The 10 Greatest Male Grooming Moments in Movies

Image via Complex Original

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The trailer for Gattaca—a futuristic tale of a society in which one's DNA predetermines his or her future—asks: "In a place where any cell from any part of your body can betray you, how do you hide when we all shed 500 million cells a day?" The answer, at least for Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), a young man who was conceived the old-fashioned way—and therefore subject to human imperfections—is with a seriously painful daily bathing process.

Each day, Vincent scrubs himself raw in order to maintain his new identity as athletic great Jerome Eugene Morrow (Jude Law). Unfortunately, not even the world's most expensive loofah packs that kind of exfoliating punch.

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Every man has his own grooming ritual. Most don't end in a suicide attempt. Unable to deal with the romantic feelings he's been harboring for his adopted sister Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), the very hairy Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) locks himself in a bathroom, shaves his hair and face and then very quietly slits his wrists, all to the hypnotizing sounds of Elliot Smith's "Needle in the Hay." Leave it to director Wes Anderson to create something visually stunning from a moment of would-be tragedy. (Spoiler alert: boy gets girl in the end.)

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Struggling actor Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) learns that daily auditions and constant rejection are a cakewalk compared to the work it takes to be a woman when he masquerades as an actress in order to land a plum female lead in popular soap opera. But he quickly realizes that shaving and eyebrow plucking are the least challenging of a lady's daily duties.

"Those women were like animals," he tells his roommate Jeff (Bill Murray) after a rough day of shopping. "I saw this one beautiful handbag that was on sale, but I was too frightened to fight for it." Good thing he didn't venture into the shoe department!

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James Bond has never needed to do much more than look in the direction of a woman in order to seduce her. But the super spy's latest incarnation, as played by Daniel Craig, seems to have softened a bit in the misogyny department. Sure, he still has no problem bedding a bevy of beautiful ladies. But the "new" 007 isn't afraid of commitment either. And he's not immune to being seduced—or shaved—on occasion, as Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) proves in the franchise's latest installment.

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When Kevin McCallister's parents inadvertently leave the 8-year-old Home Alone at Christmas, he's got to man up and man up quickly. In preparation for his rather  violent faceoff with the Wet Bandits (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), a burglaring duo who have their sights set on Kevin's impressive abode, he's able to sneak in some quality spa time, where he proves he's man of the house with a shower in which he washes "every body part with actual soap, including all my major crevices." Though he probably regrets that dab of aftershave as a final flourish.

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There's a thin line between perfectly bare skin and bloodshed when your preferred method of shaving is with a straight razor. It's not a line you want to cross, particularly when the man occupying your barber chair is notorious gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Lucky for this guy there's a room full of journalists watching, whom Capone is trying to convince of his anti-violence business philosophy.

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Sure, he may be a psychotic serial killer, but Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) brings that same ritualistic fervor to his daily health and beauty upkeep, which he explains in as much detail as he later does his analysis of the albums of Huey Lewis and the News (they really did come into their own with "Sports"). If you thought he was talented with a chainsaw, you should see him with a honey-almond body scrub.

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By day, Tony Manero (John Travolta) is a paint can-shaking hardware store employee living at home with his parents in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. But when the sun goes down, the white polyester suit comes out and Tony becomes the king of the 2001 Odyssey disco club. His dance floor domination begins hours ahead of time, with the kind of preening that would make Tammy Faye Bakker tired—one in which blow-drying, hair-brushing, jewelry selection and dressing are interspersed with one-second karate moves and plenty of pelvic gyrations. There's just one rule: Don't. Hit. The. Hair.

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Forget a perfectly bare chest. If you want that special lady in your life to extend an invite to the Pants Party, a carefully selected cologne is all you need. And just which scent in his vast collection does newsman Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) have in store for newbie reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate)? Why the very potent Sex Panther, of course, which is made with real bits of panther and illegal in nine countries. Best of all: sixty percent of the time it works every time.

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Whoever told Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) that the way into a woman's pants was with a hairless chest forgot to mention the pain involved in achieving total nudity. Particularly when the hair removal necessitates about 100 strips of wax and you've got a trio of "friends" as an audience. The process brings out the inner truck driver in normally sweet-natured Andy, who drops enough F-bombs in a single scene to rival one of Tony Montana's outbursts in Scarface. Adding to the painfully "mantastic" fun is that it's 100 percent real; that hair—and subsequent lack of—is all Carell's!