Anne Hathaway is one of the biggest female movie stars of the 21st century. She has done all kinds of films – she was in films that were highly commercially successful, establishing her as one of the biggest movie stars of our time. She was in indies and earned a lot of critical respect for them. She had showy roles and awards attention, earning Oscar and Emmy awards among others. She was not afraid of taking risks and when the risks didn’t pay off, she didn’t mind to acknowledge her faults.
There was once an internet thing where people randomly wanted to hate her but she survived from that as well. Now the same internet people are mesmerized by her talent even on her non-movie appearances. It can be her singing on a James Corden sketch or lip-syncing a Miley Cyrus song with her remarkable energy. She charms people off-screen as she does on-screen. She’s supporting many charities, raises awareness for many causes ranging from child marriage to bullying. Her friendly attitude was often noticed in the industry and the press.
Thanks to her gorgeous looks, many magazines have put her name on their “Sexiest Women” lists. Hathaway is still going strong, collaborating with directors like Steven Knight and Dee Rees for her upcoming projects and has had a very interesting filmography which we’ll explore now.
31. Don Peyote
Incredibly weird movie about a stoner lapsing into apocalyptic reveries in the lead-up to his wedding is full of bizzare and “WTF?” moments which is not necessarily a bad thing but here it doesn’t serve any purpose and you will keep wondering why the hell even this movie was even made.
30. Get Smart’s Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control
Yes, such thing exists. Direct-to-video as you can expect. A spin-off where the story is centered on Bruce and his nerdy analyst cohort, Lloyd. It’s just studio’s way to get little more money using some of the funny characters they had in the movie “Get Smart” and they have done basically nothing to make it even slightly entertaining. Hathaway is a cameo appearance.
29. The Other Side of Heaven
Mormon-themed “Other Side of Heaven” is almost an offensive propaganda based John H. Groberg’s non-fiction book “In the Eye of the Storm” and is about his experiences as a missionary of the LDS Church. As you can imagine, it’s made for to mostly appeal to those who share the movie’s mindset but even for them, it’ll come off as dull, uninspiring, simplistic feature. It does so little to bring anything complex to its subject and the character development basically doesn’t exist and unfortunately, script does almost nothing to give Hathaway a chance to shine.
28. Alice Through the Looking Glass
Classic example of a studio’s desire to make money. In some rare cases, a new director comes and makes a better sequel to the previously criticized film but it’s not the case here. Ugly cinematography, overdone special effects, annoying performances and a boring storyline are among the reasons why “Alice Through the Looking Glass” is something you should ignore.
27. Valentine’s Day
“Princess Diaries” turned her into a star and she enjoyed working with Gerry Marshall so much in general that probably she couldn’t have turned this mess down. One of those “Love Actually”-wannabe kind of romantic comedies, “Valentine’s Day” is your typical, clichéd, studio rom-com with a lazy script that hopes to survive with its all-star cast but unfortunately the cast can’t help here as everything else is just way too bad. Anne’s Russian accent is fun though.
26. Bride Wars
There’s a scene which can remind you of Hathaway’s famous appearance at Lip Sync Battle where she lip-synced “Wrecking Ball”. Who knows, maybe that scene was the reason why Anne ended up doing that performance. If it is so, then that must be the only good thing that came out from this totally unfunny film full of unlikable and even annoying characters.
25. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
The first one was not even that great to begin with but as usual in such films, they didn’t even try to make it better in the sequel or try to make it more appealing to anyone else than their target audience. Even Hathaway’s charm is not enough to save this overly predictable, even kind of silly film where there’s not even any kind of decent story going on.
24. Hoodwinked!
Certainly an interesting attempt. “Hoodwinked!” tries to bring a new look at the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood where the main characters all tell the police the events that led up to their encounter but unfortunately, there’s an idea but not enough of creativity on what they can do with the idea. So “Hoodwinked!” ended up being a wasted opportunity and its technical details also didn’t help.
23. Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton used to be one of the most distinctive and visionary directors of American cinema. His “Batman” films are not mentioned of these days but they were great. So were “Beetlejuice”, “Ed Wood” and even those that critics were not that high on – “Sleepy Hollow”, “Big Fish” etc. But it’s been more than a decade that he doesn’t give us anything worth to mention (maybe “Big Eyes”), yet “Alice in Wonderland” must have been his absolute worst of his recent output.
Full of ugly CGI and off-putting visuals, ridiculously over-the-top characters, almost boringly generic narrative are some of the reasons why “Alice in Wonderland” is an unpleasant and bland experience. Mia Wasikowska – actress who can be great in the roles that suit her – is miscast here and Hathaway is good, but the material here is so weak that her performance also feels unsatisfying. Not her fault though.
22. Rio 2
“Rio” itself was not a great film or something, true but it was alright, it was watchable but the sequel, instead of working on its flaws, ruins the things even more and makes it more exhausting and tiring.
21. One Day
You gotta give credit to Hathaway that in many times, whenever she goes for films that sounds like a typical romance film – they end up being ones that try to do something different. They have certain ambition, just like “Love and Other Drugs”. “One Day” also has an ambition: it’s more interested in its characters and it has surprises in its narrative and story but it failed a great deal. Characters being so unlikable that you stop caring about them and can’t relate to them. The sentimental tone of the film makes everything even worse. It’s not a Nicolas Sparks adaptation level bad but still, it’s bad.
20. Passengers
Well-acted but strangely dull and uneven film has basically nothing going on for its favour. As a drama, the whole thing just doesn’t have any depth. As a thriller, it lacks suspense and then there comes the twist ending which makes everything even worse. Still, it makes one wonder how good Hathaway would be in a horror film. She should give it a try.
19. Rio
It’s not particularly special. The story here is pretty generic but yet some other details – such as fun vocal performances and catchy songs makes up for it. Not particularly memorable and if you don’t miss such animations, it may come off as even less impressive but still a pretty decent film where parents and kids can watch together.
18. The Princess Diaries
Box office hit that made Hathaway an instant star. Clichéd and predictable, it’s a film that one would think is a remake of something made in 60s or 70s but Hathaway charms the audience away. The truth must be told that Gerry Marshall, while not a great director, knew how to make this formula work, at least for certain demography and he did it here as well. Would it work without Hathaway’s performance is doubtful though.
The writing here is far from being witty and liking it or not is up to how much you enjoy those Disneyish teen romantic comedies. But this is far from being offensively bad, and it’s still one of the better teen rom-coms Disney had to offer.
17. Song One
Charming and watchable but it has almost nothing else to going on for it. Hathaway is in almost every scene of the film though and if you just like to watch her performances regardless of the quality of the film, then it must be a total joy. And again, it’s not a bad film, just nothing special. Don’t expect it to be your next “Once”.
16. Elle Enchanted
One of the last films of Hathaway’s “sweet, charming young girl” roles in family films gives a chance to her to display her charm but “Elle Enchanted” is kind of a mixed bag. It’s not exactly bad, its heart is in the right place and it has a mostly sweet tone but the cheesy special effects and some very silly moments makes it somewhat of an unpleasant experience from time to time. Even though it tries, it hardly comes off as original. Negative sides aside, it has its good moments as well. Particularly, when Hathaway gets to sing Queen classic “Somebody to Love”.