles.
      4. I debated about including Planes, Trains and Automobiles….but since I love that movie so much …and like his scene….it got included.
      5. I agree with you about Bacon compared to Willis and Hanks….especially Hanks.
      6. Thanks for the vote up.

      1. HI BRUCE

        1 I pondered long and hard over how to phrase my own perception of Kevin’s star status so thanks for the very interesting breakdowns of supporting/lead roles.

        1. I think it is safe to say…..when it is low budget movies….Bacon makes a good leading man….but when the budget is higher and expectations are higher……then Bacon is a good character actor.

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