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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]