As Halloween Ends, let's rank the best performances of Jamie Lee Curtis

From horror scream queen to all-around screen legend, we're counting down Jamie Lee Curtis' best roles

By Jack Smart, Todd Gilchrist, Cindy White, Robert DeSalvo, Luke Y. Thompson, Ian Spelling, Matthew Jackson | October 12, 2022 | 12:00pm

Film Features halloween

As Halloween Ends, let's rank the best performances of Jamie Lee Curtis

(Clockwise from top left:) Halloween (Photo: Compass International Pictures), Trading Places (Screenshot: Paramount Pictures), Everything Everywhere All At Once (Photo: Allyson Riggs/A24), True Lies (Screenshot: 20th Century Fox) Graphic: The A.V. Club

Jamie Lee Curtis invented horror cinema. Okay, not really, but she did pioneer an important slasher movie trope, starting with the 1978 classic Halloween. And she may as well have invented effortless sultriness (in True Lies), self-deprecating comedy (from Freaky Friday to Everything Everywhere All At Once), and the concept of being horny for foreign languages (A Fish Called Wanda). There’s seemingly very little the actor, producer, activist, and screen legend can’t do.

With so many varieties of films and performances under her belt, and with the arrival of Halloween Ends, the conclusion to the long-running horror franchise, we at The A.V. Club decided the time was right to take stock of Curtis’ best work. So read on to see where the likes of Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda and, of course, the Halloween franchise rank.

14. Perfect (1985)

[HQ] Jamie Lee Curtis & John Travolta Fitness Scene in “Perfect (1985)“ Director: James Bridges

The 1985 romantic drama is based on a series of articles published in Rolling Stone about the Los Angeles health club scene and how singles embraced it. The movie was released during the height of that 1980s exercise craze and stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Jessie Wilson, a ridiculously fit aerobics instructor who has some trust issues with journalists. This makes her initially wary of Adam Lawrence (John Travolta), a Rolling Stone reporter who wants to interview her about singles and the fitness scene. Jessie agrees and even becomes romantically involved with Adam, which causes him to lose his objectivity. She is furious when the heavily edited article is published, but she eventually comes to believe that Adam didn’t do her dirty and that his original article is not what ended up in the magazine. Perfect is far from perfect and didn’t give the box office a workout. But memes of when both actors were in peak physical condition are so common today that you would think the movie was a blockbuster. [Robert DeSalvo]

13. Roadgames (1981)

Road Games (1981) - Official Trailer

Roadgames arrived in the midst of Curtis’ early “scream queen” career, popping up after the three-pronged combo of Terror Train, Prom Night, and The Fog in 1980, and alongside her return as Laurie Strode in Halloween II in the fall of 1981. Unlike those films, though, Richard Franklin’s Australian road thriller allows Curtis to show off two skills she has since deployed frequently in her long and illustrious career: Her ability to do a lot with a little bit of screen time, and her ability to balance impeccable comic timing and razor-sharp delivery with pure horror sensibilities.Curtis isn’t the centerpiece of Roadgames. That honor goes to Stacy Keach as a wise-cracking trucker in the middle of a long haul who realizes he might be making the same stops as an active serial killer. When Curtis finally does pop up as Keach’s resident hitchhiker, her character inserts a new layer of dark humor into the film, matching his wit punch for punch with a vividly grim imagination that pushes the murder investigation to new heights. Despite taking quite a while to pop up in the film, then disappearing for a spell in the middle, she makes an immediate and unforgettable impression, stealing scenes from Keach in one of his best roles. [Matthew Jackson]

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12. The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train (all 1980)

The Fog (1980) - Official Trailer

Between her film debut in 1978’s Halloween and her return as Laurie Strode in 1981’s Halloween II, Jamie Lee Curtis made it clear that she was cinema’s reigning scream queen by starring in a whopping three horror films, all released in 1980. The best of these is , which reunites Curtis with Halloween director John Carpenter. Curtis plays a free-spirited drifter named Elizabeth Solley who picks the wrong time to hitchhike through Antonio Bay, California, as the ghosts from a 100-year-old shipwreck return for revenge. The Fog is the first on-screen pairing of Curtis and her mother, Janet Leigh, of Psycho fame. They would star together again one last time in 1998’s Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. is set at a New Year’s Eve costume party aboard a moving train and featuring a magician, played by David Copperfield. Curtis plays Alana Maxwell, a college student who is not so proud of a prank she participated in a few years back that humiliated a nerdy student. When a killer keeps switching masks and picking off passengers on the train, Curtis uses her formidable lungs and her final-girl expertise to expose the killer and make it to her destination.Last but not least, has developed a cult following thanks to Curtis’ performance as Kim Hammond (and the movie’s disco-heavy soundtrack). This otherwise formulaic Canadian slasher is about a vengeful masked killer who targets a group of seniors at their high school prom for the accidental death of a young girl six years earlier. With Curtis having established herself as a horror icon at this point, want to guess who has the last dance with the masked killer? [Robert DeSalvo]

11. Dominick And Eugene (1988)

Dominick and Eugene Official Trailer #1 - Ray Liotta Movie (1988) HD

is a low-key, often overlooked 1980s gem starring Tom Hulce and Ray Liotta. Hulce earned an Oscar nod a few years earlier for Amadeus, while Liotta had just earned raves for Something Wild. Here, they play wildly different characters: Nicky (Hulce) is a good-natured, naïve, mentally slow guy whose salary as a garbage man in a poor section of Pittsburgh goes toward paying the medical school tuition of his brilliant, protective, doctor-to-be fraternal twin brother, Gino (Liotta). Curtis co-stars as Gino’s girlfriend, a nurse named Jennifer. Nicky and Gino live together, and Nicky worries, rightly so, that Gino’s future career and relationship with the well-to-do Jennifer mean Gino soon will leave him behind. Curtis tries to elevate a thankless, predictable, and fairly small supporting role, an effort hampered by the minimal chemistry she and Liotta share. Her scenes with Hulce are better, particularly one in which Nicky all but begs her not to ruin his life with Gino. Bottom line: a good, if simplistic and overly sentimental movie, with strong performances by Hulce and Liotta, and Curtis underutilized. [Ian Spelling]

10. Grandview, U.S.A. (1984)

Grandview U.S.A. (1984) - Trailer

Back in 1984, still emerging from her extended scream queen reign, Curtis teamed up with Grease director Randal Kleiser for this little-seen drama. C. Thomas Howell stars as Tim, a high school senior eager to escape from small-town, small-minded Grandview. He falls for Mike (Curtis), an older woman who owns the local demolition derby venue. Then there’s Slam (Patrick Swayze), a married derby driver who’s also into Mike. Curtis plays Mike as smart and tomboy-sexy, and Kleiser frequently—and we mean a lot—glides in for close-ups of Curtis’s flawless face and expressive eyes as she deals with Tim, Slam, and Tim’s greedy S.O.B. of a dad (Ramon Bieri), who aims to close the track. Despite some touching moments, and a few amusing flights of fancy in the form of dream-sequence music videos, the box office bomb is a misfire. Still, it’s a classic ’80s footnote boasting not just Curtis, Swayze, and Howell, but such rising stars and established character actors as Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, M. Emmet Walsh, and William Windom, plus former teen sensation Troy Donahue. [Ian Spelling]

9. Freaky Friday (2003)

If you know what the word “senescence” means, chances are it’s because of Jamie Lee Curtis in Disney’s . So often the stalwart character who holds the story together, Curtis gets to really cut loose as the comic relief here, against Lindsay Lohan, at the height of her fame and playing things relatively restrained. Body-swap comedies are something of a tired formula, but at their best—and this remake is among the best—they allow movie stars from different generations to impersonate one another with aplomb.Lohan simply acts buttoned-up after the two switch souls, representing an idea of the mom character Curtis is playing; contrast that with the actual Curtis, who goes full teen party-girl to play a larger-than-life version of both Lohan’s character and her own wild image. Even in her scream queen youth, Curtis tended to play the good girl; it took until middle age to embody a teenager with less uptight instincts. Gamely insulting her own looks and theoretical lameness, the actress ironically proved just how cool she really was, and is. [Luke Y. Thompson]

8. Blue Steel (1990)

This Kathryn Bigelow-directed cop saga captures arguably Curtis’ finest dramatic performance. She stars as Megan Turner, a rookie New York City cop who guns down a perp on her first day at work. It’s a clean kill, but her gun vanishes, and she’s publicly vilified for shooting an unarmed man. Turns out that Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver) witnessed the shooting and walked away unnoticed with the weapon. Hunt seems like a well-off, handsome commodities trader, but he’s a sociopath obsessed with both Turner and her gun (perhaps more with her gun), which he uses to murder several people. You’re with Curtis every step of the way—rooting for her, sharing her dread, even yelling at her—as Turner earns her badge, contends with her disapproving parents (Louise Fletcher and Philip Bosco) and a doubting co-worker (Clancy Brown), and then romances Hunt, before realizing his true identity and engaging him in an electrifying, extended chase and gun battle. The action and drama sometimes veer over the top, but Curtis grounds it all, and you’re so on her side that when she makes a morally disturbing choice at the end of the movie, you can’t help but feel conflicted about whether she’s right or just as wrong as Hunt. [Ian Spelling]

7. Knives Out (2019)

Knives Out (2019 Movie) Official Clip “Observer of the Truth” – Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis is so revered as a scream queen that people forget how funny she can be on screen (A Fish Called Wanda, , and Everything Everywhere All At Once are just three examples). That’s especially true when she’s playing an exasperated, entitled, and easily irritated character like Linda Drysdale in the 2019 mystery film . In Rian Johnson’s modern Agatha Christie-esque tale, the members of a wealthy, dysfunctional family bicker and accusations fly after family patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a successful crime novelist, dies under mysterious circumstances. As the movie unspools, we learn that Linda’s husband (Don Johnson) has been cheating on her, and that Harlan knew and left a note about it to his eldest daughter. Curtis expertly plays the character like a woman who has seen it all and has little patience for nonsense—which is how we like to imagine Curtis is offscreen as well. We wish she could return for 2022’s , but alas, only Daniel Craig came back as Detective Benoit Blanc. [Robert DeSalvo]

6. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Everything Everywhere All At Once - Hot Dog Fingers

As with Michelle Yeoh in the leading role, part of the fun of watching Jamie Lee Curtis in is our knowledge of the iconic characters she’s inhabited before. There’s her lumbering about with a pointedly Michael Myers-esque gait, for one, when her schlubby IRS inspector becomes inhabited by a parallel universe counterpart specializing in wrestling. And given the screen legend’s diverse résumé full of horror, sex appeal, and wry wit, it seems fitting to catch glimpses of Curtis with hot dog fingers in one scene and a piece of paper stapled to her forehead in another. Why not? Mostly, there’s the sense that she’s extremely game for all of the Daniels’ maximalist shenanigans, and happy to provide comedic relief in a supporting role. There are surely only a handful of leading ladies in Hollywood who wouldn’t bat an eye at the prospect of playing someone named Deirdre Beaubeirdre, and she’s one of them. What a perfect alignment of actor and character—and it’s about time audiences were treated to Curtis doing stunt-heavy action work, flying through the air and giving Yeoh a run for her money. [Jack Smart]

My Girl (1991) - Do You Think I’m Pretty? Scene (3/10) | Movieclips

remains a near-perfect little movie: a bittersweet, heart-rending coming-of-age tale best remembered for the performances of its child stars, Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin. Chlumsky plays Vada, the death-obsessed, 11-year-old daughter of funeral home owner Harry (Dan Aykroyd), a decent if somewhat clueless widower who just can’t quite connect with Vada. Enter the friendly and vivacious Shelly (Curtis), the parlor’s new cosmetologist, who clicks with Vada … at least until Shelly starts dating Harry. Curtis imbues Shelly with an innate warmth that washes over the entire film, and she brings out the best in both newcomer Chlumsky and Trading Places co-star Aykroyd, letting them shine in their scenes with her. Especially touching Curtis-Chlumsky moments include the charming “Do you think I’m pretty” conversation, the relatable “I’m hemorrhaging” section, and the moving scene in which Vada returns home following her panic in the wake of her friend Thomas J’s (Culkin) death. Chlumsky proves so natural in her breakthrough role and, as she has time and time again, Curtis generously follows her lead. [Ian Spelling]

4. True Lies (1994)

True Lies Makeover

If is James Cameron’s most regressive film in terms of its gender roles, that’s not Jamie Lee Curtis’ fault. In a film where a husband neglects his wife, tortures her into confessing her love for him, and then instructs her to seduce a stranger she doesn’t know is actually him, Curtis gives the other side of those choices not just dimensionality, but strength. Evolving from a buttoned-up housewife into a charmingly clumsy femme fatale, and finally, a partner equal to her musclebound (secret) superspy husband, Curtis shepherds Helen Tasker through a suitably outsized adventure while injecting humor and complexity—while also doing what at least looks like a considerable number of her own stunts. The part kind of fused more than a couple of the “types” she has perfected early in her career—the shrinking bookworm of Laurie Strode, the street-smart seductress of Ophelia—into one fun and formidable package. [Todd Gilchrist]

Trading Places(1983) - Compilation Of Scenes

Back in 1983, Jamie Lee Curtis was mainly known for her roles in horror films and a handful of guest appearances in TV shows. Then she was cast in and proved she could hold her own alongside legends Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd in one of the best comedies of all time. She plays Ophelia, a sex worker hired to embarrass Aykroyd’s character outside a police station—speeding his decline into poverty and disgrace. When everyone from his former life turns on him, she takes pity and becomes his ally. Things really pick up when they unite with Murphy’s character to destroy the wealthy monsters who turned their lives upside down over a measly $1 bet. In one of Curtis’ most memorable scenes, she dresses up as a backpacker “from Sveden” in order to help the guys pull off a heist on a train. An instant classic. [Cindy White]

2. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

A Fish Called Wanda (7/11) Movie CLIP - Apes Don’t Read Philosophy (1988) HD

brilliantly plays to both English and American comedy sensibilities. So does a never-better Curtis as a con artist who seduces dunderheads from both sides of the Atlantic following a jewel heist gone wrong. Among her sometimes cohorts and marks are Kevin Kline’s oblivious and violent Otto, hardened thug George (Tom Georgeson), hapless stutterer and animal lover Ken (Michael Palin), and uptight barrister Archie (screenwriter-star John Cleese, Clees-ing up the joint).Kline won an Oscar for his broadly comedic “Don’t call me stupid!” scene-stealing, but Curtis is the glue that holds it together. We may not really believe she’ll ever do anything but dupe poor Ken, and nobody loves George, but between Archie and Otto, she appears to favor each one when she’s with them, making each man believe her and leaving us to guess whether she means it this time. Will she choose unfettered American id or uptight British self-flagellation, or just leave both behind? In the end, she’s always most turned on by the speaking of a completely different language, no matter how nonsensical. For a culture clash comedy, that’s the truest twist of all. [Luke Y. Thompson]