20. Amazingly Beautiful (1999)
After doing her duty in the dinner theater, Adams made a promising big-screen debut as the delightfully dim-witted Leslie Miller, one of only one teenage contestant in a beauty pageant in a small Minnesota town with a suspiciously high body count. This satirical mockumentary has built a cult following since its release.
19. Talladega Nights – The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
It’s hard not to be upstaged by Will Ferrell (Ricky) and Sacha Baron Cohen, who get all the laughs in this Nascar comedy, but Gary Cole is brilliant as Ricky’s dissolute father, and Adams does wonders as the unassuming assistant who becomes a love object while delivering some comically over-the-top inspirational speeches.
18. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
It’s always a treat to see Ben Stiller get slapped by monkeys, but it’s Adams, adorable in a flight jacket and curly bob as the feisty aviator Amelia Earhart, who is the most valuable player in this loose sequel to the special-effects fantasy about museum exhibits that come to life after hours. The whole thing is very educational.
17. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
As Brenda, the braces-wearing, petite blonde who smooches Leonardo DiCaprio’s fake doctor, Adams is a fresh and witty screen presence in her first major role. Steven Spielberg expected her to be a star when he cast her in this con-man flick, but it would be another three years before she became known in Junebug.
16. Sunshine Cleansing (2008)
In Christine Jeffs’ comedy, Adams plays a single mother who starts a crime scene cleaning business with her irresponsible sister (Emily Blunt). Both actors are solid, and the film plods along in typical Sundance fashion, steering a course between platitude and familial dysfunction without really getting emotional.
15. Julie & Julie (2009)
Adams delivers an impeccable performance as Julie, a struggling millennial New Yorker, but is actually somewhat overshadowed by a full-on Meryl Streep in Nora Ephron’s double-stranded comedy. While Julie blogs about Julia Childs’ recipes, Streep plays Childs herself, whose culinary adventures in post-war Paris are, it must be said, much more fun.
14. Man of Steel (2013)
In Adams’ first of three appearances as Lois Lane (four if you count Zack Snyder’s Justice League), she is not only Superman’s romantic interest, but also a smart, capable, and brave investigative journalist. Unfortunately, her screen time decreases in the later films as Lois is relegated to the sidelines.
13. Doubt (2008)
The principal of a Catholic school in the Bronx suspects her parish priest of abuse in John Patrick Shanley’s adaptation of his own play. As the naive young teacher, Adams asserts herself simply by creating a calmer space between the heavy declamations of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Streep.
12. Miss Pettigrew’s Big Day (2008)
Adams turns the screwball dial up to 11 as flighty American musical star Delysia Lafosse, torn between penniless romance and career-boosting comfort as she juggles three suitors in 1930s London. Frances McDormand plays the old-fashioned governess who comes to her aid in this cheery, inoffensive retro romantic comedy.
11. Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
Adams is almost unrecognizable as the overall-wearing, abusive, drug-addicted mother in Ron Howard’s poverty-porn adaptation of JD Vance’s memoir about growing up in America’s Rust Belt. No poor white trash stereotype is left untouched as our couch-loving hero is baffled by fancy silverware and outshone by strong women on his way to Yale.
10.Vice (2018)
In her third collaboration with Christian Bale, Adams was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Lynne Cheney in Adam McKay’s biopic of Dick Cheney, the charisma-free vice president who pulled the strings in George W. Bush’s administration. The smug satire doesn’t always work, but Bale’s physical transformation is stunning and Adams is impressive in her role as the power behind the power behind the throne.
9. The Muppets (2011)
Playing a singing ingénue with character, Adams is a perfect fit for Disney’s clever franchise reboot, in which she helps her fiancé (Jason Segel) and his Muppet brother Walter stop an oil magnate (the deliciously evil Chris Cooper) from tearing down the abandoned Muppet Studio. That’s it, Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of the gang are reunited – fun for all the family, full of cameos and meta gags.
8. Big Eyes (2014)
Tim Burton directs a surprisingly straightforward biopic about Margaret Keane, whose enchanting paintings of wide-eyed children were scorned by critics but loved by audiences. Christoph Waltz is a one-dimensional villain as her husband, who claims to have painted the pictures in 1960s San Francisco, but Adams delivers a careful portrayal of a woman slowly learning to hold her own in a man’s world.
7. Junebug (2005)
An art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) visits her new husband’s family in North Carolina, where her big-city lifestyle is met with derision from everyone except Ashley, his pregnant sister-in-law. In any other role, Ashley’s relentless naivety would be annoying, but Adams’ sweet, funny and heartbreaking performance was her breakout role, earning her the first of six Oscar nominations.
6. The Fighter (2010)
Adams sheds her girl-next-door image to play Charlene, the feisty bartender girlfriend of welterweight Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) in David O’Russell’s snappy blue-collar biopic. If Micky wants to win in the boxing ring, he must break free from his crack-addicted brother and trainer (Bale in the first of three films starring Adams), his monstrous mother and his bickering sisters, who call Charlene a “bitch.”
5. The Master (2012)
Once again, Adams supports the powerful Hoffman, whose twisted father-son relationship with the troubled World War II veteran played by Joaquin Phoenix forms the backbone of Paul Thomas Anderson’s psychological drama. But what a support! As the cult leader’s superficially cheerful wife, she subverts her normally serene screen persona to terrifying Lady Macbeth-style effect, earning her fourth Oscar nomination.
4. American Hustle (2013)
Bale and Bradley Cooper get the 1970s hairstyles and Jennifer Lawrence gets the eye-catching lip-sync scene, but it’s Adams in deep Halston V-necks who brings emotional truth to David O’Russell’s absurdist rogue comedy loosely based on the FBI’s Abscam affair, even as it pokes fun at others. Her portrayal of an English aristocrat named “Lady Edith” deserves a spin-off of her own.
3. Enchanted (2007)
Disney sets its own fairy tale agenda in motion as a naive cartoon princess is transformed into a flesh-and-blood woman in modern-day Manhattan. It’s a brilliant performance from Adams, who makes Giselle more charming than saccharine as she tirelessly searches for her prince, repeatedly breaking into song and getting the local rats and cockroaches to help her clean her host’s apartment.
2. Nocturnal animals (2016)
Adams is sensationally good and has never looked more polished than the hapless protagonist of Tom Ford’s cool, disturbing revenge psychodrama, an art dealer who begins to question her life choices while reading the manuscript of her ex-husband’s novel. No, her character is not likable, but it’s not every day that you see such multifaceted female performances, and 2016 was the year Adams delivered two of them…
1. Arrival (2016)
The aliens have landed! But Earth threatens armed retaliation unless language expert Louise Banks finds out what the heptapods are saying. Denis Villeneuve’s intellectual science fiction film, based on a story by Ted Chiang, combines understated personal drama with impressive spectacle, with Adams giving a stirringly credible performance as an intellectual heroine exploring the ins and outs of language, time and space. It’s a travesty that her Oscar-worthy performance wasn’t even nominated.
