Jamie Lee Curtis’ 10 Best Movies, Ranked

Jamie Lee Curtis starred in critically-acclaimed movies from the start of her career, and she’s still making hits over 40 years later. Curtis made her screen debut in John Carpenter Halloween. Her role as Laurie Strode immediately established her as a young actor worth watching, and she returned to the franchise periodically throughout her career. She soon gained a reputation as an iconic actress of her generation.

After her success in the horror franchise, Jamie Lee Curtis starred in comedy movies to diversify her repertoire. Starting with Trading placesCurtis showed that she is also one of the best comedy actors in Hollywood. Curtis became much less prolific in the 2000s and early 2010s as she took a step back from Hollywood to focus on her family. Since returning, she has enjoyed a career renaissance, including some of her most famous roles.

10

Blue Steel (1990)

Officer Megan Turner

Blue style was one of Kathryn Bigelow’s earliest hits, a year before she directed Point break. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as a rookie cop who shoots a robber on her first day of duty, before becoming involved in tracking down a serial killer linked to the incident. Their cat-and-mouse game often defies belief, but Bigelow’s flair for action and a fine performance by Curtis make Blue style An exciting detective drama.

Blue style is a hidden gemLargely forgotten after its poor box office run and a plethora of other gritty detective dramas in the 1990s. It’s also another example of Curtis’ underappreciated range. She gives a superb dramatic performance which helps Blue style Works much better than it has any right to. Even when the violence veers into absurdity, Curtis keeps things emotionally grounded.

9

The Fog (1980)

Elizabeth Solly

Just two years after their first collaboration in HalloweenJamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter together for another horror movie. Curtis plays one of the residents of a small town gripped by a supernatural fog that carries the vengeful spirit of a shipwreck that happened a century earlier. Carpenter showcases his mastery of tension and suspense, as the townsfolk struggle to understand how to combat the fog.

The fog is noteworthy for being the first movie to feature both Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother, Janet Lei. The Psycho Star also appeared together with her daughter in 1998s Halloween H20: 20 years later. Both actors show in The fog Why they are so often associated with the horror genre, because they have the perfect mix of innocence and grit that can make fleshed out characters.

8

True Lies (1994)

Helen Tasker

True read Was the first movie to cost over $100 million, but James Cameron has proven once again that he is a director who is able to deliver results with big budgets. Before Titanic And Avatar, True read was another huge blockbuster hit. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a secret agent who struggles to hide his work from his family, with Jamie Lee Curtis playing his wife.

While Schwarzenegger provides the action hero muscle, Curtis carries a lot of the humor of the movie. There are several layers of dramatic irony to pull apart in the first half of the movie, with Curtis playing the oblivious wife who thinks her husband’s job is so boring that she wishes she could be with a secret agent instead. After the great revelation inevitably comes, Curtis gets a rare opportunity to play an action hero.

7

Halloween (2018)

Laurie Strode

Confusingly, 2018’s Halloween is the third movie in the franchise to be titled halloween, After the 1978 original and the 2007 reboot. The 2018 version acts as a direct sequel to the original, ignoring the events of every other sequel that came between them. This helps to smooth out the muddled timeline, and it makes it much more accessible to newcomers to the franchise.

Halloween Marked a return to form for the franchiseAfter a string of underwhelming sequels. By taking things back to basics, Halloween Recaptures much of what made John Carpenter’s original such a huge cult hit. Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in a total of seven Halloween movies, and the 2018 movie gives her character an interesting story for once. There are some callbacks to the original, however Halloween Does not overdo it, and it crafts an original slasher worthy of the franchise name.

6

Knives Out (2019)

Linda Drysdale

Knives Out It presents itself as a classic murder mystery, styled as if Poirot could enter the room at any point. however, Rian Johnson’s first Benoit Blanc movie is more experimental than it seems. Although it starts out as a whodunit with a wealthy family full of suspects, Knives Out Wraps up its central mystery long before it ends, and the rest of the story focuses on the desperate race for survival. Knives Out Knows that solving a crime is only half the battle, and the idea of ​​justice is not so simple.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays the eldest daughter of the murdered novelist, and she shifts from being a key suspect to becoming a different kind of villain altogether. When Martha, Harlan’s nurse, is handed over his entire inheritance, she leads the family in threatening to leave her the money. Curtis doesn’t play very often, though Knives Out Showed her an evil side that suggests she should consider doing that more often.

5

Freaky Friday (2003)

Tess Coleman

Body swap comedies have created a surprisingly common subgenre, with movies like 13 goes on 30 And GreatSo it is admirable that Freaky Friday Captures so much of what makes this idea appealing without reinventing the genre too much. Jamie Lee Curtis stars alongside Lindsay Lohan as a mother and daughter who magically switch bodies thanks to a fortune cookie. They must therefore live like everyone else without raising suspicion.

The family angle is what gives Freaky Friday His heart. The comedy comes from Tess and Anna trying to keep up appearances while acting like different ages in an unfamiliar environment, but the emotional passage is about a mother and daughter learning to understand each other’s perspective. Curtis and Lohan are both capable of laughs, but their bond rings true. Ten years later, A Freaky Friday Sequel with title Friday Friday is in development, with both actors returning.

4

Trading Places (1983)

Ophelia

Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd’s rags-to-riches comedy finds both actors at their peak, but it would be a very different prospect without Jamie Lee Curtis. Although Trading places Appearing to be about capitalism and income inequality, it’s structured more like a throwback screwball comedy, and it gets most of its laughs from the personal differences between the characters.

Curtis plays a street-smart sex worker who drags Dan Aykroyd’s pampered stockbroker character back to his gilded lifestyle when he’s turfed by his employers. Her impatient brand of confidence works brilliantly with Aykroyd’s put-on “woe is me” act. Eddie Murphy’s fast-talking, zany wildcard is the final ingredient in a delightful comic cocktail. Trading places Seems more political than it really is, but it works with the same pieces as any comedy of manners.

3

Halloween (1978)

Laurie Strode

The first Halloween The movie established Jamie Lee Curtis’ reputation as a scream queen, and it remains the best movie in the long run Halloween Franchise. As well as kick-starting Curtis’ career, Halloween Also propelled John Carpenter to new heights. He soon built on that solid start with a string of hits throughout the 1980s that helped revitalize the horror genre.

Halloween Opens in shocking style, with a young Michael Myers stabbing his own sister to death. This powerful image hangs over the rest of the action, showing that the face in the shadows is not just out to scare people on Halloween night. Carpenter is a puppet master who knows exactly how to make his audience swoon, and in Curtis he found a sympathetic star worth rooting for. Halloween became one of the highest-grossing independent movies of all timeThanks largely to word-of-mouth.

2

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Wanda Gershwich

A fish called Wanda is written by John Cleese, who stars alongside Michael Palin. Thanks to these two, there’s a definite hint of Monty Python absurdity to the heist comedy, but it’s also more grounded and relatable. The story follows a dysfunctional gang who steal some diamonds in London, but they fight over the names once their leader is arrested. Jamie Lee Curtis plays a fatal character who seduces the barrister leading the prosecution against her employer.

Curtis is at her funniest A fish called Wanda. Her confidence is the perfect counter to Cleese’s bumbling, shy persona. Their on-screen relationship reflects the culture-clash comedy of A fish called Wanda, As Curtis and Kevin Kline play two rowdy Americans on British soil. With some brilliant dark humor and just the right amount of the surreal, A fish called Wanda is an outstanding British crime caper that harkens back to the glory days of Ealing comedies.

1

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Deirdre Beaubeirdre

Jamie Lee Curtis won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for everything everywhere all at once, And the absurd sci-fi comedy by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won six other Oscars. Curtis plays the clumsy IRS agent who becomes increasingly frustrated with the Wang family’s sloppy approach to paperwork. However, she is only the tough antagonist in one universe. As the multiverse starts to split apart, she is shown as a hero, a villain and Evelyn’s sausage-fingered lover.

Everything everywhere all at once is thickly layered, even if it sometimes seems to feed random nonsense. The jokes about “raccoon” and the scene with two rocks sharing a quiet moment together on a cliff emphasize the true meaning of the story, however. In an endlessly sprawling multiverse, human bonds are the only things that hold any intrinsic value. By letting their creativity flow unhindered, the Daniels affirm the beauty of the mundane.