Kathryn Hahn’s 10 Best Movies & TV Shows, Ranked – SlashFilm

A quintessential everywoman, a supervillain twice over, the ultimate scene-stealer, and a comedic force of nature, there is no actor working right now that has the same undeniable presence as Kathryn Hahn. Since staking her claim with a head-turning performance in “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” she has taken on an audaciously wide range of characters, using her unique talents to bring single mothers and interdimensional witches to life with equal levels of craft and care.

This has earned her a resume that reads different from many of her contemporaries, not only because of the sheer variety of roles, but because not a single one of them is forgettable. In trying to put together this list of her best work, it felt as though we were splitting hairs between a cadre of characters all distinguished and brilliant in their own way. As such, we narrowed our focus mostly to those films and television shows in which Hahn is featured in a manner that does her outrageous skillset the most justice. Projects that showcase her range and ability to carry complex storylines to completion with maximum emotional impact. 

Whether you agree with our ranking or not (or hold a grudge over the many smaller but no less memorable roles we sadly couldn’t include), we can all unite in celebration of these works which broadly represent one of Hollywood’s most underrated treasures. Here are Kathryn Hahn’s 10 best movies and TV shows. 

Shortly after being featured as a prominent recurring character on Amazon Prime Video’s groundbreaking flagship drama “Transparent” (playing Rabbi Raquel Fein), Kathryn Hahn joined series creator Joey Soloway for their next project — the semi-autobiographical dramedy “I Love Dick,” also on Prime. Hahn stars as a fictionalized version of the writer and performance artist Chris Kraus, the real version of whom wrote a book of the same name in 1997.

Both follow Kraus as she becomes obsessed with the titular man, an attractive and enigmatic Texan played by Kevin Bacon. Though she and Dick know nothing about each other, she is compelled to write daily letters to express — with uncomfortably graphic language and vulnerability — the intense feelings of desire she feels for him. She never actually sends Dick a single letter, but their mere existence still creates ripples of change throughout Kraus’ world and, especially, her relationships with both Dick and her husband Sylvère Lotringer (a real French academic, as dramatized by Griffin Dunne).

Sadly, “I Love Dick” was canceled just as it was picking up steam, along with a slew of the streamers hidden gems from the late 2010s. However, its singular season is still a rare and disquieting vehicle for Hahn, as she ventures into risky territory with total commitment.

Kathryn Hahn revisited territory quite similar to “I Love Dick” several years after its cancellation in the 2023 miniseries “Tiny Beautiful Things.” The title discreetly encompasses the range of emotions that drive this often gutting true-ish story — specifically immense shame and, somehow, hope. She stars as Clare Pierce, a once promising writer (based on author Cheryl Strayed) who, after the death of her mother, unwittingly but almost completely destroyed her own life (through, among other things, cheating on her husband and neglecting a lucrative book deal she had received).

Three decades years later, Clare essentially feels as though she has knocked herself into a different life, wherein she’s an unhoused hospital administrator on the verge of being estranged from her husband and daughter. Thus, she accepts a lifeline to become an advice columnist, despite the fact that she feels she has no right to be telling anyone how to improve their lives when hers is in such a state (the title is in reference to an incident early in the series that demonstrates how little she thinks of herself at this point).

As depressing as the series sounds, “Tiny Beautiful Things” is also a gorgeously-written take on grief, art, and family that challenges popularly held beliefs about personal redemption. This is one of Hahn’s most human roles yet, and it’s a strong sign that her presence in the industry is only growing.

As far as political shows go, NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” is as easy to watch as they come. The sunnily optimistic sitcom stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a passionate parks department employee in the small, fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. It follows her attempts to serve her community in spite of the stubborn bureaucrats and reactionary citizens that try to get in her way. A fresh spin on the sleek mockumentary format that made “The Office” one of the coziest comedies on television (thanks to co-creators Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, who also spent the previous years of their career in Scranton, PA), it ran for seven seasons and, impressively, never wound up in the late-series rut other sitcoms fall into. It also raised the profiles of a litany of talented comedic actors who would go on to lead award-winning projects, such as Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Aziz Ansari, Adam Scott, and Chris Pratt (who, as of writing, is the third highest-grossing leading actor of all time).

Kathryn Hahn joined the cast in a recurring capacity during Season 4 as Jennifer Barkley, an effective but slightly unhinged Washington D.C. campaign manager hired by the woefully dim Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd). Overpaid and punching way below her weight class in a city council race, Hahn plays Jennifer brilliantly as a nonchalantly machiavellian strategist coasting through the biggest moment in Leslie’s career. It was impossible to expect how the character would try to sell her ludicrously unqualified and uninterested candidate as the savior of Pawnee, and Hahn’s blasé delivery made her all the more baffling. Hahn continued to appear on the show throughout its run, often as a surprising ally in the political journeys of the series’ leads.

The first Disney+ series produced by Marvel Studios, “WandaVision” represented a massive opportunity for the franchise to expand creatively. For the most part, this series made good on that opportunity, turning the at-that-point underdeveloped romance between Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and the Vision (Paul Bettany) into a surprisingly heartbreaking and emotionally credible story.

In the series, Kathryn Hahn makes her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as the couple’s annoying neighbor Agnes — who (spoilers if you haven’t heard her grammy nominated theme song or seen her follow-up spin-off series) was actually the powerful sorceress Agatha Harkness all along. Hahn described the relationship between Wanda and Agatha as similar to the relationship between the titular character of the film “Amadeus” (Mozart, played by Tom Hulce) and his artistic rival Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). Because magic was so natural to Wanda and emanated so powerfully from her with no formal training, Agatha resented someone who might otherwise be a peer or a rare friend in a world hostile to witches. In an early version of the story, the writing team imagined her as more of a mentor to Wanda, but switched gears quickly once they realized how much better Agatha would serve the story as a true villain.

Even so, Hahn imbues Agatha with a level of emotional complexity that is, frankly, stunning to behold in a superhero series. While the script gives her the requisite tragic backstory built into the supervillain handbook, Hahn honors this supernatural level of tragedy with each choice she makes. The anguish she feels is palpable and compelling, so much so that she was given her own series to headline in the aftermath.

Before he moved away from the genre to tell more serious stories, Adam McKay was best known for directing some of the best comedies of the 2000s. During this legendary run, he made “Step Brothers,” a broad farce about two man-children (Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly) trying to work through their new and hilariously immature siblinghood after their respective parents marry one another. Though it wasn’t exactly a contemporary critical hit (largely due to its crude humor and less-than-aspirational protagonists), the film has since remained one of the most culturally enduring comedies of the time.

Kathryn Hahn plays a supporting role in the film as Alice Huff, the wife of Derek Huff, the cruel but successful golden child of this newly blended family (played by Hahn’s future “Parks and Rec” co-star Adam Scott). Their introduction scene in the film is one of its highlights, with the two actors leading their family quartet in an awkwardly effortful a cappella rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” She begins as something of a straight-woman for Scott’s comically obnoxious outbursts, but McKay and Hahn subvert this trope by allowing her to blossom naturally over the course of the story into a comedic powerhouse in her own right. Even in her relatively few scenes, she showcases an absurd range that made her talent undeniable even then.

In 2018’s “Private Life,” Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti star as a couple who, despite being relatively successful creatives in New York City, are struggling in just about every aspect of their life. By the start of the film, their attempts to have a child via IVF have strained their marriage and their bank accounts, and left them little options or patience. Things only get more complicated when their niece (Kayli Carter) asks to stay with them while she herself is becoming disillusioned with the prospect of entering the creative world. 

This family drama is agonizing in the best way, allowing its cast – and Hahn in particular – to flourish in a simple but delicately crafted story about patience and emotional resilience. For those who have only seen Hahn in her popular comedic and/or genre projects, “Private Life” is also a more accessible window into the sort of dramatic work she excels at in various television series (all of which require a much larger time commitment to pay off in the same way).

Even in 2018, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was embarrassingly far ahead of its competition in the superhero genre. Set in an alternate reality parallel to those of the previous “Spider-Man” stories, it evolved the mythos and dramatic ideas inherent to the webslinger by putting a new face behind the mask — Brooklyn native Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore. As Miles takes over the Spider-mantle from an out-of-commission Peter Parker, he must overcome doubts from others and within himself in order to become the hero his reality needs. It’s a stylish, funny, exciting, and endlessly moving film that wields the great power of its source material in innovative ways, all while pushing the boundaries of the animation medium at large.

Part of its core appeal, especially to comic book fans, is its large cast of colorful superheroes and villains, none of whom are exactly how one would expect. In addition to Miles, there’s mentor Peter B. Parker (a disillusioned and washed-up version of the character voiced by Jake Johnson), a variant of Gwen Stacy who was bitten by a radioactive spider (Hailee Steinfeld), and — most surprisingly of all — an all-new Doctor Octopus, voiced by an ingeniously cast Kathryn Hahn. Early trailers for the feature smartly kept her role under wraps, preserving her ultimate reveal as one of the film’s most electric moments.

Given how distinct and emotive Hahn’s voice is, it’s surprising she doesn’t do voiceover work more often. Her performance in “Spider-Verse” exudes all the normal quirky, chaotic hilarity fans had come to expect from her after “Parks and Rec,” but further layered with an outright villainy they wouldn’t experience fully until “WandaVision.” She effortlessly takes space in a movie crowded with talent and IP, and nearly steals the bad-guy rug out from under Liev Schreiber’s Kingpin.

Having been left a prisoner of Wanda Maximoff’s hex following the events of “WandaVision,” Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness wasn’t exactly primed for another adventure. Aside from Hahn’s charismatic performance, there didn’t immediately seem to be a need to bring her back into the fold, save for some future intersection with Wanda — a possibility all but buried with the character after her fatally villainous turn in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” All this to say, an Agatha Harkness series was far from the top of the broader MCU fanbase’s desires for Phase 5 — which is why it’s all the more impressive that “Agatha All Along” emerged as a wickedly fun and effectively creepy miniseries that more than justified the character’s return.

The story is relatively simple: Agatha must regain her powers to fight an old enemy from her past (played by fellow “Parks and Rec” alum Aubrey Plaza) while training a new witch with a mysterious past (Joe Locke). Without spoiling the relatively new series, it turns its distance from the MCU proper into its greatest strength by taking the narrative and the characters involved in multiple unexpected directions. As a result, it’s one of the few MCU shows that doesn’t feel like homework for a future film, but a genuinely thrilling serialized experience.

Of course, the series is buoyed to an almost immeasurable extent by Hahn’s performance, which remains every bit as dropped-in and charming as it was in “WandaVision.” To imply that she elevates the series would be a disservice to the equally game ensemble, as well as the creative team who crafted a story that’s far more entertaining than it easily could’ve been. But together, as a team — or perhaps a coven — they made a rare superhero TV series that captures the magic of what this subgenre could be at its best.

Fashioning himself as a modern day Agatha Christie, Rian Johnson has taken his penchant for subverting tropes to a subgenre in desperate need of reinvention. The resulting “Knives Out” series has proven him more than up to the task, as he has now crafted two titillating murder mysteries that — in addition to containing insightful social commentary, witty dialogue, and clever twists — provide some of the most talented actors of our time a chance to tell a classic but challenging kind of story. In the second installment, titled “Glass Onion,” Daniel Craig’s southern gentlemen sleuth returns to investigate a series of strange and disturbing occurrences on a billionaire’s (Edward Norton, channeling Elon Musk) private island. Among those in attendance to witness his investigative majesty are Connecticut Governor Claire Debella, played by Kathryn Hahn.

Hahn is, to put it bluntly, the perfect murder mystery actor. She possesses the comedic prowess and theatrical gravitas that the subgenre almost always demands, as well as the unique capability to back these stylistic underpinnings with grounded character work. Her best moments come from a subtle mannerism caught at the tail end of a scene or a surprisingly understated line delivery that takes a scene from appropriately over-the-top to devastatingly human in a matter of words. It’s hard to discuss specific moments from the film without ruining the experience entirely, but suffice it to say that Hahn delivers a performance that embodies everything her fans love about her as an actor. Comedically and dramatically, she’s at the top of her game in a film that gives her every opportunity to shine.

As we said at the top, it would be an understatement to say we’re splitting hairs in ranking Kathryn Hahn’s best films and shows. But when it came to choosing our favorite, there was really no other choice but “Mrs. Fletcher.” The HBO drama has little in common with much of her resume, especially those we’ve included among her best work. It has significantly less going on in terms of plot and lore than her superhero projects, lacks the heightened energy of dedicated comedies like “Parks and Rec” and “Step Brothers” or a mystery like “Knives Out,” and — being a miniseries — has a longer narrative runway to fill compared to “Private Life.” In this simplicity, Hahn is given the room to tackle a familiar but challenging in a way only she can, consequently giving way to her most impressive and emotionally effective performance to date.

She plays the series’ eponymous protagonist Eve Fletcher, a middle-aged divorcée and recent empty-nester who chooses to confront this lonely new chapter of her life by opening herself up to new sexual experiences. It’s a character archetype that appears frequently in modern prestige television, but Hahn makes her mark by bringing to the role a willingness to be seen as flawed, messy, and humiliatingly human. And in this vulnerability, she takes the viewer on an oddly universal journey through the most intimate parts of a character’s life.

You will likely never go through the exact experiences Eve Fletcher does throughout the series. But the feelings of excitement, uncertainty, risk, embarrassment, the wonder and terror of being known completely by another person? This mines the very essence of humanity — which is, after all, the sacred goal of any actor aspiring to the caliber of one so great as Kathryn Hahn.