5 Best Anna Faris Movies: There is a very particular kind of actor Hollywood loves to underestimate: the blonde, funny one who makes a ridiculous face at exactly the right moment. She can scream, fall, flirt, panic and deliver an absolutely unhinged one-liner without breaking the character. Anna Faris gets that but does not get in that compartment while ticking all the boxes because she is more than just a box with an ability to define an archetype with multiple definitions and all hit right at the spot.
5 Best Anna Faris Movies
Anna Faris has spent much of her career proving that the assumption is wrong. From becoming a comedy icon with Scary Movie to quietly stealing scenes in Lost in Translation, Faris has always had something slightly offbeat about her screen presence. She can play silly without making the character feel stupid, and she understands comedy as something that comes from commitment rather than simply saying the funniest line in the room.
If you want to revisit Anna Faris’ cinematic universe, here are five movies that deserve to be on your watchlist.
The House Bunny
This is the one Anna Faris movie that feels like it was made in some laboratory to become an internet comfort classic. Anna Faris plays Shelley Darlington, who is unexpectedly thrown out of the mansion and ends up becoming the house mother of a struggling sorority.
It has the peak 2000s comedy, but Faris makes Shelley far more lovable than the stereotype would suggest. Shelley is one of those characters you can quote before even realising you have quoted her. Faris never plays Shelley with a wink: she fully commits to her; the hair, the outfits, the absurd confidence and the occasional complete lack of common sense.
Behind all the pink gloss remains a character who genuinely wants to help people, and Anna Faris owns the character through and through.
Scary Movie
This is exactly where things began. Anna Faris played Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie, a horror parody that came in 2000 and became a major box-office success. The film spoofed the teen-horror wave of the time, but Cindy became more than just a parody character.
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Faris could play the woman inside complete chaos while also being completely ridiculous herself. She could make a reaction shot feel like the actual punchline. It is impossible to talk about Anna Faris’ filmography without talking about Cindy Campbell.
She was not in the joke; she understood and owned it.
Lost In Translation
Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is not an absolute ride for Anna Faris. She appears in a smaller role as Kelly, a young actor whose presence adds a layer to the film’s existing commentary on celebrity culture and Hollywood, which is precisely why this deserves to be on the list.
Faris was already associated with broad comedy after Scary Movie, but through Lost in Translation she showed that her screen presence worked in something quieter and more observational, with a loud, chaotic and hyperactive presence on screen.
There is something amazingly funny about watching Faris play an actor who is in some ways a parody of the kind of Hollywood persona audiences had started associating with her.
Just Friends
The movie is pure rom-com chaos that follows Chris Brander, a former high-school outcast who returns to his hometown years later to his old crush, Jamie. Faris plays Samantha James, the self-obsessed pop star.
Samantha is the kind of character who enters a scene and makes it about herself, and Faris rightly gets that. The performance is deliberately exaggerated, but Faris somehow makes Samantha more than just a punchline. She has a rhythm that makes the most ridiculous moments land.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Faris voices Sam Sparks, a weather reporter who finds herself caught up in Flint Lockwood’s food-related invention disaster. Sam is a lovely reminder of another Faris strength: her voice acting. Even without the face, Faris gives Sam personality, awkwardness and warmth.
She is not simply the obligatory female character standing next to the inventor; she gets her own arc and her own emotional beats. There is something very Anna Faris-coded about voicing a weather reporter while cheeseburgers rain from the sky.
Anna Faris Has Always Been Better Than the Box Hollywood Put Her In
Anna Faris’ movies make us realise how often she was asked to play variations of the same archetype, and yet she kept finding ways to make each of those women memorable.
That is probably why these films still work; why Cindy Campbell became ironic, or why Samantha James remains one of the most entertaining parts of Just Friends, or why a small role in Lost in Translation still gets mentioned when people talk about Faris’ career.
Anna Faris has never been the loudest in a movie: she just needs one weird look, one perfectly timed pause, a completely committed line reading, and there you are watching Anna Faris in all her might and glory.
Which is your favourite Anna Faris movie?
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