The 10 Highest-Grossing Kevin Bacon Movies

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From a young age, Bacon was led by his passion for the arts and expression. As a matter of fact, similar to Peter Sarsgaard, his initial goal wasn't to become a Hollywood actor, but rather to pursue a career in theatre. Before ascending to international fame and notoriety, Bacon worked odd jobs, like waiting tables, and auditioned for smaller roles in television soap operas such as Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow. Now, he can boast to have shared the stage with celebrities such as Josh Brolin, Michael Gross, Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Demi Moore. These are ten of the highest-grossing Kevin Bacon movies of all time.

X-Men: First Class

For fans acquainted with his fairly-recent films, Bacon may be most remembered for his role as the main antagonist, Sebastian Shaw, in X-Men: First Class. Marvel Entertainment released this action movie in 2011 as the fifth installment of the X-Men film series. The setting takes place in the early 1960s when the world is on the brink of global war. X-Men founder, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is introduced as a telepathic child who grows to appreciate his unique ability and that of others like himself who are "different." He meets with a shapeshifter named Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), and other mutants, namely Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Havok (Lucas Till), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), and others to form the X-Men Mutants. They must band together to stop Shaw from setting off a world war and destroying the planet. The film grossed $355.4 million at the international box office.

Apollo 13

Coming in with a box office number of $335.8 million is the historical/drama, Apollo 13. Released in 1995, this Hollywood classic recounts in the film the details of the Apollo 13 lunar mission which was launched on April 11, 1970. After the spacecraft left earth's orbit subsequent to its launch at the Kennedy Space Center, all seems to be going according to plan until an oxygen tank explodes, prompting a cancellation of the moon landing. Kevin Bacon plays the role of astronaut Jack Swigert, while Tom Hanks plays Jim Lovell, Ed Harris as Gene Kranz, and Bill Paxton as Fred Haise. All in all, on a budget of $52 million, it's safe to say that Apollo 13 hit the jackpot!

A Few Good Men

In 1992, Bacon starred in A Few Good Men, a gripping legal drama with a cast of spectacular actors. The film is set at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, where an intense trial is being held in the death of Private William Santiago (Michael DeLorenzo) shortly after asking to be transferred. Private First Class Louden Downey (James Marshall) and Lance Corporal Harold Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) are held accountable. Kevin Bacon acts as a prosecutor named Captain Jack Ross. Jack Nicholson plays Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, who later discloses, after being relentlessly questioned by Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), that he ordered a "code red" on Private Santiago, resulting in his death. Other star actors included Cuba Gooding Jr., Demi Moore, and Kevin Pollack. Against a budget of $40 million, the film grossed $235.5 million globally.

JFK

They say conspiracy theories are for the irrational, paranoid, and ill-informed. But when they become the only thing that makes sense in the assassination of an American President, there seems to be validity to the claims being made. The 1991 film, JFK, confronts the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. When Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) is killed shortly after being arrested for the murder of a police officer, District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Kosner) begins investigating possible links to New Orleans in the killing and reopens the case, only to have his findings rejected by the federal government. However, after interrogating witness and male prostitute, William O'Keefe, claims to have witnessed Oswald discussing the assassination with a private pilot named David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), Garrison suspects that Oswald was part of the Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) and took the fall for the assassination. This provocative movie grossed $205.4 million at the box office.

Hollow Man

The Tremors actor remained busy heading into the new Millenium with a lead role in the sci-fi horror film, Hollow Man. The film was released in 2000 as an adaptation of an 1897 novel written by H.G. Wells titled The Invisible Man. The first adaptation of the novel was in 1933 and used the same character names for the movie. Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is a brilliant scientist who has concocted a serum for military usage that can make its user invisible. On his team are his ex-girlfriend, Linda McKay (Elizabeth Shue), her new boyfriend and co-worker, Matthew Kensington (Josh Brolin), and other laboratory technicians. Caine becomes the first test subject for his invention and finds that it works, rendering him without matter and completely invisible. His jealousy for Linda's new relationship with Matthew leads him to act irrationally, and he soon begins killing the lab technicians one by one, leaving Linda and Matt for last. The suspenseful horror movie grossed a total of $191.2 million at the box office.

Sleepers

The 1996 crime/drama, Sleepers, is one full of tragedy, triumph, and sorrow. Set in Hell's Kitchen, New York, the film follows the lives of four friends, Lorenzo "Shakespeare" Carcaterra, Tommy Marcano (Jonathan Tucker), Michael Sullivan (Brad Renfro), and John Riley (Ron Eldard). The boys often get into trouble, and a Catholic priest named Robert "Bobby" Carillo (Robert De Niro) tries to steer them right. However, they are placed in the Wilkinson Home for Boys in Upstate New York after they injure an elderly man while robbing a hot dog stand. While in Wilkinson's, they are abused in horrific ways by guards Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), Henry Addison (Jeffrey Donovan), Rizzo Robinson (Eugene Byrd), and Ralph Ferguson (Terry Kinney). Over a decade after their release from the boy's facility, John and Tommy have become career criminals, and kill Sean Nokes at a bar on sight. With the help of Michael Sullivan, now an assistant D.A., a lawyer named Danny Snyder (Dustin Hoffman), Father Carillo, and a few childhood friends, they get John and Tommy acquitted and justice is served on the guards. This profound film grossed $165.6 million internationally.

Mystic River

Directed by Clint Eastwood and released in 2003, Mystic River begins with the lives of three childhood friends, Jimmy Marcus (Sean Penn), Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins), and Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), who is seen playing hockey in their Boston neighborhood when two unidentified men abduct and sexually abuse Dave for days. Decades later, Jimmy is a local convenience store owner, Sean is a detective, and Dave is a blue-collar worker. When Jimmy's daughter, Katie (Emmy Rossum) is murdered, fingers point to Dave as the culprit for his erratic behavior and because he was the last person to see her alive at a bar the night of her murder. Sean gets his partner, Sergeant Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne) to investigate the case with him, while Jimmy does one of his own. When Dave confesses to the murder one night while drunk, Jimmy stabs and kills him, dumping his body in Mystic River. The intensely compelling film grossed $156.8 million at the box office.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

In 2011, Bacon undertakes an unfavorable role in the 2011 romantic comedy, Crazy, Stupid, Love. The film focuses on the life of Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), a middle-aged man with everything seemingly going well in his life, except in his marriage. After finding out that his wife, Emily, has been having an affair with a co-worker named David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon), it's also soon revealed that she wants a divorce. Cal suddenly finds himself single and unable to navigate the current dating climate. But this is where ladies' man Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) comes in. As Jacob schools Cal on how to regain his manhood in order to reattract his wife, Jacob begins slowly falling in love with Emily (Emma Stone), Cal's daughter. The movie made for a pleasant rom-com, grossing $146.49 million at the box office.

National Lampoon's Animal House

Possibly one of the earliest movie releases where Kevin Bacon is part of the cast, National Lampoon's Animal House was released in 1978 and raked in a great sum of money ($141.6 million to be exact), considering it was released over 30 years ago. The comedy surrounds two college freshmen, Larry Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) are eagerly looking to pledge a fraternity. After being rejected for being found unequipped to attend the Omega Theta Pi house party, they turn to the Delta Tau Chi fraternity and successfully get in. However, Dean Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), is desperately trying to get the Deltas permanently removed because of their poor academic standing and multiple campus conduct violations. According to Outsider, Kevin Bacon was only 19 when he played the role of Chip Diller, an Omega frat member and a minor antagonist in the movie.

Black Mass

Black Mass isn't your typical mobster flick. The biographical crime drama is based on the actual events of the 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, in which an Irish gangster named James "Whitey" Bulger (Johnny Depp) did the unthinkable by becoming an informant for the FBI in order to take down the Italian mafia. FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) offers to turn a blind eye to Whitey's criminal activity in exchange for his cooperation as an informant. However, Connolly's boss, Charles McGuire (Kevin Bacon), grows suspicious of the unholy alliance between him and Whitey. In 2011, Connolly's partner, John Morris (David Harbour) testifies against him in court and he is arrested, along with Whitey. The film grossed $98.8 million at the box office.

Sources: Movie Fone, The Guardian, Looper