Demi Moore

Demi Moore (birthname: Demi Gene Guynes) is one of the key members of The Brat Pack, which dominated Hollywood movies in the mid-80s such as Moore’s co-starring vehicles St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), About Last Night… (1986), One Crazy Summer (1986) and Wisdom (1986). Moore’s earliest movies ranged from the drive-in style horror movie, Parasite (1982), with Robert Glaudini, Luca Bercovivi, and Cherie Currie, to Blame It on Rio (1984), the final feature film directed by Stanley Donen and co-starring Michael Caine, Joseph Bologna and Valerie Harper.

Moore was cast by acclaimed Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan for his U.S.-based Depression-era comedy, We’re No Angels (1989), co-starring Robert De Niro and Sean Penn. Moore had her box-office breakthrough with the smash romantic drama, Ghost (1990), co-starring Patrick Swayze, and with Oscar-nominated Whoopi Goldberg and Tony Goldwyn under Jerry Zucker’s direction, grossing a huge $505 million (on a $23 million budget) and earning five Oscar nominations, including best picture.

Demi Moore co-starred with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in the Rob Reiner-directed, Aaron Sorkin-written military drama A Few Good Men (1992), earning $243 million globally for Castle Rock/Columbia Pictures, and nominated for four Oscars including best picture. Moore then co-starred in another hit, this with Robert Redford and Woody Harrelson in the Adrian Lyne-directed drama Indecent Proposal (1993), with Oliver Platt and Seymour Cassel, earning a dazzling $267 million on a $38 million budget for Paramount Pictures.

Moore continued her run in erotic dramas co-starring with Michael Douglas in Disclosure (1994), based on Michael Crichton’s novel and featuring Donald Sutherland under Barry Levinson’s direction, and scoring a strong $214 million global gross for Warner Bros.

Moore’s box-office streak stopped with her co-starring role as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter (1995), based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great 1850 novel and co-starring Gary Oldman, Robert Duvall, and Joan Plowright, but roundly rejected by audiences and critics (and nominated for no less than seven Golden Raspberry awards).

Demi Moore took on the roles of both producer and supporting actor in the Lesli Linka Glatter-directed coming-of-age comedy-drama, Now and Then (1995), with Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Gaby Hoffmann, Melanie Griffith, Rosie O’Donnell, and Rita Wilson, grossing a fair $37.5 million for New Line Cinema. Moore, though, had a busy but disastrous 1996 as a movie star with roundly condemned lead performances in both The Juror (1996), co-starring Alec Baldwin, and in Castle Rock/Columbia Pictures’ Striptease (1996), based on Carl Hiaasen’s Florida crime novel, and—while a mild commercial success at a $113 million return—was so universally panned that it marked the definitive downward turn in Moore’s movie star trajectory.

Moore also did two voice roles that same year, first in Disney’s acclaimed animated version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Mike Judge’s hilarious animated hit, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), with the voices of Judge, Bruce Willis, Robert Stack and Cloris Leachman, and turning a profitable $63 million for MTV Productions/Geffen Pictures/Paramount. Moore starred under Ridley Scott’s direction in the military drama G.I. Jane (1997), with Viggo Mortensen and Anne Bancroft, but lost money with a poor $48 million return for Hollywood Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, while turning her energies to the producer of New Line Cinema’s highly successful Austin Powers franchise, all directed by Jay Roach and starring and co-written by Mike Myers: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), scoring a strong cumulative global return of $676 million.

Moore’s next two decades involved mostly minor and money-losing movies, starting with her lambasted starring role in the Alain Berliner-directed drama Passion of Mind (2000), earning only a bit over $769,000 on a $12 million budget for Paramount Classics, and followed by a small turn in Columbia Pictures/Sony’s franchise sequel Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), with Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bernie Mac, Crispin Glover, Justin Theroux and Robert Patrick. Moore then joined (and sang in) the sprawling ensemble of director/writer Emilio Estevez’s historical drama Bobby (2006), with Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone and Elijah Wood.

Demi Moore played a Portland cop hunting Kevin Costner’s eponymous serial killer in co-writer/director Bruce A. Evans’ thriller Mr. Brooks (2007), co-starring William Hurt, Dane Cook, Marg Helgenberger, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson, delivering a decent $48 million return for MGM. Moore then co-starred with Michael Caine in the money-losing US/Luxembourg co-production, Flawless (2008), with Lambert Wilson and Joss Ackland under Michael Radford’s direction.

Moore joined the ensemble of Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, and Stanley Tucci for director/writer J.C. Chandor’s Wall Street drama, Margin Call (2011), grossing $19.5 million (on a $3.5 million budget) and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Moore had a small role in the little-seen feature debut of writer-director Sam Levinson, Another Happy Day (2011), co-starring Ellen Barkin, Kate Bosworth, Ellen Burstyn, Thomas Haden Church, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, George Kennedy, Ezra Miller and Diana Scarwid, which also premiered in 2011 at Sundance.

Demi Moore reunited with co-star Alec Baldwin for another little-seen movie, Blind (2017), with Dylan McDermott under Michael Mailer’s direction and released by Vertical Entertainment. Moore then had a supporting role in the raunchy gal-pal comedy, Rough Night (2017), starring Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoe Kravitz under co-writer Lucia Aniello’s direction for Columbia Pictures/Sony Releasing.

Moore began to take on more transgressive projects as a supporting actor in writer-director Amanda Kramer’s twisted musical Please Baby Please (2022), starring the vivid Andrea Riseborough and Harry Melling, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and released at the little box office by Music Box Films. Moore next appeared in co-writer/director Tom Gormican’s hilarious spoof The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), starring Nicolas Cage (as a cockeyed version of himself), Pedro Pascal, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tiffany Haddish, but losing money for Lionsgate after premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Demi Moore earned her best reviews in decades for her mind-blowing role in French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s highly acclaimed body horror movie, The Substance (2024), with Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, and released by Mubi after premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and winning the best screenplay Palme.