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About Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis has been part of our lives since the late 70s. From her debut film appearance as Laurie Strode in Halloween to helping a fighter pilot out of time in Forever Young to her most recent outing in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Jamie Lee Curtis is an international treasure of genre movie and tv shows. She has mastered acting in dramas, screaming in horror films and making us laugh in comedies. She is an absolute queen in cinema and small screen.
While it was hard to narrow down Jamie's iconic career to only 15 movies and tv shows, I decided to go for a mix of my favorites and the most iconic parts she’s ever played. Here’s hoping you recognize her in these movies and tv shows.
1. Halloween (1978)
After all these years and so many movies and tv shows featuring Jamie Lee Curtis it’s hard to believe that its her role as Laurie Strode in Halloween that made us fall in love with her. Laurie is stalked by Michael Myers and does her best to save her friends but to no avail and ends up fighting for her life in one final chilling confrontation which inspired an entire franchise.
2. New Girl (2012-2018)
It was a stroke of genius for the producers of New Girl to bring in Jamie Lee Curtis to portray Jessica Day’s mum. The result is a hilarious, inappropriate, sex-positive, happy go lucky stoner - and we love every moment of it!
3. Freaky Friday (2003)
Pairing Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as a mother daughter combo in which both of them switch bodies? Master stroke. Sounds like the casting director smoked the right strain on that day.
Freaky Friday is endless fun, comedically out of control and filled with growth as the mother and daughter do their best to put their differences aside and figure out to fix their body swap dilemma.
4. The Fog (1980)
The Fog is one part supernatural horror movie and one part slasher. It involves a fog (surprise, surprise) that brings in the ghosts of 100 year old dead sailors who want to exact vengeance against the citizen of a coastal town. Jamie Lee Curtis’s character is one of those many citizens who do their best to survive the night.
5. Scream Queens (2015-2016)
In Scream Queens, Jamie Lee Curtis plays Dean Cathy Munsch. When a 20 year old Red Devil Mascot killer returns and starts to take out Sorority members, Dean Munsch does what she does best: takes the Sorority Sisters down a peg or two and makes them feel as inadequate as possible. It’s a perfect homage to all those slasher films that Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in all those years ago.
6. My Girl (1991)
There are very few feel good films marked with tragedy that are as iconic as My Girl. In it, Jamie Lee Curtis plays Shelly DeVoto, a makeup artist at a funeral home who befriends Vada Sultenfuss (the 11 year old who the movie is about) and helps her through her adolescence, dealing with the death of her best friend and life in general.
7. Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Nora Krank in the movie Christmas with the Kranks. In it, the Kranks decide to skip Christmas because their daughter is out of town. However, this doesn't go down too well with the neighbours who are determined to make sure they celebrate Christmas no matter what.
In this movie, Jamie Lee Curtis is reunited with Dan Ackroyd who she starred opposite in My Girl. There's also a barrel full of laughs in this movie so get ready for a good time!
8. Forever Young (1992)
Despite what your feelings might be about Mel Gibson, Forever Young was a huge love story in the year of 1992. So much that I'm pretty sure every millennial was forced to watch it by their boomer parents.
In Forever Young, Jamie Lee Curtis plays Clare Cooper, a woman who is instrumental in making sure a fighter pilot who's been in suspended animation for 50 years is reunited with his long lost love. It's real tear jerking stuff.
9. Prom Night (1980)
Being one of the early horror movies in the slasher sub-genre, Prom Night isn't an overly complex sell. It follows a killer on the loose trying to exact revenge for a teenage girl who died years earlier.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Kim, a teenager who does everything she can to avoid being the next teen on the killer's chopping block.
10. Escape from New York (1981)
Jamie Lee Curtis's appearance in Escape from New York isn't overly huge. In fact, she isn't even seen on screen but, thanks to her friendship with director John Carpenter, her voice is heard as the narrator at the start of Escape from New York. A fact that hardcore fans (like myself) won't let you forget.
11. An Acceptable Loss (2018)
If you've ever thought to yourself "I wonder what Jamie Lee Curtis would be like as the President?" then An Acceptable Loss is for you. Her character, Rachel, gets caught up in a total victory action conspiracy which she's worried a former aid won't keep quiet about.
12. Death of a Centerfold (1981)
Death of a Centerfold is a bio-pic about Dorothy Stratten who was a centerfold model back in the early days of Playboy. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the titular character, Dorothy, and we see her rise to fame as well as her fall from grace.
13. Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Everything Everywhere All At Once depicts Jamie Lee Curtis plays a poorly dressed and unkept I.R.S. auditor who is looking into the laundromat management activities of main character Evelyn Wang. Because of this she's somewhat of a bad guy in this movie about the multiverse unravelling out of control.
14. True Lies (1994)
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Helen, the wife of Arnold Schwarzneggar's character, Harry Tasker, in True Lies. Initially suspected of having an affair, Helen is soon swept up in Harry's real life of being a secret spy and not a software salesman - like she originally thought. Prep yourself for nonstop explosions!
15. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Jamie Lee Curtis's character Wanda in A Fish Called Wanda is about as femme fatale as you'll ever get with Jamie. She plays a female bank robber who screws over her partners to land the big score. It's action filled, funny and the screenplay was written by comedian John Cleese so it has the feeling of a bonkers UK comedic action drama.
Have you seen any of these Jamie Lee Curtis movies and tv shows?
Hopefully we’ve added some extra Jamie Lee Curtis movies and TV shows to your bucket list.
Let us know which you've seen in the comments.