Footloose

National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). Bacon was a 19-year-old acting school student when he got cast as fraternity pledge Chip Diller in the raucous comedy.

As a tormented former FBI agent recruited to track down his longtime nemesis, a notorious serial killer (James Purefoy) who just escaped from death row. Tom Cruise is the lawyer defending two Marines charged with murder; Bacon is the cocky prosecuting attorney assigned to the case. “It’s probably the number one film fans want to talk to me about,” says Bacon of this Gen X favorite with a classic soundtrack. He’s one of five Baltimore friends navigating the transition into adulthood in this bittersweet comedy set in the late 1950s. Bacon plays one of the camp counselors who inevitably falls victim to the slasher in a hockey mask, Jason Voorhees. The low-budget slasher film turned into a box-office hit that led to about a dozen sequels and spin-offs.