Playing a Cary Grant-type role for Working Girl was a gamble for Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford had briefly sought out the boyfriend in Mike Nichols' 1983 drama "Silkwood" (opposite Meryl Streep), so ego wasn't an issue here. Even then, according to Lee Pfeiffer's "The Movies of Harrison Ford," the star wasn't convinced he could channel his inner Cary Grant. "I saw myself and deduced that when I laugh I feel like some kind of wood," he said.

As written, Ford had no laughing matter. He's the straight man to Melanie Griffith's dreamy Staten Islander, the hilariously overbearing sidekick to Sigourney Weaver, and, in one terrific scene, the unwaveringly supportive best friend of Joan Cusack. When Griffith's character is accidentally dumped at a networking event, Ford does the chivalrous thing and puts her to bed safely. He's a nice guy and obviously a rising star in the M&A world on Wall Street. He's not particularly interesting, and Ford isn't using his star power to make him anything more than a supporting actor in an uplifting corporate comedy.

It's borderline thankless, but Ford's innate gravity subtly raises the stakes. We don't need to know anything about his character to buy him as a major player in the business world. He's fucking Harrison Ford, and he's here to support his female co-stars. Given that all three of them received Oscar nominations, he went above and beyond.