The Greatest Showman: The best roles of Hugh Jackman's career so far

It all started here. Jackman’s high-wattage performance as lovestruck cowboy Curly McLain in the 1998 West End revival of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical earned him rave reviews and an Olivier nomination for Best Actor. A theatrical superstar was born — or so it seemed. Broadway beckoned, but Hollywood skipped in line.

When scheduling issues forced up-and-coming Scottish actor Dougray Scott to relinquish the role of Wolverine in 1999, Jackman stepped in and "snikt" his way to big-screen superstardom. Given the notoriously exacting standards of comic book fans, the immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic acceptance of Jackman as the fast-healing, adamantium-bonded mutant was nothing less than a miracle. It’s hard to imagine the franchise catching fire as it did without his badass, yet surprisingly vulnerable, portrayal of this hugely beloved Marvel character. 

Sixteen years before “Logan”, Jackman teamed with director James Mangold for a charming romantic comedy in which he plays a frustrated 19th-century inventor who inadvertently time travels to the 21st century, where he falls in love with a marketer played by Meg Ryan. Though the film drew mixed reviews and faltered at the box office, Jackman proved himself — as if there was any doubt — as a capable romantic lead, earning his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.  

Jackman plays the world’s sexiest computer hacker in his first post-X-Men blockbuster, a brain-dead action film about an elaborate billion-dollar heist that climaxes with the airlifting via helicopter of a Los Angeles metro bus. This could’ve been a phone-it-in paycheck gig for Jackman, but he hurls himself into the role with maniacal gusto, giving glazed-ham John Travolta a serious run for his overemoting money.

This dazzling 2002 one-off, a benefit performance for Carnegie Hall, paired Jackman with the brilliant Audra McDonald and got musical fans buzzing about a potential Broadway revival and/or big-screen adaptation. Alas, we’re still waiting. Jackman was in superb voice as the doomed carnival barker 16 years ago, but having breached 50, he’s probably aged out of the role entirely.

The woulda-been Broadway sensation finally made his midtown debut in this jukebox musical based on the life of Australian singer-songwriter Peter Allen. Regardless of one’s affection for Allen’s effervescent ditties, Jackman’s fierce commitment to the role was undeniable and utterly winning. His force-of-nature performance earned him a 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

Stop-motion titan Aardman’s first computer-animated film finds Jackman voicing a pampered pet mouse who’s forced to fend for himself in the rough-and-tumble world of sewage after being flushed down the toilet. If it’s not quite up to the wittily inventive standards of the Wallace and Gromit series, it’s still an enormous amount of fun, and Jackman anchors it with an effortlessly charismatic vocal performance.

Christopher Nolan’s twisty tale of 19^th  century magicians stars Jackman as Robert Angier, a dashing illusionist obsessed with stealing a showstopping trick devised by his former associate, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). Their escalating one-upmanship is a deliciously nasty spectacle to behold, and Jackman perfectly complements Bale’s dour intensity with an incandescent star turn that still ranks as one of his best.

George Miller’s animated musical about a misfit dancing penguin features Jackman in a supporting role as the voice of an emperor penguin named Memphis. It’s an ensemble effort that gives everyone their time to shine, and Jackman’s moment comes when he busts out “Heartbreak Hotel” as a rockin’ response to Nicole Kidman’s sleek and sexy rendition of Prince’s “Kiss."

Darren Aronofsky’s devastating rumination on love and death is powered by a tour de force performance from Jackman, who plays three different characters — a Spanish conquistador, a medical researcher and an intergalactic traveler in the far-off future — desperately seeking the key to more life. It’s a film of immense grief and anguish and one that could’ve easily sailed over the top into overwrought histrionics without the right star at its center. It’s fearless work.

This largely forgettable piffle from Woody Allen lingers in memory thanks to Jackman’s devilishly charming, Cary Grant-like star turn as a caddish aristocrat who may or may not be a serial killer. He has an easy chemistry with Scarlett Johansson, who plays an American journalism student convinced of his guilt. Maybe one day they’ll get to share the screen in a movie worthy of their talents.

Baz Luhrmann’s madly ambitious war epic brings together two of the title country’s biggest stars in a bid for cinematic glory. It’s ultimately more exhausting than transcendent, but you can’t take your eyes off Jackman and Nicole Kidman, both of whom lean into the grandeur of the filmmaker’s undertaking with unabashedly meaty performances. They wholeheartedly believe they’re playing the new Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, and it’s entirely possible that, in a better film, they might’ve eclipsed Gable and Leigh.

It was the theatrical event of 2009: Wolverine and James Bond (aka Daniel Craig) live on Broadway playing two Chicago cops wrestling with the repercussions of a misread situation that left a young Vietnamese boy dead at the hands of a serial killer. Cast against type as the racist, philandering Denny, Jackman received mostly positive reviews. But while the production was a box office hit, the play failed to garner a single Tony Award nomination.

Jackman is perfectly cast in this sci-fi crowd pleaser as a down-on-his-luck ex-pugilist who finds his potential salvation in robot boxing. Based very loosely on a short story by the great Richard Matheson, “Real Steel” lets Jackman rip with a throwback James Cagney turn. It’s dynamic stuff, and his scenes with the criminally underutilized Evangeline Lily positively sizzle. There’s a great romantic comedy waiting to be made with these two. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with their shockingly enjoyable robot boxing movie!

They might’ve hired the wrong filmmaker for this adaptation of the popular musical, but they couldn’t have cast a better Jean Valjean. Jackman gives it an impassioned, Best-Actor-or-bust go as the virtuous peasant, and he’s certainly got the pipes to nail the highlights (“Who Am I?” and “Bring Him Home”); the problem is director Tom Hooper’s insistence on naturalistic interpretations of these songs. As a result, this is not the home run it should’ve been.

Jackman unbound! This relentlessly dark thriller from “Arrival” director Denis Villeneuve provides an overacting showcase for the Aussie star, and, viewed in a vacuum, his vengeful dad antics are hugely entertaining. But this technically well-crafted movie is far too unpleasant to work as dumb-but-fun trash. Once all the shouting is over (and there’s a lot of shouting), you just want to forget the abusive experience altogether.

Jackman works a boozy variation on his down-and-out character from “Real Steel," and it perfectly suits this stand-up-and-cheer account of British ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards’s crash-strewn run at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. It’s a shamelessly formulaic film, but Jackman and Taron Egerton keep it humming along with their amusing coach-athlete rapport. 

James Mangold’s revisionist superhero flick gives Jackman a moving, “Shane”-style send-off to the character that made him a movie star. This is a drastically different Logan than the indestructible killing machine we’ve rooted on over six movies; he’s bruised, battered and no longer capable of mending on the quick. Jackman makes the most of this opportunity to deconstruct his mutant alter ego, delivering a performance that’s unusually nuanced and contemplative for this genre.

This shamelessly ahistorical, critically maligned musical about the life and times of P.T. Barnum was the surprise box office smash of 2017. It’s a colorful, rip-roaring circus entertainment pitched straight to Jackman’s wheelhouse, and he connects palpably with the material and his theatergoer fan base. He’s not the whole show (Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya get their scene-stealing moments), but it’s hard to imagine this film working without him as the ringmaster.

Sometimes you’ve just got to be Hugh. You’ll never see George Clooney, Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio do a three-month run of song and dance on Broadway, and, well, we should probably be thankful for this — but not as thankful as we should be for a first-rate showman like Jackman. He’s performed several one-man shows in different cities around the world, regaling his audience with selections from “Oklahoma!," “The Boy from Oz” and “Carousel."