Every Sigourney Weaver Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The first is the worst and this one is a real doozy. "Happily N'Ever After" gets it all wrong, starting with the title (Why is there an apostrophe? Why not simply "Never After," which communicates the same pun?). Panned by critics and audiences alike, the 2006 animated film was trying to cash in on the fairy tale revival started by "Shrek," but without any of the charm or good humor. With a star-studded cast for the time — including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Weaver of course — this film followed the formula that has become all too common among animated films today by filling the cast with A-listers without a solid plot to back them up. Speaking of plot ...

Ella (Gellar) is a housemaid with a terrible stepmother, Frieda (Weaver). Sound familiar? The twist is that Frieda also has another servant, Rick (Prinze Jr.), who is friends with Ella while secretly being in love with her. Ella just wants to go to the ball and meet her Prince (Patrick Warburton), but trouble is afoot. The Wizard (George Carlin) who oversees all the fairy tales and ensures their happy endings goes on a vacation, and Frieda takes over his role as story warden to realize her own wicked desires. 

Whether or not it ends happily ever after may not be worth finding out. As The New York Times had to say of the film in its review, "This is another tired kidsploitation product."

"The Assignment" is the kind of movie that could only come from the cultural whirlwind of 2016, the Internet's purported worst year of all time. Alan Rickman and Prince died, Trump was elected president, and Sigourney Weaver starred in a thriller about a contract killer forcibly undergoing gender reassignment surgery. This is where the film's title comes from, after going through iterations like "Tomboy" and, unfortunately, "(Re) Assignment." 2015 was the "Year of Trans Visibility," according to Vogue, and it's truly a joy to see representation bloom and spread throughout the media. But as with any earthly bloom, there will be weeds.

Weaver stars as Dr. Rachel Jane, a plastic surgeon whose brother was murdered by a contract killer. As revenge, Dr. Jane manages to trap the killer, Frank Kitchen (Michelle Williams), and sedate him, and enact her revenge by giving Frank a nonconsensual reassignment surgery. Frank spends the rest of the film gunning down underworld members in order to find Dr. Jane.

More interesting than the movie itself is the expected controversy surrounding it. Members of the Trans community were understandably upset; GLAAD, an LGBTQIA non-profit, stated to the Hollywood Reporter, "We haven't read the script, but it's disappointing to see filmmakers turning what is a life-saving medical procedure for transgender people into a sensationalistic plot device." The film's director, Walter Hill, responded in Rolling Stone, saying, "There's nothing in the movie that doesn't agree with transgender politics or rights, at least in my admittedly limited understanding of them."

Originally released in France as "Une Femme ou Deux," "One Woman or Two" sees Weaver showing off her range both as an actress and a linguist. In this romantic comedy, Weaver spoke a portion of her dialogue in French (if you can hear it under the translation in this video). It seems like the movie should be something of a success on that basis alone. However, the movie was actually something of a dud. Roger Ebert asked in the final paragraph of his review, "Is there any redeeming facet to this movie? Anything at all that makes it worth seeing?"

The core of the movie is a mix-up of two women: Jessica Fitzgerald (Weaver) and Mrs. Heffner (Dr. Ruth Westheimer). Archeologist Julien Chayssac (Gérard Depardieu) discovers the two-million-year-old skeleton of the first French woman, which he names Laura. Hoping to win a research grant for his discovery, Chayssac mistakes the American woman who was supposed to help him — Mrs. Heffner — with Jessica Fitzgerald, an advertising executive who hopes to use Laura for a perfume ad. Who ends up with Laura? Who ends up with the beau Chayssac? You'll have to tackle "One Woman or Two" yourself to find out.

It's always exciting when a movie puts its own spin on its source material, and "Half Moon Street" is one such example. The film is based on the Paul Theroux novel "Doctor Slaughter," a gritty thriller of a novel. The 1986 film diverges, according to Roger Ebert's review, in its more nuanced portrayal of the two primary love interests, played by Weaver and Michael Caine. "I could not recall a single bad performance by either of the stars," Ebert said, and "Half Moon Street" was no exception. The broader critical response to the film was less kind; the film garnered a feeble 5.3 out of 10 on IMDb.

The film follows the bold Doctor Lauren Slaughter (Weaver), an American policy worker at a think tank in London. Despite her doctorate, Dr. Slaughter struggles to pay the bills. After receiving a mysterious videotape, Slaughter decides to moonlight as an escort to make ends meet. And they more than meet: Slaughter ends up with a flat in Westminster's Half Moon Street, hence the title. During her nighttime work, Slaughter becomes involved with Lord Bulbeck (Caine), a member of the House of Lords. Lord Bulbeck is working to secure a peace treaty in the Middle East, and his budding romance with Slaughter gets tangled up in the bureaucratic drama.

"You Again" is a 2010 comedy with an interesting premise and strong cast that falls victim to poor execution. Its pitch is simple: remember the high school bully you couldn't escape? She's marrying your older brother. With that starting place, plus Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Bell, and Betty White, it's hard to believe this film was reviewed so negatively. The problems with the film are best summarized by the Hall of Shame award it won at the Women Film Critics Circle Awards in 2010, bestowed on the movie for its "perpetuation of the same-old same-old stereotypes of hysterical insecure women and reasonable, sage men." Despite the critical misgivings, "You Again" still managed a decent performance at the box office, earning $32 million to its $20 million budget.

The plot proceeds from the aforementioned premise, where Marni (Bell) learns her brother is marrying Joanna (Odette Yustman), her former bully. Joanna feigns ignorance when Marni arrives home, in order to keep her fiancé unaware of the bad blood. Meanwhile, Marni's mother Gail (Curtis) learns that Joanna's aunt Ramona (Weaver), who had been her friend in high school, is coming to the wedding. Mirroring the younger women's rivalry, Gail and Ramona also dredge up old beef. As the wedding approaches, Marni quarrels with Joanna while Gail fights Ramona, and the union of these two families becomes more and more uncertain.

Pop culture is obsessed with the many-hued allure of the stepmother. Cinderella's stepmother is dark and evocative of fear; Claire in the show "Fleabag" stirs up a strange obsession in her stepson, whose dialogue consists almost entirely of the phrase "Where's Claire?" "Tadpole" finds its roots in this same cultural preoccupation — the woman who comes in suddenly and becomes your mother.

Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is an intellectually precocious yet romantically underdeveloped teen of 15. He cares about libraries, not ladies — not the ones that are his age, anyway. No, Oscar's affections are for his stepmother Eve (played by Weaver). Eve is ignorant to his affections, or ignores them, but her colleague Diane (Bebe Neuwirth) becomes enamored with the bright boy. Wearing Eve's scarf, Diane seduces Oscar, and he spends the remainder of the movie trying to keep Eve and his father from discovering the affair.

"Tadpole" was generally favored by critics, less so by audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert in his review pointed out where the discrepancy may lie. "Too much has happened in the arena of sexual politics since 'The Graduate,'" he said, and audiences didn't take as kindly to the Oscar-Diane romance. It probably didn't help that "Oscar was 15 and his stepmother and her friend were about 40."

Movies like "Red Lights" do an important job in cinema. Films like these, the perfectly mediocre kind, are made to be put on during sick days, lazy Sundays, and in the background at parties and dates. It is necessary that they have stellar casts to bolster the often below-average scripts. All the better if it's a thriller. "Red Lights" — a 2012 supernatural flick that came out at the tail-end of the "Paranormal Activity" series craze — checks all these boxes.

Weaver plays Margaret Matheson, a psychologist and paranormal skeptic who is out to discredit Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), a famous psychic. Helping Matheson is her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy). Despite her persistence, Matheson is unable to disillusion the public about Silver. After a tragic accident befalls Matheson, Buckley is left to take on Silver on his own, and he is overtaken by the obsession like Matheson before him.

Of all the movies in the Alien franchise – arguably the most important series Weaver has ever been involved with — 1997's "Alien Resurrection" is probably the worst, by a slim margin. The movie had almost everything going for it: the brand name, Weaver starring, Winona Ryder co-starring, and Joss Whedon penning the screenplay. But despite the good components, something didn't click. "They said the lines ... wrong," Whedon said of the final product (per Digital Spy), along with many other poor decisions — in Whedon's view — made by the filmmakers.

Set 200 years after the events of "Alien 3," "Resurrection" stars a clone of the old heroine Ellen Ripley (Weaver), who has been reconstructed to aid in the breeding of xenomorphs, the eponymous alien of the series. Breeding alien killing machines, of course, goes quickly wrong. The xenomorphs escape their confinement, and due to an emergency protocol, the spaceship they are on heads back to Earth. It becomes a race against the clock. With the help of Annalee Call, an android played by Winona Ryder, and some mercenaries (including Ron Perlman), Ripley just might pull it off.

"Alien Resurrection" did not do well at the box office. That and the poor critical reception didn't deter Weaver, who expressed her excitement for the idea of an ending to Ripley's story at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2016 (per Entertainment Weekly).

Before Sigourney Weaver was one of cinema's most recognizable and prolific actresses, she was a woman of the stage. Weaver actually attended Yale's renowned drama MFA program, although she had "a difficult time" there "because they took everything so seriously" (per Observer). She starred in some stage productions, particularly those of her friend Christopher Durang from Yale (per The New York Times), before shifting to film. She did not completely abandon the stage though, as can be seen in "The Guys," the film adaptation of a 2002 off-Broadway play. Weaver portrayed one of the leads both on stage and later on screen.

The premise of "The Guys" is simple but poignant. Nick (Anthony LaPaglia) is a New York Fire Department captain who lost eight of the men under his command during 9/11. He is preparing a eulogy for them. Joan (Weaver) is an editor who assists Nick with this task. Nick shares stories with Joan about each man, the titular guys, and she takes the pieces of these men and assembles the written eulogies for Nick. The film is a somber tribute to the first responders, and it was received well – thankfully — by audiences and critics alike.

There's a nice balance to the "Alien" franchise: there's the two mediocre ones, and there's the two incredible ones (only counting the films with Sigourney Weaver, of course). Fortunately, "Alien 3" is the better of the lesser entries. Its mediocrity can be attributed in large part to the production of the film, at least according to a Vox article detailing the tumultuous process from pre-production through editing. The film went through several different ideas, scripts, and directors before landing in David Fincher's lap. This was Fincher's first feature film, and "his on-set perfectionism grated on the producers." The friction between him and the studio lasted through editing, and the final product had cut much of Fincher's intended vision.

"Alien 3" tells the final chapter of Ripley's story (at least the original Ripley). Directly following the events of "Aliens," Ripley is the sole survivor of a crash landing on an all-male prison colony. It soon becomes clear, however, that an alien in its early form had crashed with Ripley but escaped into the colony. Teaming up with some of the less-troubled inmates — a doctor named Clemens (Charles Dance) and the inmates' leader, Leonard (Charles S. Dutton) — Ripley resolves to exterminate all the aliens on the colony, no matter the cost.

Fans of the franchise will be pleased to know that, much like the Snyder cut of "Justice League," there is an extended version of "Aliens 3" that the same Vox article attests holds truer to Fincher's original vision; but unlike Snyder, he had no part in its creation.

"A Map of the World" is difficult to pin down, which is surprising given the fact that it's based on a book of the same name. That means there are two versions of this story, and still audiences and critics alike aren't sure what to make of it. Look for a summary online and there's little in the way of explanation (Roger Ebert, in his review, deliberately chose to withhold the circumstances of the plot). On Rotten Tomatoes, the scores are mixed between a 66% approval by critics and 55% by audiences. With all the obfuscation and middling opinion surrounding the film, one can't help but wonder: why did this secure Weaver a 2000 Golden Globe nomination?

Maybe it was a quiet year, or perhaps Weaver outperformed a so-so script. Or maybe there's a hidden-gem quality to "A Map of the World," the tumultuous story of a Wisconsin mother, Alice (Weaver), put on trial for a tragedy that befalls a friend's child while under her care. The child's mother, Theresa (Julianne Moore), would be the maudlin center-of-attention in a worse film, but as The New York Times attested in its glowing review, this "is Ms. Weaver's movie, and she dominates virtually every scene." Give it a chance; per her Times profile, it's "the movie of hers that she most wishes more people had seen."

"Ghostbusters 2" begins five years after the original film, with the team having disbanded. Apparently wrangling ghosts wracks up a hefty bill of public damages, so the city has banned the group from their paranormal work. Dana (Weaver) has split up with Peter (Bill Murray) and now works at a museum curating ancient artifacts. At home, she watches over her son Oscar. It all goes awry when the spirit of an old dictator, locked in a museum artifact, bewitches Dana's boss and demands Oscar as a vessel for ghostly possession. In light of it all, there is only one group Dana knows to call.

As the "Ghostbusters" franchise keeps attempting to reboot — with 2016's lady-led "Ghostbusters" and the more recent "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" — it's interesting to look back on the entry that halted this titanic franchise in its tracks. Carrying the weight of the original behind it, "Ghostbusters 2" was by no means a financial flop, but it was considered a critical failure. Looking at the film's Rotten Tomatoes score today, it's easy to see why. The failure can be attributed in part to the creative leads' aversion to making a sequel, particularly Bill Murray, as the director of the first two films, Ivan Reitman, explained in a Rolling Stones retrospective. It could also be attributed to the change in leadership at Columbia Pictures, according to an old New York Times article. What's most important though, is that Weaver shined either way — a Washington Post review praised her as the "swankiest comic foil" in the film.

"Dave" was the first collaboration between Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline, with the two developing a lasting friendship. In Weaver's New York Times profile, Kline recalls a practical joke she played on him over the course of filming "Dave." She created a photo album full of pictures she had secretly taken of Kline, all with members of the crew in the background with funny or disinterested expressions. "I've never quite witnessed anything like it," Kline said. "It was an extravagant practical joke."

It wasn't just funny behind the scenes, though. "Dave" is a comedy about, well, Dave (Kline), a man who impersonates the president for some extra cash. He's so good that the Secret Service asks him to fill in as the president after a speech, as a safety measure. The job becomes more permanent when the real president suffers a stroke, and Dave is asked to remain a stand-in to prevent panic. This is when he meets the First Lady, Ellen (Weaver), who has been secretly separated from her husband for some time. At first, she buys it, but Dave eventually tells the truth, and a real romance blossoms between the two. The trouble is, can Dave keep up the charade? With Ellen as motivation, he'll surely try.

Dian Fossey was a conservationist who worked for years in Rwanda with mountain gorillas. She was tragically murdered in 1985, and the culprit was never found. During her time studying gorillas, Fossey wrote a book titled "Gorillas in the Mist," which became the basis of the 1988 film of the same name.

Capturing Fossey on the big screen, Weaver obviously had to spend some time with gorillas. Shooting in Rwanda alongside the hulking animals, Weaver recalled for her New York Times profile, "It was the closest thing to absolute joy that I've ever felt on the planet — just to be with them. They're so grounded, compared to us." Reflecting on her simian coworkers, she said, "They have such smart priorities: eating, sleeping, copulating." While the film itself may not be a comedy, Weaver always brings the laughs.

"Gorillas in the Mist" begins just before Fossey's initial trips to Africa. Studying the gorillas, Fossey makes insights into their social behavior, and she becomes particularly close with one ape, which she names Digit. During the course of her study, she becomes aware of a fur trade centered on the gorillas, and with little help from the Rwandan government, she takes the matter of protecting the animals into her own hands. Documenting the wild, exciting life of Fossey, the film is a memorable tribute that earned Weaver a nomination for Best Actress at the 1989 Academy Awards (the same year she was nominated for Supporting Actress in "Working Girl").

Premiering in 1982, three years after the smash hit "Alien," "The Year of Living Dangerously" may be the movie that cemented Sigourney Weaver's star status in the public eye. While "Alien" had been no dud, you don't become a household name off one hit.

"The Year of Living Dangerously" is about Indonesia toward the end of the Sukarno regime. Guy Hamilton (Gibson) is an Australian foreign correspondent who whiles away his days at bars with other journalists. He's having a rough go of it until Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt) takes a liking to him and helps Guy find more interesting leads for his reporting. Billy introduces Guy to Jill (Weaver), who works at the British Embassy, and the two quickly fall for each other. Guy is searching for a proper story to tell, and he finds it when the Indonesian people rebel against Sukarno and he gets caught up in the conflict. There he finds his story, which ultimately reunites him with Jill.

Weaver may have had a less engaging time with the role (Roger Ebert said of the performance that she had "a less interesting role but is always an interesting actress"), yet she looked back on her time with co-star Mel Gibson fondly. In her New York Times profile, Weaver recalled how "he encouraged me to wear the highest heels I could" at the film's debut. No small ask, as Weaver is known for her height and Gibson, while not short, is not.

Another great thing about Sigourney Weaver: she's not afraid to poke fun at herself. She established her career with the sci-fi behemoths in the "Alien" franchise, and then she teased the whole genre in the comedy "Galaxy Quest." The film is not directly parodying any of the "Alien" installments as much as it is spoofing the "Star Trek" universe. And intentionally so — director Dean Parisot said in an MTV interview, "Part of the mission for me was to make a great 'Star Trek" episode.' In that spirit, Weaver's character calls out the one-dimensional, overly-sexualized nature of women in sci-fi, before characters like Ripley came along.

"Galaxy Quest" begins on Earth, with the cast of an old show of the same name touring different fan conventions. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) played the lead in the show, so he loves the opportunity to bask in the old glory at these fan gatherings. His former castmates Gwen (Weaver) and Alexander (Alan Rickman) are more jaded and disappointed, both with Jason's vanity as well as the plateauing of their careers. But everything changes after one such convention, when Jason is taken to space by actual aliens aboard a perfect replica of the spaceship used in the old show. At first, Jason thinks it's just an elaborate fan meeting, but he soon realizes that the stakes are real. With the help of his "crew," Jason will have to save these alien fans from an even greater menace — the malevolent Sarris.

"The Ice Storm" examines two suburban Connecticut families who are at the point where their ennui turns self-destructive and their cynicism all-consuming. But reviewers are quick to point out that it's funny — particularly Weaver, who Rolling Stone described in its review as "a wow ... [who] nails her comic lines spectacularly." Pretty much any review you read of the movie will go out of its way to compliment her performance, so it comes as no surprise that this film earned Weaver her BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress.

The two aforementioned Connecticut families are made up of mothers and fathers Elena and Ben Hood (Joan Allen and Kevin Kline) and Janey and Jim Carver (Weaver and Jamey Sheridan). Besides being neighbors, Janey and Ben are also having an affair. It doesn't seem to be an affair based on love, but rather boredom or convenience. Perhaps that's why the Hood and Carver children also explore their sexualities together in a strangely mundane way, which both Janey and Ben walk in on. This is the bulk of Weaver's storyline, while the rest of the movie similarly explores this theme of confused suburban disenchantment.

If all this sounds difficult to sell to audiences, it was. Despite a positive critical reception, the movie garnered $10 million under its budget at the box office.

More than any other film on this list, "Avatar" may be the one that needs the least introduction. More than a decade after its debut, it still holds the title of highest grossing film worldwide, likely due to re-releases in theaters abroad. Maybe Marvel will manage to get ahead one day, or maybe Weaver will prove to be James Cameron's financial good luck charm for years to come.

Speaking of "Avatar," weren't there supposed to be four more of those? The short answer is yes, but little is known of the films as of yet, except for the first sequel's supposed release in late 2022. One thing that is known, per Weaver's New York Times profile, is that a good portion of it will be underwater. Weaver didn't balk at the challenge, declaring, "I don't really say to myself, 'Well, you can't do this.' Or, 'You can't do that.' Let me at it! And we'll see."

The original film follows a Pocahontas-esque narrative of colonists with big guns arriving to a quote-unquote new world with the hopes of exploiting its population and natural resources. Only "Avatar" does it in space. And where John Smith only joined the Powhatan tribe in spirit, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) joins the Na'vi in essence, piloting the body of a Na'vi man as his avatar. Some of the humans help the Na'vi resist, including Jake and Dr. Grace (Weaver), a biologist who invented the avatar linking process.

How do you make a sequel to an unexpected hit? There are two pathways: the disappointingly unsuccessful route of "Ghostbusters 2," and the "Aliens" route. The origins of both sequels began the same way. At first, the studios were unwilling to pursue the sequel at first, but in both cases there was enough support to get the projects greenlit. But where "Ghostbusters 2" built off its old formula, "Aliens" reinvented its own wheel. The studio brought on at-the-time newcomer James Cameron after his success with "The Terminator," and he did away with the claustrophobic horror of "Alien" in favor of a guns-blazing action piece.

Weaver took the genre shift in stride. Cameron recalled of the filming, "It was a tough shoot, physically ... there were valves and handles sticking out, and ... I remember [Weaver] just being black-and-blue after a couple of weeks" (via New York Times). One reason Weaver is unforgettable? She puts her body on the line for the performance.

57 years after the events of "Alien," Ripley (Weaver) is rescued and awoken from cryostasis, only to discover that the moon where her crew found the xenomorphs in "Alien" has been turned into a human settlement called Hadley's Hope. After contact is lost with the settlement, Ripley returns there with a team of space Marines to investigate and exterminate any of the remaining aliens. Once there, she discovers that the corporation which founded the colony wants to turn the aliens into biological weapons, and Ripley has to save the day again.