The 8 Michael Douglas movies that deserved more Oscar love

Gordon Gekko has (mostly) left the building. Michael Douglas made headlines over the weekend when he announced the he would be stepping back from acting during an appearance at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic.

"I have not worked since 2022 purposefully because I realized I had to stop," said the veteran actor and producer, who last appeared onscreen in 2023's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. "I had been working pretty hard for almost 60 years, and I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set. I have no real intentions of going back."

At the same time, Douglas acknowledged that — just like Sean Connery — he's going to be careful about never saying never again. "I say I’m not retired because if something special came up, I’d go back, but otherwise, no." (For the record, Douglas has one unreleased film, Looking Through Water, that's still in post-production.)

Douglas attended Karlovy Vary to screen a restored print of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey's seminal novel that he produced early on in his career. That film — which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an upcoming Fathom Entertainment rerelease — also brought him the first of his two Oscar statues. Over a decade later, Douglas took home Best Actor for his performance in Oliver Stone's era-defining, culture-shaping financial world drama, Wall Street.

Believe it or not, those also happen to be the only two Oscars he was nominated for as either a producer or actor. Of course, his awards shelf is filled with other statues: in 2013, he won an Emmy, a SAG Award, a Gold Derby Award, and a Golden Globe for playing Liberace in Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra biopic. He has also been celebrated by the Globes on three other occasions, including the honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2004.

While a 2-for-2 Academy Award record is nothing to complain about, there are some classic titles from extensive filmography that should have added to that tally. As Douglas winds down his career, we pick the eight movies that merited a return trip to the Oscars.

Starman (1984)

Douglas served as executive producer on John Carpenter's best non-horror picture, starring Jeff Bridges as a visitor from another world who strikes up an unlikely romance with Karen Allen's terrestrial widow. While the Starman himself scored a Best Actor nomination, the movie should have earned the Best Picture spot that went to either A Passage to India or A Soldier's Story — two sturdy prestige productions that don't linger in the mind and heart like this one does.

Fatal Attraction (1987)

It's arguably all-too-appropriate that Douglas was the only major cast member not nominated for Adrian Lyne's marital thriller, given that his alter ego's casual fling and cowardly post-affair treatment of Glenn Close is the reason why multiple lives are ruined in the first place. Still, his omission is made all the more pronounced by the movie's nods for Best Picture and Best Director — not to mention the place it still holds in pop culture. For his part, Lyne credits Douglas with taking difficult direction in the role. "Quite often, [Michael] would say to me, 'Let me be proactive,' and I would reply: 'How can you? What you did was wrong,'" the director once noted. "He felt that he was taking this punishment, and my feeling was that he had to. That that was the character, and he wasn't blameless."

The War of the Roses (1989)

Sure, Douglas and Kathleen Turner had chemistry to burn in Romancing the Stone and — to a much lesser extent — The Jewel of the Nile. But their best pairing was as the burnt-out husband and wife at the center of Danny DeVito's deliciously dark comedy. The scene where Douglas learns that his furry, four-legged best friend may be the main ingredient in a Turner-prepared dinner would have been a terrific Oscar night clip for his Best Actor nomination. (Spoiler alert: the dog lives.)

The American President (1995)

Aaron Sorkin's warm-up for The West Wing was surprisingly blanked by Oscar voters save for its Marc Shaiman-composed score. But it remains one of Douglas's most effortlessly charming performances and a vintage movie star turn in the tradition of his father, Kirk Douglas. It also came along at the right time for the actor, giving him a break from the string of morally grey characters that had become his stock in trade.

Face/Off (1997)

It would have inevitably been washed away by Titanic, but the crowning achievement of John Woo's Hollywood run deserved to stand alongside James Cameron's box office behemoth as one of 1997's Best Pictures. Funnily enough, Douglas and Harrison Ford were reportedly among the pairings considered to headline the face-swapping action movie, but as executive producer he smartly signed off on the decision to bring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta together instead.

The Game (1997)

In an alternate timeline, Douglas could have been a double nominee in '97, earning Best Picture kudos for Face/Off and a Best Actor nod for David Fincher's carefully calibrated thriller. Starting off as a variation on Gordon Gekko, Douglas's financial world wizard is steadily stripped of that armor as the movie's labyrinthian plot unwinds, and his performance only grows stronger as the character becomes more and more off his... well, game.

Wonder Boys (2000)

Released the same year as Soderbergh's Traffic — which featured Douglas and his real-life wife Catherine Zeta-Jones among the sprawling ensemble — Wonder Boys got stuck in second gear during the awards race. (Although it is the reason why Bob Dylan has an Oscar next to his Nobel Prize.) But aging novelist and creative writing professor Grady Tripp remains a great lion-in-winter role for Douglas, who took a pay cut to play the part. While he had many great roles left to play, Wonder Boys still feels like the end of something — and the last opportunity for serious Best Actor recognition.

Ant-Man (2015)

Leaning into his own career transition from action hero to action hero mentor, Douglas sets the breezy tone for Ant-Man's crowd-pleasing heist hijinks — one of the last times a Marvel movie was just flat-out fun. It's not unlike the switch that Sylvester Stallone made in Creed, which, not for nothing, netted the Rocky star an Oscar nomination that same year. Douglas and Stallone coulda both been Supporting Actor contenders and we wouldn't have complained.