Even before landing her first Oscar in 2023 for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Jamie Lee Curtis was an icon in the movie and television industry. The actress and producer was the daughter of a prominent actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood: Janet Leigh, who once was the star of the Hitchcock horror Psycho. Her father was fellow actor Tony Curtis. Curtis made her debut in 1977 in a television show, but it was a year later, in 1978, where she made her iconic debut in cinema in the movie Halloween. Halloween was a massive success when it came out, and Curtis’ role in the film landed her more horror roles, allowing her the chance to become the original scream queen.
Although many of Curtis’ early roles might be in horror, throughout her career, she has played a wide variety of characters, crossing genres and periods in the movies she is in. It wasn’t until 1983 that Curtis began to be seen as a serious actor outside of horror movies, and ever since then, she has continuously proven she is one of the finest actresses of her generation. In the 2010s, she returned to the small screen for roles in New Girl and Scream Queens, and the world is currently going through a Jamie Lee Curtis renaissance. That’s why you need to see these quintessential Jamie Lee Curtis movies if you haven’t already.
12 Blue Steel
Released in 1990, Blue Steel stars Curtis in the lead role. She is Megan Turner, a cadet in the New York Police Department who, on her first day on duty, shoots a suspect and loses the gun, putting her in a bad position with the law. Suspended from duty immediately, the man who stole the gun uses it to kill others and even carves her name into one of the bullet shells. When he starts hearing voices that tell him to keep killing people, he continues to do so. At the same time, Megan befriends him in an attempt to try and clear her name, which causes even more problems.
11 Perfect
A romantic drama that came out in the 80s, John Travolta and Curtis star in Perfect. Travolta portrays a journalist named Adam Lawrence, who, after being sent to Los Angeles for an assignment, finds the perfect scoop right in front of him. Fitness clubs in the city are becoming the norm for dating in LA, and when he scopes out the situation, he befriends a workout instructor (Curtis) at one of the more popular gyms in town. She doesn’t approve of his work and refuses to do so, but as Adam continues going to the gym, the two grow closer with time.
10 Road Games
An Australian movie, Road Games was a thriller that didn’t do well when it first came out in the eighties. Set in rural Australia, a truck driver comes to a motel to crash for the night when he spots a man checking in with a woman. The woman he spotted was one he passed earlier when on the road, and when he woke up in the morning, his pet dingo seems highly alert about sniffing something among the garbage bags. It isn’t until he’s back on the road, and picking up a woman in need of help, that it’s revealed the woman at the motel was likely brutally murdered.
9 Knives Out
Knives Out was a hit when it first came out in theaters and streaming, and its sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, was equally successful. In the original movie, the family of a famous mystery novelist gathers, only for him to die the next morning. His housekeeper finds him in his room with a slit throat, leading to cries of foul play from the beginning. Benoit Blanc, a private detective, has been hired to investigate the case even after the police rule it as a suicide. When Blanc arrives, several key details are already leading to suspicion about the novelist’s many family members and why they may have caused the death of the novelist.
8 Prom Night
An essential slasher movie in Curtis’ filmography, Prom Night is one of the core movies that established her as a scream queen early on in her career. Originally set in 1974, a group of eleven-year-olds teases a younger girl, and their actions accidentally lead to her death. An unknown witness saw their actions, and several years later, when they’re all in high school, it’s the anniversary of the girl’s death. The school prom is about to happen, and everyone is excited at the prospects of who they’re going with and what they’re going to wear. But as it turns out, the past doesn’t always stay in the past when it comes to revenge.
7 Trading Places
John Landis’ Trading Places was a comedy that came out in 1983. Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy star as two individuals who seemed unlikely to ever meet. A wealthy owner of a commodities brokerage firm is dared by his brother to try and switch his life around with someone in completely different circumstances. Unable to back down, the two brothers agree to try it out. Their unsuspecting person to switch with is a poor hustler on the street that’s Black (Murphy). When they switch, the brothers discover how the hustler, when given opportunities, succeeds at business.
6 A Fish Called Wanda
In A Fish Called Wanda, a group of thieves comes together to plan a jewel heist. Two England gangsters recruit Americans for their newest and greatest plan to steal a large number of diamonds. When the heist succeeds, an unexpected betrayal sells out members of the group, and several are arrested after the deed. As it turns out, no one trusts anyone anymore, and the one who has the diamonds locks them away when the rest of the group comes to collect their spoils. Thus begins a story of even deeper betrayal and greed.
5 Terror Train
A Canadian slasher movie, Terror Train stars Curtis, Hart Bochner, and Ben Johnson. The film opens at a frat party happening on New Year’s Eve; Curtis’ character, Alana, has been convinced to join in on a terrible prank. A pledge is lured into a room where a cadaver has been placed in the bed, and when he discovers it’s a dead body, he’s traumatized. After a time jump of three years, another costume party is happening, but this time on a train. When a killer starts murdering the students one by one, then stealing their costumes to not get caught, the party becomes a survival game.
4 Halloween
Halloween is a cult classic and the movie that launched Curtis’ career. John Carpenter directed the 1978 film. After a six-year-old, Michael, stabs his sister to death with a knife, fifteen years pass while he is in jail. When being escorted to court, he escapes his captors and plans to enact terror on the town he once lived in. On the day of Halloween, the police stake out his house in hopes he will return to where he grew up, but Michael has his eye on a babysitter and her friends as his next victims.
3 Freaky Friday
Curtis and Lindsay Lohan star in the 2003 adaptation of Freaky Friday as a mother and daughter who find themselves in an awkward situation. After eating in a restaurant together, they find out they have swapped bodies the next morning after reading their fortunes. The mother must now learn to navigate the struggles of being a teenage girl in this world, while the daughter has to function as an adult, and a therapist while having to be in her mother’s body. In May 2023, Disney confirmed that a sequel to the beloved movie was in the works.
2 Everything Everywhere All At Once
Everything Everywhere All At Once landed Curtis her first Academy Award for her supporting role of Deirdre, an IRS Agent who has a bone to pick with the Wang family. Everything Everywhere All At Once’s protagonist is Evelyn Wang, a Chinese immigrant who runs a laundromat with her family. She disagrees with her daughter’s sexuality and life. But when the family goes to confront the IRS over the immense amount of taxes they owe, she is thrust into the multiverse and all the parallel universes she could have inhabited, forcing her to see what really matters.
1 True Lies
Universal Pictures
An action comedy movie from 1994, True Lies was directed by James Cameron three years before he came out with Titanic. Henry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a secret agent for a United States counterterrorism agency, but his family thinks he’s just an active businessman going away to make sales. When in Switzerland, he meets someone dangerous and gets attacked by a terrorist group, forcing him to miss an important event back home. But when he returns, his personal and professional lives are about to collide.