As Anne Hathaway Gears Up To Dominate The 2026 Box Office – Let’s Revisit 5 Movies That Prove She’s Been Carrying Hollywood All Along

Anne Hathaway’s Instagram bio has enough film credits to double as a studio release calendar – four films, four seasons, and no signs of slowing down. X is already on its knees, deifying her as Hollywood’s unofficial savior. And honestly? They might be onto something. With a slate this stacked, now is as good a time as any to look back at the films that made her into the force of nature capable of carrying a year of cinema on her shoulders. Before she reigned over 2026, these six movies proved she was already doing the heavy lifting.

Ella Enchanted (2004)

A wonderfully messy modern riff on a book that was already a riff on Cinderella, Ella Enchanted definitely polarized people upon release: book purists had Opinions™. One thing everyone could agree on? Anne Hathaway was born to play this part. In the midst of her princess phase, she delivered Ella with the right mix of sweetness, edge, and straight-up movie-star energy. Ella’s predicament was being “gifted” by a well-intentioned but misguided fairy with complete obedience and is what sets her off to find her own agency and take control of her own story. It’s a pleasure to watch Hathaway use that journey as a showcase for pretty much everything she’s great at: comedy, pathos, singing, dancing, heroism … she’s got it all. She even becomes a full-on civil-rights leader for elves and ogres, because why the heck not?

The whole thing is whimsical, it’s funny, it’s unabashedly fairy-tale-camp, and Hathaway grounds it with so much heart that many fans today view the film as the book’s “equally charming” version. Plus, her musical numbers are still criminally underrated.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Pitting yourself against Meryl Streep is nerve-wracking enough, but having to go head-to-head with her as Miranda Priestly is a cinematic trial by fire. Streep weaponizes every furrowed brow and frosty silence, so when naïve and woefully out of her depth Andy Sachs steps into the office, she’s basically on the menu. Yet, Hathaway doesn’t just hold her own –she actually excels. Her Andy is charming, real, and disarmingly earnest, the perfect emotional yin to Miranda’s icy yang. Any other actress would’ve been eaten alive in Streep’s wake, but Hathaway grounds the whole movie in heart and humanity. Andy is an aspiring journalist who takes the job “a million girls would kill for” without really having an interest in fashion or considering it more than a means to an end. After Nigel’s brutally honest (and objectively legendary) wake-up call, she reinvents herself not to get Miranda to like her, but to show herself she’s capable of the job. The process changes her in both small and large ways, putting friendships and relationships to the test and forcing her to confront who she really wants to be.

Full disclosure: This movie is a permanent fixture on my rewatch rotation, and Hathaway is a huge reason why. She gives us a heroine who’s both relatable and imperfect, capable of being both earnestly ambitious and beautifully messy and messy, all at once. It’s an anti-romantic comedy in the absolute best way you’re actively rooting against every man, and only for Andy to choose herself. It’s funny and sharp and stylish and it cemented Hathaway as a bona fide fan favorite.

The Princess Diaries (2001)

When you were five years old, did you ever fantasize about being a princess? Now, at the ripe age of 30, you find that not only was this not possible, but you also had no reason to think it was even remotely within the realm of possibility? Mia Thermopolis is why that fantasy ever felt real. To see the painfully awkward, frizzy-haired, near-invisible 15-year-old realize that her father was secretly Crown Prince Philippe Renaldi of Genovia was the ultimate wish fulfillment. Adapted from Meg Cabot’s popular series of books, the film was Hathaway’s feature film debut and she has publicly stated that being able to hug Julie Andrews every day on set was like living in a dream. C’mon, you’ve got to give it to her. Coming out of nowhere to play a slightly pathetic teenager who turns into a princess because she gets tutored by Julie Andrews is one hell of an introduction to the world. The audience knew right away that she was a star and that we were going to see her have a huge career matched up against Andrews is an intimidating prospect to have from the very beginning, but few could have done it as well as she.

If you were a goofy, frizzy-haired child and everyone and their mother insisted that you “look just like Mia” (as you first saw her tripping over bleachers or getting punched in the face for no reason, of course), that could cut deep, especially since your first lesson in Mia-dom is you’re ugly, but get a blowout and you’re “beautiful”? Man, traumatic! Despite the fact that this movie might have stung a little for us curly girls who have been stuck in our grief over the lack of acceptance since the ‘80s, this film is iconic. It’s so touching, it’s so funny, and it’s so rewatchable. I was a mess of a teenager but adult me is 100% obsessed and super bitter that we don’t have these tutorials, methods, and just broad acceptance of curls like little curly kids do now, while Mia and the rest of us were left in the dust.

Interstellar (2014)

As the Earth spirals into environmental collapse due to dust storms, withering crops, and a climate-change-induced apocalypse, Interstellar drops Anne Hathaway into one of her most quietly intense roles. Her character, Dr. Amelia Brand, is the mission’s chief scientist whose entire purpose is “nearly unfathomable to the minds of humans”: finding a new home for humanity before it’s too late. She and Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper, an ex-NASA pilot who’s been recalled for one last mission, work together to “explore the galaxies” and bring back a glimmer of hope for the human race. Anne Hathaway reunited with Nolan after her stint in The Dark Knight Rises, and Brand is her most “smartest person on the ship” character without ever feeling emotionally removed. While Cooper is the heart of the story, Brand is the mission’s brains, and seeing those two ideas in motion is one of the movie’s best elements. Hathaway makes Amelia the picture of softness in a hard, scientific situation; she’s level-headed but still shatters under the impossible decision she has to make, and she has an unshakeable belief that the human race is worth saving.

We ABSOLUTELY cannot talk about this movie without that monologue of hers. The one where she explains love as something that defies the constructs of time and space. In a film about wormholes and black holes and all the mysteries and vastness of the universe, Anne Hathaway’s monologue about love nearly derails the entire project. It’s one of her least showy performances, but it serves as an important emotional throughline, and Nolan has even gone on record as saying casting her for the part changed the movie. Hathaway herself, meanwhile, has said the part changed her career. Interstellar is the movie many fans credit with realizing just how seamlessly Anne Hathaway can embody smarts, heart, and high-stakes sci-fi action.

Les Misérables (2012)

With less than 15 minutes of screen time, Anne Hathaway gave a performance in Les Misérables that was so sad, so bleak, so gut-wrenching and ultimately unforgettable that she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. As Fantine, the young mother banished from society and forced into prostitution to provide for her child, Hathaway does it all. She lived the role; she lived the suffering. She went without food, lost a tremendous amount of weight, and even asked her husband to leave their home while filming to further wallow in Fantine’s emotional journey. “I needed to go further into that negative place,” she later said. “I needed to fall into a pit.”

Fantine’s suffering in Victor Hugo’s epic has always been heartbreaking, but Hathaway takes it further. Her “I Dreamed a Dream” (sung live, her every breath quivering on camera) is a complete emotional breakdown masterfully captured in one long take. You see the pain in her eyes, hear the weariness in her voice, and feel the fragile determination of a person who has nothing left to lose. It’s the type of acting that makes you wonder how she does it and made even more special by the fact that she’s only in the film for a small sliver of its three-hour running time. Audiences and critics were stunned. Hathaway won over 10 major awards for her work as Fantine, and it’s easy to see why – it’s rare that an actor can make you feel the devastation of a character’s downfall, but the even rarer feat is to make you see the fragile humanity still burning inside. It’s one thing to sing through tears; it’s another entirely to make the whole world cry with you.