John Travolta’s movie career has seen incredible highs and, more recently, hugely embarrassing flops, including laughable science fiction films, mocked mobster movies and ridiculed dad comedies.
The latest example is Trading Paint, a poorly received drama in which the 65-year-old actor plays a race car driver who comes out of retirement. Michael Madsen and Shania Twain also star in the film (check out the trailer in the video player above).
Here we look back at the actor’s more than 40 shaky years in Hollywood.
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977)
After his breakout success on TV’s Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta was stayin’ alive throughout the ’70s. At age 24, he received his first Oscar nomination for his role as disco-dancing Tony Manero in this classic NYC drama.
GREASE (1978)
The actor, whose single Let Her In made the Billboard Hot 100, further proved his singing chops in this beloved musical comedy in which he played bad boy Danny Zuko opposite Olivia Newton-John as Sandy.
PULP FICTION (1994)
After a career lull in the ’80s, Travolta hopped aboard the Quentin Tarantino bandwagon and snagged his second Oscar nod for playing gangster Vincent Vega. Here, Travolta memorably danced once again, this time with Uma Thurman.
BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)
Then things went south. A Scientologist since 1975, Travolta co-produced and starred in this flick based on a book by church founder L. Ron Hubbard. The sci-fi flick was so bad that, in 2010, writer J.D. Shapiro apologised for penning the screenplay.
WILD HOGS (2007)
Once a smouldering dancer, Travolta segued into a sad-sack dad. In this poorly received lowbrow comedy, he played a Cincinnati lawyer who hops on a motorcycle with Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence and takes to the open road.
GOTTI (2018)
Many critics called this biopic in which Travolta took on the part of Gambino boss John Gotti one of the worst movies of the year. His performance was universally whacked.
This article originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission.