He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Breakfast Club (1985) and Die Hard (1988).
In 1979, Paul Gleason did a dandruff shampoo commercial for Tegrin Medicated Shampoo. It famously ran as a commercial on CBS during Magic Johnson's first NBA game with the Los Angeles Lakers.