Ever since his breakout role as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta has continued to portray some of the all-time most memorable cinematic characters ever created. However, over the past two decades or so, there has been a direct proportion between how wild Travolta's character is and how crazy his hairstyle appears onscreen.
While the trend has persisted for roughly 20 years, fans increased their awareness after Travolta portrayed Robert Shapiro in Fox's American Crime Story (2016), in which he wore a distractingly tight-cropped hairdo. As for the big screen, the best of Travolta's follicular evolution can be found below.
10 Tony Manero - Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Following his five-year run as Vinnie Barbarino on the hit sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta earned his first major starring role in John Badham's Saturday Night Fever. Travolta played Tony Manero, an unruly teenager who is wildly obsessed with maintaining his perfectly coiffed hairdo.
When Manero isn't primping his fro, he spends his nights as the best male disco dancer in all of New York City. With his disapproving father and priestly brother giving him a hard time, Manero finds solace in the one place he feels most alive: the dancefloor.
9 Gabriel Shear - Swordfish (2001)
In addition to the inch-long soul-patch that covers his trademark cleft chin, the long perfectly-parted hairdo Travolta sports as Garbiel Shear in Swordfish remains one of his all-time best. Notice the highlights.
Gabriel leads a counterterrorist organization known as Black Cell, which he looks to fund by stealing money with the help of hacker Stanely Jobson (Hugh Jackman). As such, he dresses the part in sharp-looking suits and a hairdo straightly-parted near-mullet that almost resembles Sonic the Hedgehog.
8 Jack Stanton - Primary Colors (1998)
As Senator Jack Stanton in Primary Colors, Travolta plays a character plainly based on that of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. As such, he is given the dusty grey hairdo that appears mighty presidential.
Directed by Mike Nichols, the film entertains a sex scandal in the highest office of the U.S. government when charming ladies-man Stanton oversteps the line of propriety ahead of a national Presidential campaign. In addition to the elderly hairdo, Travolta employs a southern twang to fully round out the character.
7 Emil Kovac - The Killing Season (2013)
Travolta has played a series of bald characters over the past decade, including ones from such films as From Paris With Love, The Taking of Pelham 123, Savages, and others. Yet none top the accessorized chin-strap he wears in the 2013 film Killing Season.
Travolta plays a Serbian soldier named Emil Kovac in the film, a cold-blooded killer who chases his American counterpart, Ben Ford (Robert De Niro) through the Appalachian Mountains. Emil stays warm by wearing an overgrown neck-beard that looks like a custom-made COVID mask.
6 Edna Turnblad - Hairspray (2007)
Travolta scored his last movie nomination of any kind for his gender-bending role as Edna Turnblad in the 2008 adaptation of John Waters' Hairspray, for which he earned a Golden Globe nod.
In his only time portraying a woman on the big screen, Travolta was given a hairstyle unlike ever before. It even differs from Divine's hairstyle, who originated the character in Waters' 1988 film. Travolta updates the look by wearing bangs in the front, curls on the side, and the back crunched up with a pink headband.
5 Travis - The Experts (1989)
The best, boldest, and bravest mullet Travolta ever dared to wear on screen comes from the 1989 cold-war-comedy The Experts, co-starring his late wife, Kelly Preston.
The film follows Travis (Travolta) and Wendell (Ayre Gross), two enterprising New Yorkers aspiring to open their own nightclub. After being kidnapped and taken to a spy town in the Soviet Union, Travis and Wendell awaken to find themselves in what appears to be a typical small town in America.
4 Vincent Vega - Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino not only revived Travolta's flailing career by casting him as hitman Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, but he also defined his image by giving the character long flowing black locks.
The heroin-addicted Vega fresh off a long-term stay in Amsterdam returns to the states, where he takes a job of a lifetime from his boss, Marcellus Wallace. In addition to babysitting Marcellus' wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), Vega and his partner Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) are tasked with procuring a briefcase with extremely valuable contents.
3 Danny Zuko - Grease (1978)
As the definitive cinematic greaser, Danny Zuko (Travolta) sports one of the all-time best 1950s-style hairdos. The thick, perfectly contoured head of jet-black hair replete with stylish sideburns is simply beyond reproach.
In the mega-popular musical Grease, Danny Zuko meets and falls in love with Australian vacationer Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) during summer break. Upon returning to school, Danny puts on a front for his friends by pretending that Sandy means nothing to him. Knowing the opposite is true, Danny spends the rest of the movie singing and dancing his way back into Sandy's heart.
2 Terl - Battlefield Earth (2000)
While Battlefield Earth is arguably the worst movie Travolta has ever participated in, his Predator-like dreadlocks, extremely bushy eyebrows, and salt-and-pepper goatee are among the actor's all-time best cinematic hairstyles.
Currently ranked #16 on IMDB's Bottom 100 Movies list, Battlefield Earth stars Travolta as Terl, leader of humanity's number one enemy race known as the Psychlos. Hell-bent on profit, Terl and his people rape, pillage, and plunder Earth of all its valuable resources, leading to an epic clash with the human survivors.
1 Moose - The Fanatic (2019)
John Travolta's best cinematic hairstyle comes in his most recently-released movie. In Fred Durst's The Fanatic, Travolta sports an ill-fitting hairpiece as a deranged character named Moose. Only it's not a wig.
Moose is a psychotically unhinged super-fan of action movie star Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa). After being snubbed of a meet and greet with his cinematic hero, Moose sets out on a violent revenge campaign to teach Dunbar a lesson. Travolta dives headlong into the role, as well as an unkempt grey Ceasar that reinforces Moose's fractious mental state.
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