Spiritual citizens of Genovia and Miranda Priestley underlings, I have great news: Anne Hathaway has a new film out in 2023, and it’s getting great reviews. It’s called Eileen. It played at the Sundance Film Festival. She’s got blonde hair and Thomasin McKenzie from JoJo Rabbit is her love interest in it. I can’t wait! But while I do, here are the best Anne Hathaway movies in no particular order.
Before you start scrolling and get angry, just because something isn’t on here doesn’t mean I think it’s bad. I am simply selecting the films I think are the best. I’m also trying to spread out my picks from over the years; We all probably have a particular era that we best remember Hathaway’s movies from. But that might not be the same for everybody, so I want to include a little of everything. That also goes for different genres. We’ve got romantic comedies, indie dramas, science fiction, and (obviously) musicals here as well. The one thing we’re not gonna talk about is the time she hosted the Oscars with James Franco…as far as I’m concerned, that didn’t happen. We’re not talking about it, okay?? Time to get into Anne Hathaway’s best movies.
1’The Princess Diaries’ (2000)
It took me waaaaay too long to finally love this movie and its sequel. When I was an awkward, curly-haired preteen, everyone told me the main character reminded them of me. When I caught the trailer on television, I saw a girl who was constantly falling down and getting hit in the face. That’s how they saw me?! Then she got a blowout and was pretty, ugh! But despite my own personal trauma, I can admit that Anne Hathaway’s breakout film is one of her best. (So, so jealous that today’s teens have the bowl method and plop tutorials and are, in general, curl-positive.)
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2’The Devil Wears Prada’ (2006)
An aspiring journalist lands a prestige junior assistant position at the magazine she’s least qualified to write for: a high-end fashion title run by the formidable Miranda Priestly. This was the one for me. This is it. It’s an anti-romantic comedy… you’ve actively rooting against her to end up with these men. It’s funny. It challenges how women are represented on screen by showing the ways that Anne Hathaway’s character Andy’s “not like other girls” cool vibe isn’t always better.
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3’Interstellar’ (2014)
Christopher Nolan’s time-bending science fiction movie is epic and heartbreaking and bewildering at times, but Hathaway is kind of the anchor. It stands out as one of her quieter performances, and then all of a sudden there’s a scene between her and Matthew McConaughey about the nature of love that will knock your socks off.
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4’Brokeback Mountain’ (2005)
Hathaway’s performance is just a small part of this sweeping and ultimately tragic romance, but this is just an amazing film. I think we forget just how good this film is because of drama surrounding it at the time and Ledger’s tragic death a few years later. Hathaway might not be in it much—maybe even less than Michelle Williams—but she’s so good, and the film remains elite.
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5’Ocean’s Eight’ (2018)
This movie is underrated, THERE I SAID IT!!! And Anne Hathaway is genuinely hilarious as a heightened caricature of a celebrity not unlike herself. I don’t want to give too much away if you haven’t seen the movie yet, but she becomes a much bigger part of the movie than you might initially think. It really levels up the plot.
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6’Rachel Getting Married’ (2008)
Jonathan Demme’s indie is about a complicated, messy, angry woman the likes of which we now see all the time–but more often, like, on an HBO original series about a murder. This is just an indie about a woman who is going through it and ruining her sister’s wedding. (Come for the wedding drama, stay for the briefest of Sebastian Stan cameos). Hathaway was nominated for a lot of awards for this performance but was snubbed when it came to the Oscars. While that was a bummer then, now it just means Rachel Getting Married is an underrated performance that new fans can discover!
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7’Song One’ (2014)
This movie has a bizarre premise. It’s about a woman, played by Hathaway, who goes to see her brother’s favorite musician while her brother’s in a coma after a car accident and connects with said musician–played by actor and IRL indie musician Johnny Flynn from Emma. What results is a sweet, melancholy romance with some good tunes.
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8’Colossal’ (2016)
Anne Hathaway plays a woman who’s going through it (when is she not) but slowly starts to realize that her breakdown is somehow corresponding to catastrophic events. The monster rampaging through Seoul on the other side of the world? She’s controlling it! It’s quirky and weird and IIRC correctly was called the “Hathwaissance” back in 2016. If you ask me, she never left.
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9’The Intern’ (2015)
Nine years after The Devil Wears Prada, Hathaway’s the boss at a fashion website that hires a retiree played by Robert De Niro as an intern. They learn from each other. It’s a wholesome comedy. There are a handful of cringe jokes from De Niro’s character about how guys these days don’t know how to dress or whatever, but… it doesn’t ruin the movie and he’s not wrong.
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10’Dark Waters’ (2019)
Mark Ruffalo was in his Exposing Truth Era (between this and Spotlight, that is) and brought Hathaway with him. Dark Waters is about the DuPont scandal. Long story short, this company contaminated a town with harmful chemicals. Not great!
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11’Becoming Jane’ (2007)
So what if this romantic Jane Austen biopic isn’t historically accurate? Put that aside and lean into the silliness. It’s fun and sexy to watch Hathaway and James McAvoy flirt, and I can’t be bothered with whether or not any of this “really” “happened”–okay? This is a romantic and devastating costume drama, and Hathaway is great in it.
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12’Les Misérables’ (2012)
This is not my favorite movie musical. I wasn’t thrilled with how they tried to sell “live singing” as a gimmick. (That’s what people do all the time on stage… big whoop.) The way the camera swirled around was overwhelming. I don’t even want to talk about Russell Crowe. But Anne Hathaway earned that Oscar.
