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He’s the fresh-faced 1980s movie star who eventually found more success on the stage than the screen.
The now 61-year-old, who is perhaps these days best known as one-half of New York-based Hollywood royalty due to his 26-year marriage to fellow actor Sarah Jessica-Parker.
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The Lion King, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Election feature three of Matthew Broderick’s most memorable performances.
As Matthew Broderick undergoes something of a non-Broadway and West End-related renaissance in 2023 with a key role in Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings, a surprise cameo as himself in a popular Disney+ series and headlining new Netflix opioid drama Painkiller, Stuff to Watch has taken a look back through his career and picked out our eight favourite performances from the two-time Tony Award winning actor.
To paraphrase perhaps his most famous character, Ferris Bueller, “”You’re Still Here? It’s Over. Go Home” –and check out one of these great movies.
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In The Cable Guy, Broderick’s Steven Kovacs makes the disastrous mistake of letting Jim Carrey’s Chip Douglas into his apartment – and life.
The Cable Guy (1986, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube)
When first released, director Ben Stiller’s bromantic comedy was notable for taking Jim Carrey’s trademark manic, rubber-faced schtick into darker territory. It was a move that polarised many of his fans.
However, there’s no doubting he benefits here from Lou Holtz’ Jr’s very funny script. It makes plenty of sly and not so subtle digs at cable TV and classic movies and TV shows (including Field of Dreams, Friday the 13th and Star Trek).
Stiller’s masterstroke though was in having Broderick play the straight man, Steven Kovacs, who makes the disastrous mistake of letting Carrey’s Chip Douglas into his apartment – and life.
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Broderick engages in an entertaining battle with Reese Witherspoon in Election.
Election (1999, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube)
Before Reese Witherspoon was Legally Blonde, she was a terrifyingly whip-smart high school presidential candidate who would stop at nothing to get the top job in this comedy.
Cleverly, director Alexander Payne (Sideways) cast the coolest 1980s high school anarchist – that would be Ferris Bueller, played by Broderick – as Witherspoon’s nemesis, social studies teacher Jim McAllister.
“Between Witherspoon’s exuberant solipsism and Broderick’s talent for absorbing massive humiliation, the chuckles keep coming like poisoned darts,” wrote Newsweek’s David Ansen.
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Alan Ruck and Mia Sara joined Broderick for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, iTunes, GooglePlay, YouTube, Lumiere Online, Academy OnDemand, AroVision)
The movie that turned Broderick into Generation X icon.
Regularly breaking the fourth wall to draw the audience into the action, his feckless high school senior is an absolute riot as he is joined by his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) for a day of hijinks while “playing hooky” from class..
As Film Threat’s Brad Laidman quite brilliantly put it, it is “a call to arms to everyone in the world who doesn’t want to follow society’s lame-ass rules at the expense of living a cool life”.
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Broderick, Bruno Kirby and Marlon Brando teamed up for The Freshman.
The Freshman (1990, iTunes)
Broderick starred opposite Marlon Brando in this 1990 crime-comedy about a young New York film student who becomes entangled in an illicit business offering exotic and endangered animals as specialty food items.
“No film offering the spectacle of a Komodo dragon being transported across a state line for immoral purposes can be lightly dismissed,” wrote Time magazine’s Richard Schickel.
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Broderick played Colonel Robert Gould Shaw in Glory.
Glory (1989, iTunes, GooglePlay)
Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Cary Elwes are among the impressive ensemble gathered together for this Oscar-winning biopic about the US Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company.
Under the command of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, they faced prejudice from both the opposing Confederates – and their own Union Army forces.
“The film’s chief virtue is its spectacular choreography. The final battle… is a striking combination of dynamism and clarity,” wrote Sight & Sound’s John Pym.
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Rutger Hauer’s Captain Navarre lays down the law to Broderick’s Phillipe Gaston in Ladyhawke.
Ladyhawke (1985, Disney+)
Broderick’s young thief Phillipe Gaston finds himself as the only hope for cursed lovers Captain Navarre (Rutger Hauer) and Lady Isabeau d’Anjou (Michelle Pfeiffer) in Richard Donner’s atmospheric fantasy whose mood is greatly enhanced by Andrew Powell’s evocative Alan Parsons-produced score.
“We need more fantasy like this: high adventure, brilliant swordplay, convincing magic, three-dimensional characters, arresting cinematography, and best of all, a good story,” wrote Looking Closer’s Jeffrey Overstreet.
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Broderick voiced the adult Simba in The Lion King.
The Lion King (1994, Disney+)
Having pioneered the use of celebrity vocal talent, Disney then set about getting pop stars to write its animated musicals’ lyrics.
Enter Elton John, who infused this 1994 Hamlet-esque tale with some toe-tapping and haunting tunes.
However, it was the likes of Broderick (as the adult version of the man protagonist Simba), Jeremy Irons, Rowan Atkinson and James Earl Jones who helped sell this African-set adventure, adding greatly to the gravitas and fun.
“An impressive, almost daunting achievement,” wrote The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson.
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Broderick starred opposite Ally Sheedy in WarGames.
WarGames (1983, Prime Video)
Although not nearly as frightening as contemporary TV tales Threads and The Day After, Hollywood’s attempt to bring home the threat of nuclear war to the popcorn crowd still made a decent impact when it first hit cinemas.
The storyline’s warning of the new threat posed by computer hackers (here it’s in the from of Broderick’s likeably rebellious teen David Lightman) to America’s defence system (as well the potential for corporate sabotage, espionage and general business disruption) inspired the US Congress to create the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act the following year.
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