7 items
Alrighty then. A pet detective in a Hawaiian shirt talks out of his own rear end, rescues the Miami Dolphins' kidnapped mascot, and turns a $15 million comedy into the launchpad of Jim Carrey's insane 1994. Critics hated it; recess quoted it for years.
The Farrelly brothers' breakout comedy starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as two hopelessly incompetent best friends on a cross-country road trip. Dumb and Dumber capped Carrey's historically unprecedented 1994—the year he also starred in Ace Ventura and The Mask—and grossed nearly $250 million worldwide on a modest budget.
A fast-talking lawyer who lies for a living is magically cursed to tell only the truth for 24 hours after his neglected son blows out his birthday candles with a single wish. Peak rubber-faced Jim Carrey, physically at war with his own mouth. Directed by Tom Shadyac, it was one of 1997's biggest comedies.
Jim Carrey's dark left turn: an obsessive cable installer who hooks you up and never leaves. Ben Stiller directed, Judd Apatow produced, and Carrey took a then-record $20 million payday to unsettle the exact audience his goofball hits had built. Critics split hard in 1996; the cult came later.
Jim Carrey endured 92 days in Rick Baker's green-fur prosthetics — painful yellow contact lenses, panic attacks, and an offer to hand back his $20 million payday and quit. Ron Howard's Whoville fever dream became 2000's biggest movie at the US box office anyway, and it has owned basic-cable Decembers ever since.
Ssssmokin'! Stanley Ipkiss puts on a cursed green mask and becomes a zoot-suited cartoon come to life — eyes bugging out, heart pounding through his chest. The Mask turned Jim Carrey into a literal living Tex Avery gag and gave the world Cameron Diaz.
Jim Carrey's first great dramatic turn: Truman Burbank is an ordinary insurance salesman who slowly realizes his entire hometown is a giant TV set and everyone he knows is an actor — his whole life broadcast 24/7 to the world. Directed by Peter Weir from an Andrew Niccol script, it turned a high-concept nightmare into a tender, unsettling fable that only looked more prophetic as reality TV took over.