
Michael Douglas
Biography
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is a retired American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.
The elder son of Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill, Douglas earned his Bachelor of Arts in drama from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His early acting roles included film, stage, and television productions. Douglas first achieved prominence for his performance in the ABC police procedural television series The Streets of San Francisco, for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations. In 1975, Douglas produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, having acquired the rights to the Ken Kesey novel from his father. The film received critical and popular acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, earning Douglas his first Oscar as one of the film's producers.
Douglas went on to produce films including The China Syndrome (1979) and Romancing the Stone (1984), for which he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy, and The Jewel of the Nile (1985). Douglas received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (a role he reprised in the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010). Other notable roles include in Fatal Attraction (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Basic Instinct (1992), Falling Down (1993), The American President (1995), The Game (1997), Traffic (2000), and Wonder Boys (2000).
In 2013, for his portrayal of Liberace in the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Douglas starred as an ageing acting coach in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method (2018–2021), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best ctor—television series musical or omedy. He has portrayed Hank Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Ant-Man (2015).
Douglas has received notice for his humanitarian and political activism. He sits on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, is an honorary board member of the anti-war grant-making foundation Ploughshares Fund, and he was appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 1998. He has been married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones since 2000.
In July 2025, Douglas said that he was largely retired from acting, saying "I realized I had to stop [...] I did not want to be one of those people who dropped dead on the set". He added that while he was attached to one additional project and did not fully rule out future projects "if something special came up", he had no plans to work regularly again.
Acting (100 movies)

The War of the Roses
1989

Basic Instinct
1992

A Call to Arms
2009

The China Syndrome
1979

One Night at McCool's
2001

Downwind
2023

You, Me and Dupree
2006

A Chorus Line
1985

The Ghost and the Darkness
1996

The Jewel of the Nile
1985

Traffic
2000

A Perfect Murder
1998

Wall Street
1987

The Game
1997

Black Rain
1989

Fatal Attraction
1987

Wonder Boys
2000

The In-Laws
2003

Coma
1978

King of California
2007

The Sentinel
2006

It Runs in the Family
2003

Shining Through
1992

Don't Say a Word
2001

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
2009

Disclosure
1994

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
2009

The American President
1995

The Star Chamber
1983

Romancing the Stone
1984

One Day in September
1999

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
2010

Dinosaurs Alive
2007

TVTV Looks at the Oscars
1976

Solitary Man
2009

Napoleon and Samantha
1972

Trumbo
2007

Falling Down
1993

Get Bruce!
1999

A Father… A Son… Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2005

Haywire
2011

Michael Douglas: The Prodigal Son
2023

Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
2023

When Michael Calls
1989

Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema
2005

Summertree
1971

Adam at Six A.M.
1970

Running
1979

Inside Traffic: The Making of 'Traffic'
2000

Behind the Candelabra
2013

Last Vegas
2013

It's My Turn
1980

The Streets of San Francisco
1972

The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers
2013

And So It Goes
2014

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
2013

Beyond the Reach
2014

Hollywood Banker
2014

Richard Attenborough: A Life in Film
2014

Looking Through Water
2025

Hassles and Hangups
1973

Close Up
2012

Sword-and-Sandal: The Story of the Period Epic
2019

Nos Bastidores de Hollywood
2005

America's Burning
2024

Ant-Man
2015

Declaration of Independence
2003

The Earth Day Special
1990

Once upon a time on Wall Street
2017

Hail, Hero!
1969

Unlocked
2017

Ant-Man and the Wasp
2018

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
2021

Ken San
2016

Completely Cuckoo
1997

Black Rain: Making The Film
2006

Cast a Giant Shadow
1966

Animal World
2018

Once Upon a Time… One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
2011

Miloš Forman: What Doesn't Kill You…
2009

Tell Them Who You Are
2004

The Untameable Kirk Douglas
2017

Still Laugh-In: The Stars Celebrate
2019

Forever Hollywood
1999

It Takes a Lunatic
2019

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
2023

Electric Blue 29
1988

The China Syndrome: Creating a Controversy
2004

The China Syndrome: A Fusion of Talent
2004

Michael Douglas: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival
2018

Avengers: Endgame
2019

Forman vs. Forman
2019

Total Excess: How Carolco Changed Hollywood
2020

In Search of Peace
2001

Basic Instinct: Sex, Death & Stone
2020

Deauville et le rêve américain
2020

Fog City Mavericks
2007

Making of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
2009

The Directors: Milos Forman
2000

I Am Curious Johnny
2025
| Title | Year | Job |
|---|---|---|
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | 1975 | Producer |
| The China Syndrome | 1979 | Producer |
| Running | 1979 | Executive Producer |
| Romancing the Stone | 1984 | Producer |
| Starman | 1984 | Executive Producer |
| The Jewel of the Nile | 1985 | Producer |
| Flatliners | 1990 | Producer |
| Eyes of an Angel | 1991 | Executive Producer |
| Radio Flyer | 1992 | Executive Producer |
| Made in America | 1993 | Producer |
| The Ghost and the Darkness | 1996 | Executive Producer |
| Face/Off | 1997 | Executive Producer |
| The Rainmaker | 1997 | Producer |
| One Night at McCool's | 2001 | Producer |
| It Runs in the Family | 2003 | Producer |
| The Sentinel | 2006 | Producer |
| Beyond the Reach | 2014 | Producer |
| Flatliners | 2017 | Producer |
| We Have Always Lived in the Castle | 2019 | Executive Producer |
| America's Burning | 2024 | Executive Producer |