Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan returned to their successfulFreaky Fridayfranchise with the sequelFreakier Friday.While this has always been a fan-favorite franchise for the two,the originalFreaky Fridaymoviewas also critically acclaimed for Curtis, who picked up a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
That said,Jamie Lee Curtis is an actress who has always been interesting to follow, as she has appeared in some iconic films throughout her career, and she even won an Oscar for one of her more recent roles. She hasworked with brilliant directors like James Cameronand even helped start a launch mystery movie franchise.
From her performances in one of Hollywood’s most important slasher movies to a fantasy genre Oscar win,Jamie Lee Curtis has a lot of great moviesfor anyone who wants to see more of her afterFreaky Friday.
8Knives Out (2019)
BeforeRian Johnson decided to make hisKnives OutmoviesNetflix exclusives, the first film, simply titledKnives Out,was a theatrical release with a fantastic cast. The film follows the mysterious death of author Harlan Thronbey (Christopher Plummer).The main suspects for detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) are the author’s family.
The movie was a great mystery story in the style of Agatha Christie, but what made it fun was the cast. On top of Jamie Lee Curtis, who played one of Harlan’s children, the cast also included Michael Shannon as her brother, Don Johnson as her husband, and Chris Evans as her son.
The purpose of murder mystery movies like this is to make all the suspects suspicious, and everyone played their parts in this movie perfectly. Curtis was very seedy and protective, and while she was never really much of a suspect, she was someone who had something to hide, and it was clear she understood the genre.
“I really felt like I was this tiny, tiny, delicious but tiny little part of the puzzle,” Curtis toldPEOPLEaboutKnives Out. “I’m a bit of a weapon of mass promotion and I got behind that one in a big way, because it was so fun and great and people loved it.”
7The Last Showgirl (2024)
One of the more surprising Jamie Lee Curtis movies arrived in 2024. What madeThe Last Showgirlso interestingwas that its main star was Pamela Anderson. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s granddaughter, Gia Coppola, the movie stars Anderson as a 57-year-old showgirl who learns her three-decade-long show is ending. Curtis plays her friend Annette, a former showgirl who is now a cocktail waitress.
Cutis played an essential role in the film because her character shows Anderson’s Shelly what it looks like when her role as a showgirl ends, as this is what is likely next for her to continue working. Anderson earned a Golden Globe for her performance, but the SAG also recognized Curtis for her important role in the story.
6Trading Places (1983)
In the 1970s and 1980s,Jamie Lee Curtis started to make her name as a Scream Queen, thanks to roles in movies likeHalloween, The Fog,andProm Night.However, there was more to her performance than being a Final Girl running from a killer with a big knife. She proved this inTrading Places.
Trading Placesstars Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd as two men who switch places in their lives to see how they adapt. Murphy is a poor street hustler, and Aykroyd is an upper-class broker. John Landis directed the movie, and he cast Jamie Lee Curtis as Ophelia, a sex worker who helps Aykroyd’s character adjust to the streets.
This was the performance that changed Jamie Lee Curtis’s career. Known exclusively for her horror roles, she found it challenging to secure roles in other films. However, thanks to Landis, she proved her worth as a comedy actress and was able to transition away from horror and into different genres, helping to further her career.
“It’s all because John Landis saw something in the four days that we spent on the backlot at Universal. He felt I could be Ophelia in Trading Places, which then changed everything,“Jamie Lee Curtis said about the role.
5Freaky Friday (2003)
Many film fans are discovering the world ofFreaky Fridayfor the first time. However,Freakier Fridayis a sequel to the thirdFreaky Fridaymovie, and it even comes after a horror version calledFreaky.The first movie arrived in 1976 with a young Jodie Foster, followed by another in 1995, starring Shelley Long.
However, the 2003 version with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan remains the best of the franchise. Lohan is Anna, a teenage musician whose mother, Tess, is a widowed psychiatrist. The mother and daughter then magically switch bodies and must figure out how to make it work as they search for a way to reverse the curse.
The movie was a huge success, and while Lohan received praise for her performance, it was Curtis who received the most acclaim. Delivering what might be the funniest role of her career, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance, andCurtis was more than happy to return to the role22 years later.
4True Lies (1994)
In 1994,Jamie Lee Curtis tried something completely different. She signed up for an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie directed by James Cameron. The director smartly had Curtis delivering some funny, awkward moments, playing off her proven skills as a comic actress in the 1980s, and what resulted ended up as a cult classic.
True Liesstarred Schwarzenegger as U.S. government agent Harry Tasker. However, his life as a spy is top secret, so not even his wife, Helen (Curtis), knows what he does for a living, other than his cover job as a salesman.True Lieshasn’t aged well in some areasbecause Helen has to suffer through the “bored housewife” trope.
However, this is where Jamie Lee Curtis shines. While her storyline is not the best, it gives the actress a chance to show her comedic chops as she gets set up to be a spy and then has to get into character and deal with situations she has no experience with. Curtis excelled in the entire fish-out-of-water situation.
3A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
WhileTrading Placesgave Jamie Lee Curtis a chance to prove she could do comedy, it wasA Fish Called Wandathat remains her masterpiece in the genre. It is a heist movie with a group of incompetent criminals trying to pull off a diamond heist. Curtis is one of these thieves.
Monty Python member Michael Palin and actor Kevin Kline join Jamie Lee Curtis as three of the thieves in a group of criminals who all have plans to double-cross each other. What makes it work so well is the American-British culture clash, as Palin and John Cleese are the British characters while Kline and Curtis are American criminals.
This is also an interesting heist movie, as it cares more about the aftermath of the heist and the criminals trying to one-up each other than the heist itself. This gives actors like Curtis a chance to shine, since the movie lives and dies with its characters, and Curtis matches up well with veterans Cleese, Klein, and Palin.
2Halloween (1978)
When most people talk about Jamie Lee Curtis’s career,the one movie almost everyone brings up first isHalloween.While not the first slasher,Halloweenis the movie that most people mention as the release that popularized the genre. That makesCurtis the first popular Scream Queenin horror movie history.
At the young age of 20, Curtis played a high school student babysitting on Halloween night. While at the kids' house, Michael Myers shows up in town and starts his bloody rampage, killing anyone he crosses, and on a collision course with Laurie Strode. Curtis was so good in the role that she returned for several sequels.
Curtis delivered such a good performance as the Final Girl inHalloweenthat she almost got typecast in horror movies. She followed this up with roles in another John Carpenter movie,The Fog,and another themed horror movie,Prom Night.
1Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Jamie Lee Curtis has enjoyed a long Hollywood career and has appeared in several great movies over the last five decades. However, what might be hard to believe is the fact that she has only earned one Oscar nomination in her illustrious career. That came from the 2022 movieEverything Everywhere All at Once.
Everything Everywhere All at Oncetells the story of Evelyn, an Asian woman in America who believes she has wasted her life and wonders what could have been. She learns a little about the answer to this question when she ends up being transported to different Earths in the multiverse, and sees the lives she could have lived.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays characters in different timelines, including on Prime Earth, where she is an IRS Revenue Agent investigating Evelyn and her laundromat business. She also had other roles on various Earths, including one of the most unusual, where she had hot dog fingers.
Everything Everywhere All At Oncewas a monster critical success, with a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and 11 Oscar nominations. The film won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan), and Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis).
