It’s only when you’re made to pick your favourite Anne Hathaway films that you realise the sheer enormity of the actor’s body of work.
There are the early fan-favourites such as The Princess Diaries (2001) and Ella Enchanted (2004). There are her Oscar-nominated and winning roles in Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Les Misérables (2012) which demonstrated her evolution as an actor.
There are her thrilling turns in Christopher Nolan’s major blockbusters The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014). Comedy hits such as Get Smart (2008) and Ocean’s 8 (2018). And those performances which could only be described as Anne having an absolute blast: Alice in Wonderland? The Witches? Why not.
Since her breakout role in The Princess Diaries, Hathaway, now 41, has starred in over 40 films – dozens of which have been excellent. With the news that a Devil Wears Prada sequel is now in the works, here’s our pick of the best, and worst, of the bunch.
The Best
The Princess Diaries (2001)
It was Anne Hathaway’s first film and the film that made her a star. A coming-of-age story about a dorky, frizzy-haired teenager who finds out she’s a real-life Princess (of the made up European land Genovia) and makes a physical transformation in order to fit into the new role, guided by her glamorous granny, Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews).
Obviously the moral – geeky and messy, bad; pretty and put together, good – isn’t exactly rousing. But Andrews is delightful as the formidable matriarch, and the film is sweet and feel good – there’s a reason it’s become a legendary teen comedy. “This was the film that changed my life,” said Hathaway in a Vanity Fair YouTube video where she watches some of her old scenes. “It felt so big at the time, and it wound up being so big. And it’s kind of got bigger as my life has progressed.”
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
An exquisite and moving film, it’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two decades since the release of Ang Lee’s stunning gay Western. An adaptation of Annie Proulx’s 1997 short story of the same name, the film is about the tortured love affair between two cowboys over the course of 20 years, which continues even as they grow separate families and live separate lives.
Hathaway is rodeo rider Lureen, who marries Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and she’s great as the Texan queen in a cast which also stars Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Anna Faris.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the Batman films were intellectually challenging and grim adaptations of the comic, which had, in years previous, veered into the camp and extremely silly. The film concluded Nolan’s trilogy, tying up the arc of Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, telling the story of the billionaire’s return to Gotham eight years after disappearing, to battle terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) and play ball with Catwoman. Hathaway was the mysterious cat burglar, a role which was previously played by Michelle Pfeiffer. The film was widely praised, as was Hathaway; those were no easy knee-high boots to fill.
“I’m so thrilled I’m in this movie,” said Hathaway to Vanity Fair. “Up to this point this was the hardest I’d ever trained for a role physically.” Christopher Nolan wanted the actor playing Catwoman to do as many of their own stunts as physically possible. “I’m kind of amazed that this happened and that’s me... that’s really cool,” she later said.
Les Misérables (2012)
A harrowing, deeply upsetting film, we’d rather watch The Princess Diaries any day. But that doesn’t mean that Tom Hooper’s 2012 adaptation of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s legendary musical isn’t excellent. Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne and Helena Bonham Carter, and running at 158 minutes (before this was the norm), the film is epic and brutal. “I was battered into submission by this mesmeric and sometimes compelling film,” said one critic.
Hathaway, who won her first and only Oscar for the role, played single mother Fantine, whose story is one of the most wretched in Victor Hugo’s very wretched tale about an ex-con looking for redemption in early 19th century France. To make things even more challenging, Hopper filmed all of the songs live: “I found the process fascinating,” said Hathaway to Vanity Fair. “It was hard. But that’s the kind of hard that you pray for.”
Interstellar (2014)
Another classic Nolan oeuvre, this time the British director turned his attention to the skies, exploring philosophical themes through the infinite and enigmatic nature of the universe.
It’s not our favourite Nolan film – the relationship between father and daughter Joseph (Matthew McConaughey) and ‘Murph’ (Jessica Chastain) Cooper, strained across time, sometimes gets a bit mawkish. But Nolan’s shots are objectively stunning so whether he is showing us burning wheat fields, or the inside of a spaceship, or the galaxy, it’s all a visual treat. Hathaway plays Dr. Amelia Brand, a NASA scientist who is part of one of the missions, and while she’s not in it for long, her performance adds some welcome emotional heft to the film.
Colossal (2016)
It’s a mystery why this goofy and lovely film is one of Anne Hathaway’s less famous features, when it’s one of her best. It’s a sci-fi comedy in which Hathaway’s character Gloria, a writer going through a tough period in her life, moves in with her parents in New Hampshire and reunites with old friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), just when a giant monster appears in Seoul.
Watching the beast roam the Korean city on TV, while drinking away her evenings at Oscar’s bar, Gloria slowly comes to realise that the monster mirrors all of her actions... and when the monster gets attacked by missiles, she feels its pain?
From there on in, things get sillier. Described by one paper as “Godzilla meets Lost in Translation”, Hathaway’s performance was widely praised, being called “barnstorming”, and “an anti-princess from the start – with some of the thrilling unpleasantness that galvanized Rachel Getting Married”.
The best of the best: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Our favourite of Anne Hathaway’s films, which isn’t half saying something, The Devil Wears Prada is a chef’s kiss in film form. Based on Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel, David Frankel’s adaptation stars Meryl Streep as the boss of the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine and Hathaway as her unfashionable, nervy, brainy intern who starts to fall for the industry’s trappings.
The film is sharp and witty; thought-provoking but never sentimental. Streep is, obviously, superb as the Anna Wintour figure while Hathaway is fantastic as a college grad who, like in the Princess Diaries, makes an astonishing physical transformation which represents emotional evolution.
There are fabulous scenes featuring Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt, and some of the most memorable lines of any comedy-drama, ever. “I didn’t realise it was going to have such a lasting impression,” said Hathaway. “I didn’t realise it was going to leave such a legacy.”
The Worst
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Sorry, Jonathan Demme, we loved The Silence of the Lambs. But Rachel Getting Married was not our cup of tea. It’s a story about a wayward sister – Hathaway’s Kym – who is released from rehab in order to attend her older, more put together, sister Rachel’s wedding. Kym struggles to fit in, Rachel gets mad about the redirection of attention.
The problem here’s not necessarily the material; it’s the high-octane emotions, combined with the improv-directing style that have sent it to the bottom of this list. The film is salvaged by Hathaway’s embodiment of Kym – she was nominated for an Oscar for the role – her first explicitly less-likeable character. But despite Hathaway’s celebrated performance, and the deft exploration of family dynamics under pressure, the film’s schmaltzy undercurrents – and overcurrents – overwhelm.
One Day (2011)
We so wanted to love this film adaptation of David Nicholls’s 2009 best-seller. After all, it had Hathaway play Emma and Jim Sturgess play Dexter, two university friends who have an on-off romance over 20 years – the twist being that the readers and viewers met the characters, wherever they are in their lives, on one single day every year.
But Hathaway made a poor Emma – her Yorkshire accent was off (though Southerners don’t even imitate it correctly, so it’s not a massive strike against her). Plus, the relationship never fully blossomed – arguably because a film of 108 minutes is too short an amount of time to pack in 20 encounters, which is partly why the 14-episode Netflix series released earlier this year was so well-received.
The worst of the worst: The Witches (2020)
As a child, Roald Dahl’s witches were the scariest creatures in the world; the claws hidden under gloves, bald heads hidden by wigs, toeless feet hidden by pointy shoes. To this day, just a glance at Quentin Blake’s long-haired, spindly witch figure is still enough to send shivers down backs. Which was why Robert Zemeckis’s 2020 adaptation so utterly failed to land: his witches just were not scary. And, having been co-written by Zemeckis with horror master Guillermo del Toro, alongside Kenya Barris (who created Black-ish), they should have been.
Instead, Zemeckis’s reimagination was described as “an embarrassment to Roald Dahl”, and “incredibly strange and almost offensively bad”: the CGI sets were odd to look at, the comedy was frenzied, and Hathaway’s performance as the Grand High Witch was called “pretty strained”.
