David Boreanaz's 5 Greatest TV Roles, Ranked

When it comes to reliable leading men for long-running TV shows, few actors have the staying power and in-built appeal of David Boreanaz. Across more than three decades, he has headlined multiple successful series in several genres, proving himself equally comfortable with supernatural drama, procedural crime stories and military action.

While he’s predominantly known for a few specific roles that he stepped into for years at a time, David Boreanaz’s career has some hidden gem performances. His range is wider than his most well-known appearances, such as his tenures on Bones and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would suggest. He may not have the most varied small screen career in Hollywood, but he certainly has one of its most consistent.

Frank In Married... with Children (1993)

Married... with Children is a well-known classic sitcom centered on the dysfunctional Bundy family, famously starring Modern Family's Ed O'Neill as Al Bundy, and David Boreanaz briefly appeared in the series as a guest star in the season 7 episode “Movie Show.” Boreanaz’s TV debut was playing Kelly Bundy’s (Christina Applegate) unfaithful boyfriend, Frank, a character far removed from the brooding supernatural heroes and hardened military operatives that would eventually define his career. It's a small role, but one that offers an interesting snapshot of the actor before he became a recognizable star.

Frank in Married… with Children stands out in David Boreanaz's wider career for how different the performance is from his later work. His first appearance wasn't in a gritty action-packed series, but in a show with a wildly different tone from those he’s now known for. It also demonstrates that he could have easily found his way into doing more sitcom work, since his comedic timing definitely isn’t bad. Frank is not a major role, but its place in Boreanaz's career is still significant, and it’s a great performance too.

Jace Cooper In Full Circle (2013)

Created by Neil Labute, the anthology drama Full Circle aired from 2013-2016 on the Audience Network. David Boreanaz starred in season 1 as Jace Cooper, a provocative stand-up comedian who finds himself going viral for all the wrong reasons after making a poor-taste joke. Unlike his most famous TV shows like SEAL Team and Bones, Full Circle gave Boreanaz a chance to shine in a more contained, dialogue-driven dramatic environment.

Jace Cooper in Full Circle is particularly fascinating because he proves that David Boreanaz is also comfortable outside the heroic archetypes he’s known for playing. Jace is part of a more intimate and deliberately constructed drama, giving the actor room to explore a character without the demands of a long-running procedural or genre series. Full Circle will always be one of the lesser-known David Boreanaz TV show roles, but its relative obscurity isn’t a reflection of the quality of the performance.

Jason Hayes In SEAL Team (2017-2024)

Airing first on CBS before moving to Paramount+, the hit military drama SEAL Team follows an elite group of Navy SEALs as they undertake dangerous missions while dealing with the personal and psychological consequences of their profession. It’s also undeniably David Boreanaz’s most successful role of the past decade. Boreanaz leads the SEAL Team cast as Jason Hayes, the team's leader. He plays the character with a combination of authority and emotional restraint that teases deep internal conflict.

David Boreanaz is particularly effective in SEAL Time when it comes to conveying Jason's ability to lead a team into danger without making him feel invulnerable. The character has the confidence expected from someone in command, but Boreanaz also communicates the exhaustion and uncertainty beneath the hardened exterior. His performance gives the show's military action a human center, allowing the quieter moments to carry as much weight as the combat sequences.

Still, Jason Hayes is not Boreanaz's absolute best TV show role for a key reason. His performance in SEAL Team overlaps with qualities he already explored elsewhere. Yes, he exudes stoicism, confidence, and natural authority, but these are all things he’d already proved he could do. He is excellent at embodying Jason's burden, particularly as the character's personal and professional lives increasingly collide, but the performance isn’t iconic, whereas his best roles definitely are. However, it’s still noteworthy for being yet another strong leading role in an exceptionally consistent career.

Angel In Buffy The Vampire Slayer & Angel (1997-2004)

If any one role could be said to have cemented David Boreanaz’s career, it’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Season 1 introduced audiences to his long-running character Angel, a vampire cursed with a soul. Initially defined by his mysterious presence and tragic romance with Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Angel gradually developed into a complex antihero whose struggle for redemption became central to his story. That evolution eventually led to the spinoff Angel in 1999, where Boreanaz took the character from supporting player to leading man across 5 seasons.

Playing Angel isn’t just important because it launched David Boreanaz's career, however. It’s also still one of his best performances, especially when it comes to how he harnessed emotional restraint. Angel’s brooding, sometimes melodramatic, nature could easily have become one-note. However, the more Boreanaz gradually revealed his guilt, compassion, and capacity for violence, the deeper and more complex Angel became. His performance became even more dynamic after he moved from the romantic tragedy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer into the morally complicated world of Angel.

Still, as iconic as it is, Angel is not quite David Boreanaz's best TV role. It’s a close call between his stint on Buffy and Angel and his greatest television character, but Angel just loses out. This isn’t because of anything wrong with his performance either. It’s simply that the leading role audiences would see Boreanaz step into after Angel concluded in 2004 was more refined, polished, and reflected the acting experience he’d gained on the show and throughout the 3 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer he’d been a main cast member on.

Seeley Booth In Bones (2005-2017)

Running for 12 seasons from 2005-2018, it’s hard to deny that co-leading the Fox procedural drama Bones as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth is David Boreanaz’s best TV show role, even compared to his time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The show hinges on the partnership between forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Boreanaz’s Booth, and he’s a key reason the series remains beloved. The show's cases may have provided its weekly structure, but its enduring appeal came from the evolving relationship between its central characters, and Boreanaz was essential to this.

David Boreanaz’s ability to balance Booth's grounded professionalism with an easy sense of humor and emotional warmth gave Bones its charm. Booth may be a capable investigator who can handle himself in dangerous situations, but Boreanaz never allows that competence to overwhelm the character's humanity. His chemistry with Emily Deschanel created a believable contrast between Booth's intuitive approach to the world and Brennan's more analytical perspective. Boreanaz also handled the show's shifts in tone with remarkable consistency, moving naturally between comedy, romance, family drama, and darker crime stories with ease.

Booth ultimately ranks above Angel and Jason Hayes because Bones brought out a much broader range from David Boreanaz’s performance, and also allowed him to develop a character over an extraordinary 12-season run. Through Boreanaz, Booth could be lighthearted without becoming comic relief, serious without feeling melodramatic, and authoritative without losing his warmth. Bones gave him his definitive acting showcase, and Seeley Booth remains the clearest example of just how effective David Boreanaz can be when a role allows him to combine every strength in his considerable range.