Having made his film début in the 1985 film "The Good Father", Fry had a brief appearance in "A Fish Called Wanda" (in which he is knocked out by Kevin Kline, who is posing as an airport security man), and then appeared as the eponymous Peter in Kenneth Branagh's "Peter's Friends" in 1992. In the 1994 romantic comedy film "I.Q.", he played the role of James Moreland. Portraying his idol Oscar Wilde (of whom he had been an ardent admirer since the age of 13) in the 1997 film "Wilde", he fulfilled to critical acclaim a role that he has said he was "born to play". It also earned him a nomination for Best Actor – Drama in the 1998 Golden Globe Award. In 1997, he also had a cameo in the Spice Girls film "Spice World". A year later, Fry starred in David Yates' small independent film "The Tichborne Claimant", and in 2001, he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama, "Gosford Park". In the same year, he also appeared in the Dutch film "The Discovery of Heaven", directed by Jeroen Krabbé and based on the novel by Harry Mulisch.