John Goodman
John Goodman is an actor, born 1952.
John Goodman rose to prominence in television before becoming a film actor, and his accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Vanity Fair has called him among our very finest actors, which reads as hyperbole until you look at the run of work.
The spine of the film career belongs to the Coen brothers, who worked out early what he is for. Gale in Raising Arizona (1987), Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink (1991), Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski (1998), Big Dan Teague in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Roland Turner in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) are all the same instrument played at different volumes: geniality with something badly wrong underneath. Walter is funny for an hour before you register that he is dangerous, and Goodman never signals the switch. He simply lets the pressure build behind a friendly face until it stops being friendly.
The other Goodman is warmth with no irony at all, and it is why his voice work landed so well. Sulley in Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University, Pacha in The Emperor's New Groove, Big Daddy La Bouff in The Princess and the Frog: a huge sound used tenderly, which is exactly the joke Monsters, Inc. is built on. Then 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) puts both versions in one body and refuses to tell you which one is in charge, and it is the best late-career showcase he has been handed.
Movies (102)
- Monsters, Inc. (2001)
- Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
- The Princess and the Frog (2009)
- The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
- Monsters University (2013)
- Bee Movie (2007)
- Kong: Skull Island (2017)
- Smurfs (2025)
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
- The Big Lebowski (1998)
- The Hangover Part III (2013)
- Speed Racer (2008)
- Evan Almighty (2007)
- Fallen (1998)
- Coyote Ugly (2000)
- The Flintstones (1994)
- 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
- Argo (2012)
- Atomic Blonde (2017)
- Flight (2012)
- Kronk's New Groove (2005)
- ParaNorman (2012)
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)
- Patriots Day (2016)
- The Gambler (2014)
- Pope Joan (2009)
- Digger (2026)
- The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
- Maria's Lovers (1984)
TV (22)
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023)
- Damages (2007)
- Community (2009)
- The Righteous Gemstones (2019)
- The Conners (2018)
- Monsters at Work (2021)
- The Emperor's New School (2006)
- Treme (2010)
- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006)
- Alpha House (2013)
- Father of the Pride (2004)
- Muppets Tonight (1996)
- Now and Again (1999)
- Black Earth Rising (2018)
- Grand (1990)
- Roseanne (1988)
- Dancing on the Edge (2013)
- Soul Man (1997)
- The Jackie Thomas Show (1992)
- The Freak Brothers (2021)
- Center of the Universe (2004)
- Pigs Next Door (2000)
Where to start with John Goodman
For the definitive Goodman, The Big Lebowski. Walter Sobchak is one of the great comic performances in American film, and the reason it survives repeat viewing is that the anger is real, not decorative.
Then work backwards through the Coens: Barton Fink for the version where the friendliness is genuinely unnerving, Raising Arizona for the loudest and most cartoonish, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis for two short, poisonous supporting turns that do a lot with limited screen time.
10 Cloverfield Lane is the thriller to watch if you want to see him hold a whole film with three actors and one bunker. On the soft side, Monsters, Inc. and The Emperor's New Groove are the two animated features where his voice is doing the emotional work rather than the comic work.
The Coen brothers films
Five films, and they are the spine of his career. Barton Fink is the one that shows the range: forty minutes of warmth followed by something else entirely. Walter in The Big Lebowski is the performance he will be remembered for.
The animation
Sulley in Monsters, Inc. is one of the warmest voice performances in Pixar's catalogue, and the prequel is better than it had any need to be. The Emperor's New Groove is the funniest of them and the least seen.
The dramatic and character work
The later run where directors started using his size to unsettle rather than reassure. 10 Cloverfield Lane is the best example and depends entirely on never letting you settle on what he is. Flight is the other one worth finding.
The blockbusters and the comedies
The paycheque films, and he is reliably the best thing in them. The Flintstones is the one everybody of a certain age saw, and Kong: Skull Island gives him the closest thing to a villain he has played in a blockbuster.