Ranking the Best Performances From Brendan Fraser So Far

Brendan Fraser took a bit of a winding road to become an Academy Award winner. He obviously got there, winning the Best Actor Oscar for The Whale, but it was only after being in the acting wilderness for a while. Still, those early days showcased a charm that helped to make him a movie star. Fraser now will pop up in films like Killers of the Flower Moon, sure, but on television, seeing something like Blast From the Past reminds you why he was as well liked as he was. With Rental Family now in theaters, it seemed like a good time to look at his work on the whole. My interview with Fraser for The Whale can be found here, but today, it’s time to rank his best performances.

In my review of Rental Family from back at the Toronto International Film Festival (here), I said the following about Fraser’s work:

Brendan Fraser is immensely huggable here in one of his sweetest roles. He’s not cartoonishly nice, but a genuinely kind and warm person. It’s what makes Phillip skeptical about the service but actually perfect to execute it. It’s very strong work from Fraser, who’s very much in an exciting new phase of his career.

At a prior TIFF back in 2022 (here), I wrote about Fraser’s ultimately Oscar-winning turn in The Whale like so:

Brendan Fraser deserves to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, full stop. With all that makeup and prosthetics on, it would be easy for him to be lost inside of it all, but somehow, that’s never once the cast. You feel every movement, be it a lean or a step. The purity of heart that Fraser gives to Charlie is stirring. You can’t take your eyes off of this performance.

Below, you can see how Fraser stacks up for me. I’m higher than most on both Blast From the Past (easily his most charming performance to date) and The Whale (even if you don’t care for the film, he’s undeniably strong in it), so they wind up very high on my list. Conversely, while he’s solid in The Mummy and is giving movie star vibes within it, I don’t have the same amount of affection for the flick that others do. So, it shows up lower than some might be expecting it to. This ranking, however, does find room for something underrated like No Sudden Move. Where does Rental Family debut? Find out next…

Here now is my ranking of the best performances to date from Brendan Fraser. Behold:

Honorable Mention: The Air I Breathe, A Case of You, Crash, Killers of the Flower Moon, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and With Honors

10. Extraordinary Measures

9. The Scout

8. School Ties

7. The Mummy

6. Gods and Monsters

5. The Quiet American

4. No Sudden Move

3. Rental Family

2. Blast From the Past

1. The Whale

What are your favorite Brendan Fraser performances? Let us know!