Jamie Lee Curtis has starred in critically-acclaimed movies from the very start of her career, and she is still making hits over 40 years later. Curtis got her on-screen debut in John Carpenter’s Halloween. Her role as Laurie Strode immediately marked her out as a young actor worth watching, and she has returned to the franchise periodically throughout her career. She soon gained a reputation as an iconic scream queen of her generation.
Following her success in the horror franchise, Jamie Lee Curtis starred in comedy movies to diversify her repertoire. Starting with Trading Places, Curtis showed that she was also one of the best comedic 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.
Related Jamie Lee Curtis’ Parents: Did Janet Leigh Or Tony Curtis Ever Win An Oscar?
Jamie Lee Curtis is the well-known child of Hollywood royalty, and her 2023 Oscar win was the culmination of her career, but did her parents ever win?
10 Blue Steel (1990)
Officer Megan Turner
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Director Kathryn Bigelow Release Date March 16, 1990 Cast Jamie Lee Curtis , Ron Silver , Clancy Brown , Elizabeth Peña , Louise Fletcher , Philip Bosco , Kevin Dunn , Richard Jenkins , Markus Flanagan , Mary Mara , Skipp Lynch , Mike Hodge , Mike Starr , chris walker , Tom Sizemore , David Ilku , Andrew Hubatsek , Joe Jamrog , Matt Craven , Reginald Wells , Heidi Kempf , Toni Darling Expand
Blue Steel 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 she becomes 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 from Curtis make Blue Steel a thrilling detective drama.
Bigelow’s flair for action and a fine performance from Curtis make
Blue Steel
a thrilling detective drama.
Blue Steel is a hidden gem, largely forgotten after its poor box office run and an abundance of other gritty detective dramas in the 1990s. It’s also another example of Curtis’ underappreciated range. She delivers a superb dramatic performance that helps Blue Steel work much better than it has any right to. Even when the violence tips over into absurdity, Curtis keeps things emoitonally grounded.
9 The Fog (1980)
Elizabeth Solley
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Director John Carpenter Release Date February 8, 1980 Cast Adrienne Barbeau , Tom Atkins , Jamie Lee Curtis , Hal Holbrook , Janet Leigh
Just two years after their first collaboration in Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter teamed up for another horror movie. Curtis plays one of the residents of a small town gripped by a supernatural fog which carries the vengeful spirits of a shipwreck which took place a century earlier. Carpenter showcases his mastery of suspense and tension, as the townsfolk struggle to understand how to combat the fog.
Carpenter showcases his mastery of suspense and tension, as the townsfolk struggle to understand how to combat the fog.
The Fog is noteworthy for being the first movie that features both Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother, Janet Leigh. The Psycho star also appeared alongside her daughter in 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Both actors show in The Fog why they are so often associated with the horror genre, as they have the perfect mix of innocence and grit which can create fleshed-out characters.
8 True Lies (1994)
Helen Tasker
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Director James Cameron Release Date July 15, 1994 Cast Tom Arnold , Eliza Dushku , Bill Paxton , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Jamie Lee Curtis
True Lies was the first movie to cost over $100 million, but James Cameron has proven time and time again that he’s a director capable of delivering results with big budgets. Before Titanic and Avatar, True Lies was another huge blockbuster hit. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a secret agent who struggles to conceal 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 movie’s humor.
While Schwarzenegger provides the action hero muscle, Curtis carries a lot of the movie’s humor. There are a few layers of dramatic irony to pull apart in the front half of the movie, with Curtis playing the oblivious wife who thinks her husband’s work is so boring that she wishes she could be with a secret agent instead. After the big revelation inevitably comes, Curtis gets a rare chance to play action hero.
7 Halloween (2018)
Laurie Strode
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Halloween (2018) 
3.5 1
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Director David Gordon Green Release Date October 18, 2018 Cast Jamie Lee Curtis , Judy Greer , Andi Matichak , Will Patton , Virginia Gardner , James Jude Courtney , Nick Castle
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 which came between them. This helps to straighten out the muddled timeline, and it makes it much more accessible for newcomers to the franchise.
There are a few callbacks to the original, but
Halloween
doesn’t overdo it, and it crafts an original slasher worthy of the franchise name.
Halloween marked a return to form for the franchise, after a string of underwhelming sequels. By taking things back to basics, Halloween recaptures a lot of what made John Carpenter’s original such an immense cult hit. Jamie Lee Curtis has appeared in a total of seven Halloween movies, and the 2018 movie gives her character an interesting story for once. There are a few callbacks to the original, but Halloween doesn’t overdo it, and it crafts an original slasher worthy of the franchise name.
6 Knives Out (2019)
Linda Drysdale
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Knives Out 4.5 10
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Director Rian Johnson Release Date November 27, 2019 Cast Chris Evans , LaKeith Stanfield , Katherine Langford , Daniel Craig , Toni Collette , Jamie Lee Curtis , Ana De Armas , Michael Shannon , Christopher Plummer , Don Johnson , Riki Lindhome
Knives Out presents itself as a classic murder mystery, styled as if Poirot may 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 whodunnit with a wealthy family full of suspects, Knives Out wraps up its central mystery long before it ends, and the remainder 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 isn’t so simple.
Curtis doesn’t play villains very often, but
Knives Out
showed a sinister side to her that suggests she should consider doing so more often.
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. As Marta, Harlan’s nurse, is bequeathed his entire inheritance, she leads the family in threatening her to relinquish the money. Curtis doesn’t play villains very often, but Knives Out showed a sinister side to her that suggests she should consider doing so more often.
5 Freaky Friday (2003)
Tess Coleman
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Freaky Friday 1
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Director Mark Waters Release Date August 6, 2003 Cast Jamie Lee Curtis , Lindsay Lohan , Harold Gould , Chad Michael Murray , Mark Harmon
Body swap comedies have created a surprisingly common subgenre, with movies like 13 Going On 30 and Big, so it’s admirable that Freaky Friday captures so much of what makes the idea appealing without reinventing the genre too much. Jamie Lee Curtis stars alongside Lindsay Lohan as a mother and daughter who magically swap bodies thanks to a fortune cookie. They must then live as each other without raising suspicion.
Curtis and Lohan are both capable of getting laughs, but their bond rings true.
The family angle is what gives Freaky Friday its heart. The comedy comes from Tess and Anna trying to keep up appearances while acting as different ages in an unfamiliar environment, but the emotional throughline is about a mother and daughter learning to understand each other’s perspective. Curtis and Lohan are both capable of getting laughs, but their bond rings true. Decades later, a Freaky Friday sequel titled Freakier Friday is in development, with both actors returning.
4 Trading Places (1983)
Ophelia
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Director John Landis Release Date June 8, 1983 Cast Eddie Murphy , Jamie Lee Curtis , Ralph Bellamy , Don Ameche , Dan Aykroyd , Denholm Elliott
Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd’s rags-to-riches comedy finds both actors at their peak, but it would be an entirely different prospect without Jamie Lee Curtis. Although Trading Places appears 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.
Trading Places
seems more political than it really is, but it works with the same pieces as any comedy of manners.
Curtis plays a street-smart sex worker who drags Dan Aykroyd’s pampered stockbroker character back to his gilded lifestyle when he is turfed out by his employers. Her impatient brand of confidence works brilliantly with Aykroyd’s put-upon “woe is me” act. Eddie Murphy’s fast-talking, zany wildcard is the final ingredient in a delightful comedic 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
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Director John Carpenter Release Date October 27, 1978 Cast Donald Pleasence , Jamie Lee Curtis , Tony Moran , Nancy Kyes , P.J. Soles , Kyle Richards , Charles Cyphers
The first Halloween movie established Jamie Lee Curtis’ reputation as a scream queen, and it remains the best movie in the long-running Halloween franchise. As well as kick-starting Curtis’ career, Halloween also propelled John Carpenter to new heights. He soon built on this solid start with a string of hits throughout the 1980s which helped revitalize the horror genre.
Carpenter is a puppet master who knows exactly how to make his audience squirm, and in Curtis he found a sympathetic star worth rooting for.
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 squirm, and in Curtis he found a sympathetic star worth rooting for. Halloween became one of the highest-grossing independent movies of all time, largely thanks to word-of-mouth.
2 A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Wanda Gershwitz
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Director Charles Crichton , John Cleese Release Date July 15, 1988 Cast John Cleese , Jamie Lee Curtis , Kevin Kline , Michael Palin , Maria Aitken , Tom Georgeson
A Fish Called Wanda was 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 bicker over the take once their leader is arrested. Jamie Lee Curtis plays a femme fatale character who seduces the barrister leading the prosecution against her boss.
A Fish Called Wanda
is an outstanding British crime caper that harks back to the glory days of Ealing comedies.
Curtis is at her funniest in A Fish Called Wanda. Her confidence is the perfect counter to Cleese’s bumbling, bashful persona. Their on-screen relationship reflects the culture-clash comedy of A Fish Called Wanda, as Curtis and Kevin Kline play two boisterous 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 harks back to the glory days of Ealing comedies.
1 Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Deirdre Beaubeirdre
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Everything Everywhere All at Once 4.0 4
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Director Daniel Kwan , Daniel Scheinert Release Date March 25, 2022 Cast Jenny Slate , Ke Huy Quan , Stephanie Hsu , Harry Shum Jr. , Jamie Lee Curtis , James Hong , Michelle Yeoh
Jamie Lee Curtis won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and the absurdist sci-fi comedy from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won six other Oscars. Curtis plays the dreary IRS agent who gets increasingly frustrated with the Wang family’s scattershot approach to paperwork. However, she is only the bland antagonist in one universe. As the multiverse starts to split open, she is shown as a hero, a villain, and Evelyn’s sausage-fingered lover.
Jamie Lee Curtis won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for
Everything Everywhere All At Once
.
Everything Everywhere All at Once is densely layered, even if it sometimes appears to be spewing random nonsense. The jokes about “racacoonie” and the scene with two rocks sharing a quiet moment together atop a cliff highlight the true meaning of the story, however. In an endlessly sprawling multiverse, human bonds are the only things which hold any intrinsic value. By letting their creativity flow without impediment, the Daniels reaffirm the beauty of the mundane.