Best Anne Hathaway Movies, Ranked: From Princess Diaries to Oscar Winner

Why Anne Hathaway's career is worth taking seriously

Hathaway spent a stretch of the 2010s as an unusually polarizing figure in pop culture, subject to a level of public mockery and backlash that, in hindsight, a lot of critics and commentators have come to recognize was wildly disproportionate to anything she'd actually done. That backlash has faded considerably in recent years, replaced by a genuine critical reassessment of just how strong and varied her filmography actually is, spanning big studio comedy, genuine awards season prestige drama, and a string of well received adult romantic and thriller work in the years since. Looking at the full arc of her career now, separate from that mid 2010s cultural noise, makes a genuinely strong case for her as one of the more reliably excellent actresses of her generation.

The best Anne Hathaway movies, ranked

1. Les Misérables (2012)

Hathaway's Fantine, and specifically her live sung rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream," remains one of the most acclaimed single scenes of her entire career, earning her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. It's a performance built on raw, physical commitment, she dramatically altered her appearance for the role, and real vocal vulnerability rather than technical polish alone.

2. Rachel Getting Married (2008)

A genuinely raw, unglamorous performance as a woman fresh out of rehab returning home for her sister's wedding, stirring up years of unresolved family trauma. It earned Hathaway an Oscar nomination and remains, by most accounts, the performance that first proved she had real dramatic range well beyond her earlier, more mainstream family friendly work.

3. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Hathaway's Andy Sachs, navigating the brutal world of high fashion publishing under Meryl Streep's iconic Miranda Priestly, remains one of the most beloved and rewatched comedies of the 2000s. Her performance holds its own against Streep in scene after scene, and the film's staying power nearly two decades later is a real testament to both actresses' work.

4. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

A smaller but genuinely important supporting role as Lureen, whose marriage becomes one of the film's quiet, devastating casualties. It's an early example of Hathaway taking on serious, emotionally difficult material well before Hollywood had fully caught up to what she was capable of.

5. The Princess Diaries (2001)

The film that launched her career, playing an awkward teenager who discovers she's secretly royalty. It remains a genuine touchstone of early 2000s family filmmaking, and Hathaway's natural charm and comic timing in the lead role are a huge part of why it's stayed beloved for more than two decades.

6. The Idea of You (2024)

Part of Hathaway's well received recent run of adult romantic dramas, playing a divorced mother who begins an unexpected relationship with a much younger boy band member. It became a genuine streaming phenomenon and a strong piece of evidence for her ongoing critical and commercial resurgence.

7. Ocean's 8 (2018)

Hathaway plays a version of herself, essentially, a vain, self absorbed movie star who becomes an unwitting mark in an elaborate heist, in one of the film's funniest and most self aware performances, showing a real willingness to send up her own public image.

8. Interstellar (2014)

A smaller supporting role in Christopher Nolan's science fiction epic, playing an astronaut on a mission to find a habitable planet, giving the film's more emotionally driven scientific debates real weight and urgency.

9. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Hathaway's Selina Kyle, Catwoman in all but name, brought real wit and moral ambiguity to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy finale, and remains one of the more well regarded takes on the character across the broader Batman film canon.

What's coming next for Anne Hathaway?

Verity, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling thriller novel pairing Hathaway with Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, is set for release on October 2, 2026, continuing her recent streak of well chosen adult genre work. It's exactly the kind of twisty, star driven psychological thriller that's become a signature of this phase of her career, and it's one of the more anticipated entries in her upcoming slate.

What about her more divisive or misunderstood period?

It's worth addressing directly, since it's such a well known chapter of her public narrative, the mid 2010s backlash against Hathaway, often reduced to vague complaints about her being "too eager" or overly earnest in public appearances, was widely disproportionate and, as a lot of retrospective commentary has since pointed out, carried real undertones of the kind of scrutiny that's applied much more harshly to ambitious women in the public eye than to their male peers. It didn't meaningfully interrupt the quality of her actual film work during that period, and the industry's and public's more recent reassessment of that backlash has coincided with, and arguably fueled, her genuinely strong recent run of acclaimed and commercially successful projects.

My honest take on Anne Hathaway's career

What strikes me most about Hathaway's filmography, looking at it as a whole rather than through the lens of any single cultural moment, is just how consistently strong the actual work has been across every phase of her career, family films, awards season prestige drama, big studio comedy, and now a genuinely well curated run of adult romantic and thriller material. The public narrative around her has shifted dramatically more than once, from beloved ingenue to unfairly maligned punchline to now, deservedly, respected veteran actress enjoying a genuine career resurgence, but the quality of her actual choices and performances has been far more stable than any of those narrative swings would suggest.

I think Rachel Getting Married remains her most underappreciated work specifically because it's the performance that most directly contradicts the "overly eager, performatively earnest" caricature that got attached to her public image years later. It's raw, unglamorous, and genuinely uncomfortable to watch in places, exactly the opposite of easy likability, and it's proof that she was capable of real dramatic risk taking well before critics and audiences broadly started giving her credit for it.

Her recent run, The Idea of You and the upcoming Verity, feels like a genuinely smart, deliberate late career pivot into exactly the kind of adult oriented romantic and thriller material that's become increasingly rare in an industry chasing franchise IP, and the strong audience response to The Idea of You suggests real, ongoing appetite for that kind of star driven adult filmmaking when it's executed well. If you only know her from The Princess Diaries or The Devil Wears Prada, her recent work is genuinely worth seeking out as proof of how much range she's continued to develop since.

Frequently asked questions

What is Anne Hathaway's best movie? Les Misérables, for which she won an Academy Award, is the most frequently cited, though Rachel Getting Married has a strong claim as her most dramatically ambitious work.

Has Anne Hathaway won an Oscar? Yes, Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables in 2013.

What was Anne Hathaway's first major film role? The Princess Diaries in 2001, which launched her career as a leading actress.

What is Anne Hathaway's most underrated movie? Rachel Getting Married is frequently cited as underappreciated relative to how strong and dramatically risky the performance actually is.

What is Anne Hathaway's next movie? Verity, a Colleen Hoover adaptation costarring Dakota Johnson, is set for release on October 2, 2026.

Did Anne Hathaway really sing live in Les Misérables? Yes, along with the rest of the cast, she sang live on set rather than lip syncing to pre-recorded studio vocals.

Is Anne Hathaway's character in Ocean's 8 based on herself? Not literally, but the role deliberately plays with and gently satirizes her own public image as a movie star.

What genre has Anne Hathaway worked in most often? Her filmography spans family comedy, awards season drama, and increasingly, adult oriented romance and thriller work.

Has Anne Hathaway worked with Christopher Nolan more than once? Yes, across The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.

Where should I start if I only know Anne Hathaway from The Princess Diaries? Les Misérables or Rachel Getting Married, both of which showcase a dramatic range far beyond her earlier family friendly work.

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