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TV Shows & Movies
Top 15 Fantasy Films of All Time
Bad Scripts, Iconic Performances: 15 Actresses Who Deserved Much Better Films
Outshining the material.
15. Rosamund Pike — Die Another Day (2002)
Ice skating, fencing, invisible cars. Die Another Day piled on so much nonsense that Rosamund Pike had to fight for oxygen just to register as a character. She still managed it, playing Miranda Frost with a coldness that made her the only believable thing in the room. Her Bond debut deserved a script that trusted her more than the gadgets did. | © MGM
14. Jessica Chastain — Ava (2020)
Jessica Chastain trained for months to make Ava's fight choreography look lethal and precise. The movie surrounding her never earned that effort, burying a decent assassin premise under flashback clutter and a family subplot nobody asked for. Her scenes with John Malkovich crackle in ways the plot mechanics around them do not. Watching her carry dead weight this well should count for something. | © Lionsgate
13. Michelle Pfeiffer — Batman Returns (1992)
Nobody asked Michelle Pfeiffer to turn Catwoman into the most quoted part of Batman Returns, but she did it anyway. That cracked-vinyl suit and the unhinged energy she brought made Selina Kyle scarier and funnier than anything Gotham's villains managed that year. Tim Burton's gothic style gets the credit, yet her physical performance is what people actually remember. Three decades later, nobody has topped it. | © Warner Bros.
12. Natalie Portman — Thor: The Dark World (2013)
There is a version of Jane Foster with actual stakes in her own story, and Natalie Portman almost found it inside Thor: The Dark World. The Aether plot reduces her to a walking plot device for most of the runtime. She still plays the confusion and fear like they matter, even when the script clearly does not. A Best Actress winner deserved better than being the thing a god has to rescue. | © Walt Disney Studios
11. Emily Blunt — Jungle Cruise (2021)
What happens when you cast someone funnier and sharper than the adventure movie built around her? Emily Blunt spends Jungle Cruise trading one-liners with Dwayne Johnson while CGI snakes and cursed conquistadors eat up the screen time. Her timing turns flat exposition into something close to charming. The Amazon setting looks expensive, but she is the only part of it that feels alive. | © Walt Disney Studios
10. Margot Robbie — Suicide Squad (2016)
Harley Quinn walked into Suicide Squad with more personality than the entire script had planned for. Margot Robbie found the bruised comedy underneath the character while the movie kept cutting to another slow motion group walk instead of a story. The editing chops the plot into pieces, but her line delivery survives every cut intact. She built a franchise out of a character the film barely knew how to write. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
9. Viola Davis — Suicide Squad (2016)
Amanda Waller should have been the scariest person in Suicide Squad, and for a few scenes she actually is. Viola Davis plays her like someone who has already war gamed every conversation before it starts, cold and three steps ahead of everyone in the room. The problem is a movie too busy with CGI smoke clouds to let that control mean anything by the end. Her stillness made the chaos around her look even messier by comparison. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
8. Meryl Streep — Mamma Mia! (2008)
Singing was never going to be the issue for someone with Meryl Streep's range. What she does in Mamma Mia! is commit so fully to the silliness that the film's shaky logic stops mattering while she's onscreen. There's an actual ache underneath "The Winner Takes It All" that the plot around her never quite earns. She treated a jukebox musical like it deserved her best work, and somehow that decision paid off. | © Universal Pictures
7. Sandra Bullock — The Proposal (2009)
Two executives forced into a fake engagement is not a premise that needs much. Sandra Bullock takes that flimsy setup in The Proposal and turns her character's panic into something genuinely specific, not just generically uptight. Her timing against Ryan Reynolds carries scenes that the script leaves half written. The chemistry does the heavy lifting the plot keeps forgetting to do itself. | © Buena Vista Pictures
6. Anne Hathaway — The Hustle (2019)
A con artist comedy lives or dies on how much fun the con artist looks like she's having. Anne Hathaway plays her grifter in The Hustle with an accent and a wardrobe that suggest she read a different, sharper script than the one that got filmed. The jokes around her rarely land, but her commitment to the bit never wavers once. Watching her go all in on material this thin is its own strange kind of entertainment. | © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
5. Nicole Kidman — The Stepford Wives (2004)
A satire about robotic housewives needed someone who could play brittle and brainwashed at the same time. Nicole Kidman found the comedy in a woman losing her edge and turned it unsettling instead of goofy. The jokes around her land soft, but her transformation from sharp executive to smiling mannequin still tracks emotionally. The Stepford Wives forgets to be funny long before she stops trying. | © Paramount Pictures
4. Halle Berry — Catwoman (2004)
Catsuits and cat puns do not automatically sink a movie, but the script surrounding Halle Berry never gives her a fair fight. She swings between vulnerable and feral with total commitment, selling a character built entirely out of contradictions. The villain plot barely holds together, and the rules of her powers change scene to scene. Catwoman wastes an Oscar winner on a premise that never figured out what it wanted to be. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
3. Angelina Jolie — The Tourist (2010)
Venice canals, expensive suits, and a mistaken identity plot that never quite clicks into place. Angelina Jolie plays the mystery woman at the center of it all with a kind of amused control, like she knows exactly how thin the material is. Her scenes with Johnny Depp generate heat the script keeps trying to explain away with twists. The Tourist looks gorgeous and says almost nothing, but she makes the nothing watchable. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
2. Jennifer Lopez — The Mother (2023)
An assassin comes out of retirement to protect a daughter she has never met. That is the entire pitch of The Mother, and Jennifer Lopez treats it like it deserves real stakes anyway. She goes cold and physical in a way the script rarely earns, hunting through Alaskan wilderness like the emotional beats actually landed first. The action is generic, but her focus keeps the movie from evaporating on contact. | © Netflix
1. Charlize Theron — Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Ravenscroft armor, white face paint, a queen who eats hearts for youth. Charlize Theron goes fully unhinged as the villain in Snow White and the Huntsman, screaming her way through dialogue that barely supports the performance underneath it. Kristen Stewart gets top billing, but Theron is clearly the one running the show emotionally. A fairy tale this expensive should never have needed her to work this hard just to stay interesting. | © Universal Pictures| ©
