The Mask

The Mask started life as a far darker thing: a violent Dark Horse Comics series, with early film drafts pitched as horror — one abandoned idea involved a mask-maker harvesting faces from corpses. Screenwriter Mark Verheiden's early-90s drafts steered it toward comedy, and by the time director Chuck Russell got hold of it, the project had found its premise: what if a meek bank clerk could become an invulnerable cartoon character? New Line executive Mike DeLuca sent over a tape of a rubber-faced In Living Color cast member, Russell had seen him do stand-up at The Comedy Store, and though Nicolas Cage and Matthew Broderick were kept in reserve — and Rick Moranis, Martin Short, and Robin Williams had all been floated earlier — the script was rewritten for Jim Carrey.

Released July 29, 1994 — months after Ace Ventura: Pet Detective — The Mask caught Carrey mid-ascent and poured gasoline on it. Industrial Light & Magic stretched his already-elastic face into genuine living-cartoon physics, Tex Avery gags rendered in flesh and pixels. It grossed $351.8 million worldwide on a budget under $23 million, finishing as the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1994, and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, losing to Forrest Gump. It also introduced Cameron Diaz, a model making her acting debut, who became a star overnight, and Milo, the Jack Russell terrier every kid suddenly wanted. Its big-band numbers even helped kick off the decade's swing revival.

A 54-episode animated series ran from 1995 to 1997, and the less said about 2005's Carrey-less Son of the Mask, the better. The original remains the purest bottling of what made 1994 Jim Carrey a phenomenon: a special effect playing a special effect, somehow with a heart.