Canadian actor/director/screenwriter/multi-slasher Mike Myers first gained fame on Saturday Night Live, but it’s his 30-year film career that’s made him a star. Not even counting his voice work in the Shrek cinematic universe, Myers has made over a dozen movies that you could easily quote lines from without thinking (all together now: “Yeah, baby!”).
Myers is set to return to TV on Thursday, May 5 with The Pentaverate, a six-episode Netflix comedy in which he, of course, plays several different roles. To mark the occasion, we’re looking back on some of our favorite Mike Myers movies (as well as a couple we’re still trying to forget—hey, they can’t all be gems).
The best of Mike Myers
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
The two sequels have their moments, but the first Austin Powers movie is a comedy classic that not even Myers himself could ever top. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery gave us the character’s perfectly ridiculous origin story (swingin’ ’60s spy is cryogenically frozen and then revived in the ’90s), the best Bond girl who was never actually a Bond girl (Elizabeth Hurley), and a kooky cadre of villains (including Dr. Evil, also Myers). Shagadelic!
So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
It was a box office bomb when it was released, but So I Married an Axe Murderer has since become a cult comedy favorite. Myers plays Charlie, a San Francisco beat poet who inadvertently falls for a woman (Nancy Travis) who may or may not be a serial killer. Between Myers’s ludicrous coffeehouse poetry, Travis’s coolly subtle vibe, and Anthony LaPaglia’s hilarious Serpico obsession, So I Married an Axe Murderer is a scattershot flick that works.
Wayne’s World 2 (1993)
You thought it was going to be the original Wayne’s World movie? Surprise: Wayne’s World 2 takes Myers and costar Dana Carvey’s rock-dudes schtick to the excessive extreme with unlikely star cameos (including Christopher Walken, Charlton Heston, and Kim Basinger), a Fyre Festival-level mega-concert (“Waynestock”), and Aerosmith insisting on playing a lame new song instead of a classic hit (what, no “Walk This Way”?). We’re not worthy, indeed.
The worst of Mike Myers
The Love Guru (2008)
Guru Pitka (Myers), the second-biggest guru in the world after Deepak Chopra (who also appears as himself) is hired to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs out of a slump and toward the Stanley Cup. Huh? Hinduism appropriation aside, The Love Guru was a commercial and critical failure that many a star soiled their name in (including Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Ben Kingsley, Stephen Colbert, and even Kayne West). Somehow, Myers survived it.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Since Myers gave Queen a ’90s career boost by featuring their song “Bohemian Rhapsody” in Wayne’s World, it was only fair to throw him a bit part in the band’s Bohemian Rhapsody biopic. Unfortunately, Myers’s performance as a record company suit is one of the only bright spots in this overblown, terribly acted (including inexplicable Oscar winner Rami Malek), and historically inaccurate trainwreck. Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t as awful as The Love Guru, but it’s shockingly close.
View from the Top (2003)
Myers’s costar Gwyneth Paltrow has called View from the Top “the worst movie ever,” which is a not-minor indictment from an actor whose filmography includes Shallow Hal and Iron Man 2. Ouch.
