The bestAnna Farismovies and TV shows include some slapstick comedies and a few interesting dramatic turns along the way. Faris got her acting start in the drama club in school and took on several roles in school plays before she got her first taste of success when she appeared in the movieEden, which screened at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Faris then appeared in a straight-to-video slasher movie calledLover’s Lane, which led to her breakout role one year later when she starred in the horror-parodyScary Movie.
While she took on a smaller role in a critically acclaimed indie horror movie calledMayafter that, it wasn’t horror that Faris ended up typecast in, but the comedy genre. Faris picked up several comedy roles over the years, all to varying success, including the critically pannedThe Hot Chickand the highly underratedThe House Bunny. However, Faris earned her highest critical acclaim on television when shetook on the lead role in the sitcomMom, with Allison Janney.
In 2012, Sacha Baron Cohen was back for another comedy, but this was not like his mockumentaries where he fooled people into believing he was someone else. Instead, this was a straight fictional comedy where Cohen plays Admiral General/Prime Minister Haffaz Aladeen/Allison Burgers,a dictator who is trying to ensure democracy doesn’t come to his countrysince he has ruled it so well as a dictator for years. The movie sees him visit the United States, only to end up in a comedy of errors.
Anna Faris plays Zoey, a human rights activist with whom Aladeen eventually falls in love and who convinces him to allow democracy into his country. The film received mixed to positive reviews, sitting at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics calling it uneven but funny. It was also a major box office success, making $190.2 million, with praise going to Cohen’s comic timing.
The movie that made Anna Faris a star wasScary Movie, a parody film that plays as a version ofScreambut with the comic sensibilities of the Wayans Brothers. Directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans and written by Marlon and Shawn Wayans, the movie starts off as a straight spoof onScream, with the killer in a similar mask and costume, but everyone plays it all for laughs.Anna Faris takes on the lead role, playing Cindy Campbell(a version of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott fromScream).
The Scary Movies Were Hit Or Miss, But I’m So Excited For Scary Movie 6 For One Specific Reason
Despite only their first movie getting above 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Scary Movie franchise is coming back in 2026, and their timing is perfect.
In fact, everyone in the movie is based on a character from another horror film, with this mostly parodyingScreamandI Know What You Did Last Summer. The film was a monster success, making $278 million on a $19 million budget with a surprising positive 51% Rotten Tomatoes score. It resulted in a franchise that saw five total movies with a sixth on the way in 2026, although Farris left the franchise after the fourth installment.
What Kevin Smith’sClerkstried to do for convenience store workers, the 2005 comedyWaiting…tried to do for people who wait tables in restaurants. The film takes place in a franchise restaurant called Shenaniganz, and it follows the crew who work there and the terrible customers they have to deal with throughout their shifts. The cast was impressive, with Justin Long and Ryan Reynolds in the two lead roles as Dean and Monty, two friends who work at the restaurant and often pull pranks on co-workers.
As forAnna Faris, she stars as Serena, Monty’s ex-girlfriend,a waitress. Just likeClerks, this is a day-in-the-life movie. Critics mostly panned it, complaining that the gross-out comedy was more gross than funny. However, anyone who has ever worked in the restaurant industry will likely relate to a lot of what is shown in the movie, and there are some great laughs for those fans. It has since gained a small cult following since its release.
Anna Faris only appeared on four episodes ofFriends, but she played a very important role. In the final season, she played Erica, a young woman from Ohio who was pregnant andagreed to allow Chandler and Monica to adopt her baby. The role was a fun one, despite the limited appearances. She thought Chandler and Monica were a doctor and reverend, but the two eventually won her over despite their careers being nowhere near as impressive.
Erica then appeared in the final episode, “The Last One,” when she delivered the baby and shocked Monica and Chandler when she delivered twins. Despite her low number of appearances, Faris was impressive in her role and was given a Gold Derby Award nomination for Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She was also the last-ever recurring guest star onFriendsbefore the show came to an end.
Anna Faris appeared in more than one poorly reviewed comedy over her career, making her average of good-to-bad movies in the negative. However, one of her underrated gems is the 2008 comedyThe House Bunny.This film sees Faris play Shelley Darlingson, a Playboy Bunnyand hopeful Playmate who lives in the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner. However, she gets a note saying she has to leave (it was from a rival Playmate pretending to be Hugh Hefner), so she moves out.
Faris received praise for her performance and comedy timing.
Not knowing where to go, she moves into a college sorority of outcasts and their new Housemother and helps these misfits come out of their shells and become confident women. The film was a moderate box office success, and while it received mixed to negative reviews, Faris received praise for her performance and comedy timing. Critics believed this could catapult Faris into a comedy leading lady, although that never happened on the big screen.
Anna Faris has voiced characters in several animated movies, but the best of these came in 2009 when she voiced Sam Sparks in the adaptation of the children’s novelCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller before they took onThe Lego Movieand theSpider-Versemovies, this film tells the story of the citizens on an island who have to deal with a failed experiment that causes water to turn into food, which causes giant good to rain down on the island.
The movie received rave reviews from critics and earned four Annie Award nominations.
Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is a young scientist who wants to be a successful inventor, whileSam Sparks (Faris) is a meteorologist who becomes his love interest. The movie received rave reviews from critics and earned four Annie Award nominations (Animated Effects, Best Animated Feature, Directing, and Writing). It also spawned a sequel that arrived four years later, with Hader and Faris returning to their roles.
One of Anna Faris’s lesser-known roles came in 2003 with the indie horror movieMay. Directed by up-and-coming horror filmmaker Lucky McKee,Mayis a take on the Frankenstein story. Angela Bettis stars as May Canady, an awkward young woman with a troubled childhood who begins dating a mechanic named Adam (Jeremy Sisto) andfinds interest from a lesbian colleague named Polly (Anna Faris). When Adam dumps her and Polly cheats on her, she ends up breaking down.
After killing her first victim, she decides she needs “more parts” to create her perfect companion. Critics praised the film’s bizarre nature, calling it an above-average slasher flick with a darker, deeper subtext that is also strangely moving. It was also a film festival darling, winning awards for Angela Betts and Lucky McKee at four different festivals worldwide.
Ang Lee’s masterpiece,Brokeback Mountain,was a movie that starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two ranchers who fall in love. They have to keep their love a secret and hidden thanks to the homophobia rampant in their line of work, and both men end up in relationships with women as well to cover up their true selves. While Ennis (Ledger) was married to Michelle Williams’s Alma, Jack (Gyllenhaal) married Anne Hathaway’s Lureen.
Anna Faris, who plays Lashawn Malone, also fits into the story. She is a friend of Jack and Lureen and is married to Randall (David Harbour), a man with whom Jack ends up having an affair. It is a small role, but the movie is such an important piece of filmmaking that everyone in it is elevated. It landed on several top ten lists that year and was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and Ang Lee won Best Director.
Another movie in which Anna Faris only had a small role was the Sofia Coppola dramaLost in Translation. This film stars Bill Murray as Bob, a fading actor having a midlife crisis who ends up in Japan to shoot a whiskey commercial. While there, he meets a disillusioned American named Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), and the two of them develop a close friendship throughout the story.Anna Faris stars as Kelly, a Hollywood actressstaying at the same hotel as Charlotte and Bob.
It is an interesting role for Faris, as her character is meant to be the antithesis to Johansson’s Charlotte. While Charlotte is contemplative and disillusioned, Faris’s Kelly is vacuous and is in Japan to promote her new film. While she repulses Charlotte, Kelly is overwhelmed with admiration for Charlotte’s husband, John, a celebrity photographer. The film received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
The biggest and best role of Anna Faris’s career came on television. InMom,Faris stars as Christy Plunkett, a single mother battling alcoholismand drug abuse. She decides she needs a fresh start and wants to clean up, so she moves to Napa, California, gets a job as a waitress, and starts attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Her mother, Bonnie (Allison Janney), is also a recovering addict and attends meetings. This series is about beating the addiction, but it has a great sense of humor throughout.
The series lasted for eight seasons, but, shockingly, Faris left before the final season and didn’t return for the finale, saying her character’s story was over with. It was a surprise because this was Faris’s most prestigious work of her career. While not attracting attention from the Primetime Emmys or Golden Globes,Anna Farisearned three People’s Choice Awards nominations, while Allison Janney won two Primetime Emmy Awards for playing her mother.
