Ryan Gosling: Career in Pictures

'Remember the Titans' (2000)

In one of his first big-screen forays, Gosling played a small role as a member of a recently-integrated Virginia high school's football team in 1971. His most memorable scene? Getting his boogie on in the locker room while the team sings Marvin Gaye's "Aint No Mountain High Enough."

'The Believer' (2001)

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival's grand jury prize, The Believer starred Gosling in the breakout role of an Orthodox Jew-turned-neo-Nazi.

'Murder by Numbers' (2002)

The actor was 22 years old when this thriller came out. Sandra Bullock, who played a troubled FBI profiler out to prove that he and Michael Pitt killed a schoolmate, was 16 years his senior at the time; they dated for a year after the production. Gosling later played a murderer in 2003's United States of Leland.

'The Notebook' (2004)

Gosling gained matinee idol status after his turn in this romance-heavy film co-starring then-real-life girlfriend Rachel McAdams. The duo played saccharine soul-mates Noah and Allie, whose rowboat kiss in the rain became infamous, winning them an MTV Movie Award for best kiss.

The Notebook is arguably Gosling's most popular film to date: a woman who witnessed Gosling breaking up a fight in New York City recently noted, "That's the guy from the movie The Notebook!"

'Half Nelson' (2006)

The Canadian actor earned his first and only Academy Award nomination for this 2006 indie film from writer-director Ryan Fleck. Gosling plays a middle school teacher with a crack habit who makes friends with a student who catches him getting high. While he didn't take home the Oscar (Forest Whitaker won for The Last King of Scotland), he did win the Independent Spirit Award for his performance.

'Fracture' (2007)

"What can't you learn from him, really?" Gosling said of his co-star Anthony Hopkins. "He does everything. He does everything perfect." The Gregory Hoblit movie followed a young attorney (Gosling) and his attempts to prosecute a manipulative criminal (Hopkins).  "I think movies like this appeal to our fantasies of getting away with something. I think you wanna see if that's possible."

'Lars and the Real Girl' (2007)

Gosling was nominated for a best actor Golden Globe after his performance in this quirky film. In the Craig Gillespie pic, the actor's titular character embarks on a relationship with a blow-up doll he orders off of the Internet. "When they called 'action!' it was just her and me," he said of acting with the doll. "That bonded me to her. It was a real connection. And people will laugh when they hear it, but she has a really calming and peaceful quality when you're around her." 

'Blue Valentine' (2010)

Michelle Williams played Gosling's ill-fated love in Derek Cianfrance's film chronicling the beginning and end of a relationship. "Not to discriminate against budgets, I feel that independent films tend to ask more questions and don't pretend to know as much as bigger films, which tend to think they know everything," he told THR of the indie, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination. 

REVIEW: Blue Valentine

'Crazy Stupid Love' (2011)

The actor, who isn't known for his comedic roles, has said he was most excited to make the romantic comedy because of co-star Steve Carrell. "I just love him," he raved to The Hollywood Reporter at the film's NYC premiere. "I promised myself that I would work with him one day and I kept that promise. I'm living the dream." The film also starred Julianne Moore and Emma Stone.  

REVIEW: Crazy, Stupid, Love

'Drive' (2011)

"I always wanted to see a violent John Hughes movie, and I always thought that, if Pretty in Pink had a head smashing, it would be perfect," Gosling has said of wanting to make the action-meets-romance movie (directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and co-starring Carey Mulligan). 

REVIEW: Drive

'The Ides of March' (2011)

Gosling worked with George Clooney, Evan Rachel Wood and Phillip Seymour Hoffman on Clooney's political thriller. But, he has said that the off-camera action was much less intense than what appears on film. He said the actor-director would play pranks on the set.

REVIEW: The Ides of March