Austin Butler in “Elvis”
© 2022 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
There’s no entertainer quite like Elvis Presley. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll took the world by storm after making his commercial debut in 1956 and quickly became an American icon. With seven No. 1 hits, 25 top 10s and 109 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, Presley’s career — a meteoric ascent and the eventual downfall ahead of his death in 1977 — has become the subject of several movies and television series throughout the decades.
The latest addition to the Elvis Presley cinematic universe came in 2022, with the arrival of Baz Luhrmann’s biographical drama Elvis. Austin Butler took on the role of The King in the movie alongside Tom Hanks, who played Presley’s controversial manager Colonel Tom Parker. The movie — which scored a total of eight nominations at the 2023 Academy Awards, including a best picture and best actor nomination for Butler — followed Presley’s rise to fame, his unprecedented stardom and rocky relationship with Parker later on in his career.
Interest in Elvis’ fascinating life, as well as the people in it, continues, as Sofia Coppola will be the latest director to give a unique take on The King with her upcoming movie Priscilla, which follows Priscilla Presley’s life and love story with the icon throughout the years. The movie, based on Priscilla and Sandra Harmon’s book Elvis and Me, will star Cailee Spaeny as the titular character and Euphoria‘s Jacob Elordi as Elvis. (No release date has been confirmed.)
From The White Stripes’ Jack White and former America’s Got Talent star Drake Milligan to veteran actors like Kurt Russell and Don Johnson, see the men who have stepped into Elvis’ studded jumpsuit for television and film in the gallery below.
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Austin Butler
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo Movie: Elvis
Year: 2022Austin Butler tells Presley’s life story from his meteoric ascent to fame to the trouble he encountered in his final years due to his manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Butler was nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Elvis at the 2023 Academy Awards.
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Jacob Elordi
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo Movie: Priscilla
Year: TBDPriscilla Presley’s life gets the A24 treatment in Sofia Coppola’s upcoming movie Priscilla. The film — based on Priscilla’s biography, Elvis and Me — will detail Priscilla’s love story from her point of view, from meeting him at age 14 to their eventual divorce. Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi will star as Priscilla and Elvis.
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Drake Milligan
Image Credit: Mark Levine/ ©CMT / courtesy Everett Collection Series: Sun Records
Year: 2017America’s Got Talent finalist Drake Milligan assumed the role of Presley for CMT’s miniseries Sun Records, which is based on the musical Million Dollar Quartet. The show follows the early rock and roll and country stars who recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tenn., which included Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.
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Jack White
Image Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Year: 2007Walk Hard tells the tale of fictional rock star Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) on his road to stardom following a childhood tragedy. Before going onstage for a performance, Cox and his band has to follow Presley (White), whom they have a moment with backstage.
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Matt Lewis
Image Credit: DAVID BECKER/AFP via Getty Images Movie: Three Days to Vegas
Year: 2007Four retired men take a spontaneous road trip from Florida to Las Vegas to stop one of their daughters from getting married. On the bride’s big day, she encounters an Elvis impersonator (Lewis).
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Tyler Hilton
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Walk the Line
Year: 2005Walk the Line follows Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) on his road to stardom. Cash’s career begins to pick up after his band meets Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who then signs Cash and the band and has them tour alongside Elvis (Hilton), Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.
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Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Image Credit: © Jaffe/Braunstein Films Ltd. / Courtesy: Everett Collection Series: Elvis
Year: 2005Also known as Elvis: The Miniseries or Elvis: The Early Years, the biographical minseries chronicles Elvis (Rhys Meyers) from his high school years all the way through his journey to international stardom. Rhys Meyers earned a nomination for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or a movie at the 2005 Emmy Awards and won best actor – miniseries or television film at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards for his portrayal.
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Frank Stallone
Image Credit: David Buchan/Getty Images Movie: Angels With Angles
Year: 2005This comedy drama doesn’t follow Elvis — played by Frank Stallone — or his life story. The plot sees God (Rodney Dangerfield) sending George Burns (Frank Gorshin) on a mission to help a man (Scott Edmund Lane) embroiled in smuggling Cuban cigars. Along the way, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll appears.
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Bruce Campbell
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Bubba Ho-Tep
Year: 2002Elvis (Campbell) wakes up much older from a coma after having a freak accident from hip gyration and finds himself in a nursing home. He soon befriends a Black man who claims to be John F. Kennedy. As patients in the nursing home begin dying off in unnatural ways, Elvis and JFK discover that Bubba Ho-Tep (Bob Ivy), a murderous Egyptian mummy, is behind it.
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Harvey Keitel
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Finding Graceland
Year: 1998A man claiming to be Elvis (Keitel) gets picked up after hitchiking and embarks on a journey to Memphis to reach the singer’s Graceland estate.
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Rick Peters
Image Credit: © Showtime Network / Everett Collection Movie: Elvis Meets Nixon
Year: 1997Peters takes on Elvis in a mockumentary format. The embellished account loosely follows the events that occur after the rock star personally wrote a letter to President Nixon asking for a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
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Michael Shannon
Image Credit: Steve Dietl/©Bleecker Street Media/courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Elvis & Nixon
Year: 2016Much like 1997’s Elvis Meets Nixon, the 2010s version of the film follows Presley (Shannon) and his visit to the White House to meet President Nixon after asking to become an undercover agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
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Peter Dobson
Image Credit: Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images Movie: Forrest Gump
Year: 1994Tom Hanks stars as the titular Forrest Gump, a tale of a character with a low IQ who defied the odds and achieves greatness in several areas of his life. Gump’s mother operates a boarding house, and a young Elvis (Dobson) is inspired by Gump’s jerky dance moves, later incorporating them into his own performances.
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Rob Youngblood
Image Credit: ©Dick Clark Productions/Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Elvis and the Colonel: The Untold Story
Year: 1993Youngblood stars as The King in Elvis and the Colonel: The Untold Story, a television movie that dives into Presley’s relationship with Colonel Tom Parker (Rob Bridges).
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Val Kilmer
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: True Romance
Year: 1993True Romance follows Elvis fanatic Clarence Worley (Christian Slater), who has a one-night stand with a call girl named Alabama Whitman. The woman eventually falls in love with him. Elvis (Val Kilmer) appears and convinces Worley to kill Whitman’s pimp.
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Michael St. Gerard
Image Credit: © ABC/courtesy Everett Collection Series: Elvis
Year: 1990Not to be mistaken with Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, St. Gerard assumed the role of Presley during his earlier years for the American drama series of the same name. Ten of the series’ 13 episodes aired on ABC before being canceled due to high production costs. (St. Gerard also starred as Elvis in 1989’s Heart of Dixie and Great Balls of Fire!, and a 1993 episode of Quantum Leap.)
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Dale Midkiff
Image Credit: © ABC/courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Elvis and Me
Year: 1988Priscilla Presley’s autobiography Elvis and Me was adapted to the big screen for 1988’s television movie of the same name. The movie follows Priscilla (Susan Walters), who is courted by Presley (Midkiff) at age 14. The movie details all the moments in the pair’s love affair up to their divorce.
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David Keith
Image Credit: ©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Heartbreak Hotel
Year: 1988Elvis (Keith) goes missing when a teenager (Charlie Schlatter) kidnaps him after a 1972 concert and brings him home to meet his mother.
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Martin Shaw
Image Credit: PA Images via Getty Images Play: Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Year: 1985Elvis’ final hours were brought to life in Are You Lonesome Tonight?, which hit London’s West End in 1985. Martin Shaw took on the role of Presley as an older man in the stage play.
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Don Johnson
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Elvis and the Beauty Queen
Year: 1981Elvis and the Beauty Queen — a television movie — tells the true story of Presley (Johnson) and his love affair with Linda Thompson, a pageant contestant who was his live-in girlfriend and traveling companion during the last few years of his life.
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Kurt Russell
Image Credit: © Dick Clark Productions/courtesy Everett Collection Movie: Elvis
Year: 19791979’s Elvis — a television movie — follows Presley (Russell) preparing to give his first performance in eight years at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. In his dressing room leading up to the show, the star reflects on how he became The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Russell earned a nomination for outstanding lead actor in a limited series or a special at the 1979 Emmy Awards.