Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel is an actor, born 1967.
Before the late-night desk, Jimmy Kimmel had two jobs that would surprise anyone who met him hosting the Oscars. He co-hosted the game show Win Ben Stein's Money, and he created and fronted The Man Show, the cable series that turns up in this catalogue under 1999 and again in Down to You, where he is billed as 'The Man Show' Host. He created Crank Yankers in 2002.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! has run on ABC since 2003 with Kimmel as host and executive producer, which makes him one of the longest-serving people in American late night. The award-show work is the other public half of the job: three Primetime Emmy ceremonies, in 2012, 2016 and 2020, and four Academy Awards, in 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2024. He also holds a Daytime Emmy for game show hosting.
The part of the resume people miss is the voice acting, and there is a lot of it. He is Ted Templeton in both Boss Baby films, Batman in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, Spanky in the 2004 Garfield, Marty Muckracker in PAW Patrol: The Movie, a tardigrade in the 2025 Smurfs, and a dog in Road Trip back in 2000. Animation keeps hiring the voice because it is friendly and slightly untrustworthy, which is the same reason he works as an awards host.
He appears as himself in Ted 2, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pitch and Ezra, and as a talking head in documentaries including Behind the Curve, Dads and Stormy. In Money Shot: The Pornhub Story he shows up only in archive footage, which is its own kind of career milestone.
Movies (31)
- Ted 2 (2015)
- Smurfs (2025)
- The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021)
- Money Shot: The Pornhub Story (2023)
- PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
- Garfield (2004)
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
- Road Trip (2000)
- The Boss Baby (2017)
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)
- Ezra (2024)
- Stormy (2024)
- Manny (2014)
- Down to You (2000)
- Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom (2026)
- Marvel: 75 Years, from Pulp to Pop! (2014)
- One World: Together at Home (2020)
- The Aristocrats (2005)
- The Disney Family Singalong - Volume II (2020)
- Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (2022)
- Celebrating Marvel's Stan Lee (2019)
- Dads (2019)
- Behind the Curve (2018)
- The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards (2015)
- The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special - In 3D! On Ice! (2010)
- Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons" (2019)
- The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner (2001)
- Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times" (2019)
- The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller (1999)
- Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes (2021)
TV (34)
- Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003)
- Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003)
- The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003)
- Drawn Together (2004)
- The Man Show (1999)
- The Man Show (1999)
- Finding Your Roots (2012)
- The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1999)
- Comedy Central Roasts (2003)
- Entertainment Tonight (1981)
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2020)
- The Shop (2018)
- Red Table Talk (2018)
- Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (2005)
- Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories (2014)
- The History of Comedy (2017)
- Crank Yankers (2002)
- Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis (2008)
- Last Call with Carson Daly (2002)
- The Gong Show (2017)
- I'm with Her (2003)
- Shatner's Raw Nerve (2008)
- Mark Twain Prize (1999)
- Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! (2026)
- Pitch (2016)
- Password (2022)
- This Is Pop (2021)
- Too Late with Adam Carolla (2005)
- Join or Die with Craig Ferguson (2016)
- Hart to Heart (2021)
Where to start with Jimmy Kimmel
The show is the work. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is where two decades have gone, and a monologue from any given week tells you more about him than the whole film list. For the earlier and much cruder version, The Man Show is on the shelf and has aged exactly as you would expect, while Crank Yankers is the odder artefact of the two and the more watchable now.
If you want him acting, the honest answer is that he is best animated. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies gets the funniest use out of the voice and The Boss Baby reached the biggest audience. Ted 2 and Hellboy II: The Golden Army are cameos as himself, good for about ninety seconds each. Of the documentaries, Behind the Curve is the one worth seeking out.
The desk and the game shows
Two decades on ABC plus the two very different shows that came before it. The Man Show and Crank Yankers are useful context for how far the late-night version has travelled from where he started.
The voice roles
Animation has been steady work for him for twenty five years, mostly playing loud men and the occasional dog. The Boss Baby films are the biggest of these by some distance.
Playing himself
The other kind of screen credit he gets: a cameo as the host, usually so a film can suggest that its events are big enough to reach late night. Ted 2 gets the most out of it.
The roasts and comedy history
Kimmel is one of the better roast performers of his generation, and the Friars Club sets are genuinely vicious in a way the network show never gets to be. The Aristocrats is the essential one.