[21] In 1987, Black joined the Actors' Gang, a theater troupe founded by UCLA students including Tim Robbins, and appeared in a variety of stage productions.

[22] Black's adult career began with small roles on prime time television, including Life Goes On, Northern Exposure, Mr. Show, Picket Fences, The Golden Palace, and The X-Files.

Black appeared in the unaired TV pilot Heat Vision and Jack, directed by Ben Stiller, in which he played an ex-astronaut pursued by actor Ron Silver.

[24] In 2000, Black co-starred in the film High Fidelity as a wild employee in a record store run by John Cusack.

[25] He quickly gained leading roles in films such as Saving Silverman, Shallow Hal, Nacho Libre, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Year One, and Gulliver's Travels.

He received particular praise for his starring role in the well-received School of Rock, earning critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy.

[32] He starred in one of his few dramatic roles as the obsessed filmmaker Carl Denham in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong, a performance he based on Orson Welles.

In 2006, he played the role of King Herod in a one night benefit concert of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.

In 2007 he took a supporting role in the Noah Baumbach directed comedy-drama film Margot at the Wedding starring Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

That same year he made a cameo appearance portraying Paul McCartney in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007).

Black has voice acted on other occasions, including "Husbands and Knives" from The Simpsons, which aired November 18, 2007, portraying Milo, the friendly owner of the rival comic book store.

[34] The following year he starred in the buddy comedy Be Kind Rewind (2008) opposite Mos Def and the war satire Tropic Thunder alongside Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. On December 14, he hosted the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards.

[40] Black voiced Darth Vader in Bad Lip Reading's parodies of the Star Wars original trilogy on YouTube.

[41] In 2010, Black made a guest appearance on Community[42] and also guest-starred on Nickelodeon's iCarly in an episode titled, "iStart a Fan War".

[43][44] Black has appeared numerous times on the "untelevised TV network" short film festival Channel 101, created by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, starring in the shows Computerman, Timebelt, and Laserfart.

In the introduction, he claims to be George Washington and takes credit for the accomplishments of other American presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

[citation needed] His next film, The Big Year, a competitive birdwatching comedy co-starring Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and JoBeth Williams, was released in October 2011.

In 2017 he portrayed a teenage girl inhabiting the body of Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon in the children's action adventure comedy film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Also that year he starred in the children's fantasy film The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2019) alongside Cate Blanchett and Renée Elise Goldsberry.

Also that year he portrayed disc jockey Wolfman Jack in the Roku biographical parody film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022).

Starting in 2022 he reprised the role of Po in the Netflix animated series Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight.

[citation needed] The next year Black voiced Bowser in Illumination's animated feature film The Super Mario Bros. Movie based on the Nintendo games.

[53] Black then reprised his role Po in Kung Fu Panda 4, and voiced Claptrap in Borderlands (2024), and is set to play Steve in A Minecraft Movie (2025).

The film, directed by Tenacious D veteran Liam Lynch, featured recurring characters from Black's comedy such as Lee the super-fan and the Sasquatch.

[citation needed] Black also recorded a duet on Meat Loaf's album, Hang Cool Teddy Bear, on the song "Like a Rose".

Black has appeared in music videos of Beck's "Sexx Laws"; Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly", "Low", and "The One"; The Eagles of Death Metal's "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)"; Sum 41's "Things I Want"; Dio's "Push"; Weezer's "Photograph"; The Mooney Suzuki's "In a Young Man's Mind"; "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Tacky", and Die Antwoord's "Ugly Boy".

In 2012, Jack Black joined up with other celebrities to record "Book People Unite", a song sponsored by the Library of Congress and RIF.

Two days later, Black wrote on social media that he was "blindsided" by Gass' comment and that he did not condone hate speech or political violence "in any form".

[76][77] On July 21, 2019, Black took part in a Minecraft stream with popular YouTuber PewDiePie to raise money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), in the wake of the suicide of Etika in June 2019.

On the day of Trump's 2017 presidential inauguration, he and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass performed their 2006 protest song "The Government Totally Sucks".