My Favorite Steve Martin Performances

He actually started his career as a writer on The Smother Brothers Comedy Hour for which he actually won an Emmy. This led to an impressive career in stand up and became one of the most popular hosts of Saturday Night Live while beginning an amazing movie career that started with a brief appearance in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and created an impressive comic legacy that has earned him five Golden Globe nominations and an honorary Academy Award. Anyone who has followed my threads with any regularity already knows what my # 1 is, but I'm doing this anyway. Here we go...my favorite performances of the awesome Steve Martin:

The Jerk is my all time favorite of his performances.

film

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

music

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

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You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.

Roxanne, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Housesitter, Planes, Trains & Automobiles come to mind

I enjoyed recently "The Big Year" though Martin looks like he had his face removed and built back on with plaster, it was quite a surprisingly sweet film.. shame he had to go down that route and not grow old gracefully, he was still Steve Martin but without the full range of expression and too small eyes.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

25.

Insolent Waiter, The Muppet Movie



It was only his second movie appearance but Martin made the most of his brief screen time as a snooty waiter who makes trouble for Kermit and Miss Piggy.

24.

Henry Clark, The Out-of-Towners



Martin's performance was one of the few things that worked in this 1999 remake of a 1979 Neil Simon comedy. Henry travels to Manhattan with his wife (Goldie Hawn) for a job interview and everything that could possibly go wrong does.

23.

Peter Sanderson, Bringing Down the House



Martin's performance is the saving grace of this 2003 comedy about a lonely divorced lawyer and father of two who begins a relationship with a woman on the internet and is shocked when the woman (Queen Latifah) turns out to be a criminal recently released from prison who moves into Peter's house and turns his life upside down.

I think Dirty Rotten Scoundrels for me .

22.

Vincent "Vinnie" Antonelli, My Blue Heaven



A nearly forgotten but very funny performance from Martin as a mafioso who goes under witness protection and is taken to the home of an FBI agent (Rick Moranis).

21.

Harris Telemacher, LA Story



Martin also wrote the screenplay for this comedy about a weatherman juggling three different women (Marilu Henner, Sarah Jessica Parker, Victoria Tennant) and getting relationship advice from a highway billboard.

20.

Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, The Man with Two Brains



Martin plays a brilliant brain surgeon who marries a hedonistic she-devil (Kathleen Turner) but actually finds real love with an actual brain (voiced by Sissy Spacek).

19.

Tom Baker, Cheaper By the Dozen



In this re-thinking of the 1950 classic, Martin plays Tom Baker, the father of twelve children who has to become Mr. Mom when his wife (Bonnie Hunt) writes a best selling book and is sent on a book tour to promote it.

18.

Adam Schaffer, It's Complicated



Martin plays an architect who falls for his latest client (Meryl Streep), who is also having an affair with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) who has remarried and has a stepson and is being pressured by his wife to have a baby.

This thread makes me realise how many of his movies I haven't seen. I loved #18. I thought that was charming. I watched it twice flying back from US.

17.

Gil Buckman, Parenthood



Martin plays a husband and father struggling to keep his kids happy as well as his wife (Mary Steenburgen), his sister (Dianne Wiest), her two kids (Martha Plimpton, Joaquin Phoenix), his dad (Jason Robards), and his black sheep brother (Tom Hulce).

16.

Orin Scrivello, DDS, Little Shop of Horrors



Martin stole every scene he was in this 1986 musical remake of the Roger Corman classic playing a sadistic dentist who is coming between plant expert Seymour (Rick Moranis) and the girl of his dreams Audrey (Ellen Greene).

I've only seen The Man with Two Brains, I love to see that one again. I didn't realize that Steve Martin had made so many movies, nice list! I'll be following along

Little Shop of Horrors is my favorite. Can't imagine anyone else doing the Dentist! song

You need to see Parenthood (1989).