Demi Moore's been having a rough go of lately, so we decided to celebrate her film career in this week's Ranked! column. Did your favorite make the list? Find out below!Here are her fifteen best movies:
15. Disclosure
14. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame
13. Blame It On Rio
12. Mr. Brooks
11. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
10. Beavis And Butt-Head Do America
9. The Seventh Sign
8. One Crazy Summer
7. About Last Night...
6. St. Elmo's Fire
5. Indecent Proposal
Oh, Demi. You made Indecent Proposal at the height of your hotness. You'd gotten messy with pottery clay in Ghost three years earlier in 1990, you were clipped, brisk and button-cute in A Few Good Men in 1992, and you had yet to sexually harass Michael Douglas the following year in Disclosure. But in this movie, you played a sexy young newlywed who wore bikini underwear, rolled around on a bed of Vegas money, and agreed to do what some might've considered unthinkable at the time: you went to Vegas and accepted an offer from Robert Redford to sleep with him for a million dollars. You even had the permission of your husband, the dorky and frequently stoned Woody Harrelson.Some audience members may have judged you for deciding to sleep with Redford for a cool mil. I get it: infidelity, bad. But honestly? I was bummed that you didn't try a little harder to make it work with the rich guy afterwards. You had no future with Woody, Demi! You wanted to build a life! To own property! You were strapped for cash after the recession that threatened to destroy your dreams! Plus, any kids you had with Woody would've been bald by the time they were 15!
And plus, come on. Robert Redford. I don't know how old he was in that movie, but the dude is attractive, no matter how leathery he gets. You had the chance to trade up, big time. You had Redford ready to buy you a yacht, a mansion, and jewel-encrusted flatware! He was good to go, Babe!
Indecent Proposal definitely got people talking in 1993. Couples discussed about what they'd do if presented with the same situation. I'm sure many of them told each other, "No, Honey, I'd never cheat on you for a million dollars, even if you said I could." But if they remade this movie today, after this recession... I wonder.
And for the record, Demi, regardless of the state of our current economy: if you get this offer again, hold out for five mil, at least. You're worth it.--Didactic Pirate
4. Striptease
As much as I like Demi Moore, I discovered that I really haven't seen all that many of her films. Striptease is one that stands out for me, though. It's not Oscar material, certainly, but I think it works on a lot of levels. The basic story, a single mother trying to make enough money to appeal the custody ruling that put her young daughter in the care of her deadbeat dad (Robert Patrick), serves as a nice (if somewhat sappy) foundation for what turns out to be a pretty decent comedy with Demi playing the straight guy (or woman, as it were). I remember that, at the time, it was the first time I had seen Burt Reynolds in a long while, and his turn as a looney (and horny) Florida congressman is hilarious. ("You've never rubbed Vaseline all over your body? It's all down in my boots. I can feel it squishin' between my toes!") And I've never seen Michael Clark Duncan do comedy quite as well as he did it in that film. Shad the bouncer manages to be dangerous and hilarious at the same time. The same is true for Robert Patrick, who plays drunk and stoned really well.There are a couple of other reasons that I enjoy Striptease. But let's not go there.
Honestly, having rewatched the movie recently (it streams free in HD for members of Amazon Prime), I'd have to say that other than those aforementioned reasons, Demi Moore actually kind of gets overshadowed by the supporting performances in Striptease. Nevertheless, apart from the fact that there are a lot of filler scenes of strippers other than Demi Moore dancing, the film works well as a whole and stands up to the test of time. It's worth a look-see if you haven't seen it or haven't seen it in a while.--Dave
3. G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane, directed by Ridley Scott, tells the story of a female senator (Anne Bancroft) who makes the argument that women should be allowed to compete for key combat roles. She wins the opportunity to prove it with a test case. Enter Jordan O'Neill (Demi Moore), who jumps at the chance to enter training as a Navy Seal, which has a training class dropout rate of 60%. Nobody expects O'Neill to make it. She goes through hell with Master Chief (Viggo Mortensen, who's pretty dang good) dogging her every move. And, of course, she pulls through it all with a big honking pair of brass ovaries.Now, it's not the best Ridley Scott film, and it's not the most original script, in fact, she won a Razzie for Worst Actress in 1997 for her work in the film, but I think that Demi Moore is flat out great in it. She bulked up on a training program designed by an ex-Seal, did a large number of her own stunts, and shaved her head. She's fully committed, she's buff, she's focused, and she's fierce. A worse performance that Sandra Bullock in Speed 2? Worse than Fran Drescher in The Beautician And The Beast? The Razzie voters got this one wrong. Demi made mud and kicking ass look good.--Archphoenix
2. A Few Good Men
When the 1992 film, A Few Good Men, was released, it was already pretty hyped up. The cast included Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Demi Moore. So the movie packed a lot of star power. Demi Moore was already riding high with the blockbuster hit Ghost. And she pretty much ruled the '90s and was the highest paid actress of that decade.In the film, inexperienced yet over-confident naval attorney Daniel Kaffee (Cruise) and JoAnne Galloway (Moore) are assigned to defend to young Marines who are accused of murdering a fellow soldier. As they begin to investigate the suspicious death, they discover the ugly world of military hazing to the extreme. They learn that the "Code Red" ritual is a long-standing tradition and blame goes all the way up to the commanding officer of the Guantanamo Bay base, Col. Nathan Jessup (Nicholson).
The movie rocks in pretty much every single facet. Demi Moore's character played a perfect foil for Cruise's. Where he's cocky and (especially in the beginning) a screw-up, Moore plays a straight-laced professional. In the beginning of the film, there's an aura of "don't look to deep, 'cause you ain't gonna like what you're gonna find." But Jo Galloway refuses to just let these two young soldiers face Murder One. Many critics have called Jo Galloway Kaffe's conscience. And eventually she breaks through to him and he decides to jump into the fire and challenge the system.
The film is often quoted (i.e. "You can't handle the truth!). But one of my favorite lines of this movie is from Demi Moore, and she delivers enough gusto to make it believable: "My job is to make sure you do your job. I'm special council for internal affairs, so much jurisdiction is pretty much in your face!"
Well spoken, Lt. Com. Galloway, well spoken.--Jay Noel
1. Ghost
Guys aren't supposed to like the movie Ghost. It's one of those sappy chick flicks that's all about true love lasting beyond this realm. Yet despite its cotton candy exterior, there is something about Ghost that just works. It would be easy to say this is because of Patrick Swayze's performance as the tortured spirit trying to let his love know that he's still looking out for her even though he's dead. But the soul of the movie really belongs to Demi Moore.I had always seen Demi Moore as a sex symbol, from the braided hippie chick in One Crazy Summer to the mostly-naked love interest in About Last Night... (Let's be honest, the adolescent in me much preferred the latter.) But in Ghost, Demi bore the emotional weight of the movie and showed us that she could be a skilled actress. She draws you into the movie with her big doe eyes and haunted look. Through the pain, you are always rooting for her. You want to protect her, like Swayze does.
Ghost is a soulful, if somewhat cheesy romance. But because it has Demi Moore at the center, it transcends cheesy chick flick status. And it allowed Demi Moore to break free of the Brat Pack and become a real actress. I'm not supposed to like Ghost, but I do. Now where did I put my potter's wheel?--Daddy Geek Boy
