56 Memorable Kathy Bates Movies Ranked Worst To Best

"A Little Bit of Heaven" attempts to somehow reconcile two very different genres: a cute romcom and a melodrama about terminal illness. The result isn't pretty. Marley (Kate Hudson) is a marketing executive who's the life of the party, but her priorities change whenever her doctor (Gael Garcia Bernal) diagnoses her with colon cancer. So Marley decides she might as well have a bit of fun before she dies, and along the way she has a relationship with her doctor (not creepy at all).

It makes no sense. If director Nicole Kassell wanted to make an escapist romcom, then why did she bring cancer into it? And if she wanted to make an impactful drama about terminal illness, then why did she make cancer have such a minimal presence in the movie? 

Peter Knegt from Indiewire can't even comprehend why Bates would sign onto such a project. In the role of Marley's mom, Bates "looks like she's trying so hard with such unforgivable material," according to Salon. Despite her efforts, "A Little Bit of Heaven" earns the honor of being the worst Kathy Bates movie.

After the collapse of a rope bridge in 1714 Peru leads to the death of five people, Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) decides to uncover the stories behind the five victims -– each of whom is tied in some way to the actress La Perichola (Pilar López de Ayala) –- in the hope of proving that their deaths are not just a coincidence but instead divine providence. His wild theories anger the Archbishop of Lima (Robert De Niro), who threatens to have Juniper burned at the stake. With a Pulitzer Prize-winning book as source material and several brilliant actors, how could the 2004 adaptation of "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" go so wrong?

Even with the frame story of Juniper attempting to pull things together, the story is a tangled mess of supporting characters who are only tangentially relevant, according to The Seattle Times. To make matters worse, the film suffers from a "ponderous, heavy-handed" mood, says Dr. Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion.

One of the five victims, the wealthy Doña María, is played by Bates. Swietek describes Bates as "[alternating] between blank serenity and overwrought weeping, neither very successfully." Likewise, Film Freak Central couldn't believe Bates would even sink low enough to participate in this project, let alone give a performance so disappointing.

Theater doesn't always translate very well to film. This is especially true of "Curse of the Starving Class," which is adapted from the acclaimed Sam Shepard play of the same name. The 1994 movie follows the alcoholic Weston (James Woods), his wife Ella (Kathy Bates), and their children. They're a dysfunctional family who insist that –- money troubles notwithstanding -– they are not "the starving class."

Schuster at the Movies says that it's impossible to care about any of the characters. Meanwhile, Jimmy Fowler from The Dallas Observer was incredulous that an adaptation of such a great play with such a talented cast could possibly be such a disaster. Fowler concluded that it must have been because director Bruce Beresford tried to play it semi-seriously, when the original play was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Emanuel Levy from Variety argues that Bates (who is normally top-notch and in fact did an excellent job playing the same character on the stage) is "no more than okay" in the movie. Of course, this may not be completely her doing — as Levy points out, it certainly doesn't help that the filmmakers rely too much on unnecessary close-ups of Bates that reveal absolutely nothing about her character's inner life.

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In this 2008 remake of the 1951 sci-fi film, the alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) comes to Earth intent on wiping out humanity before they end up destroying the whole planet themselves. It's up to Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) to convince Klaatu to give Earthlings a second chance.

Despite its attempts to update the tale for a modern audience (Klaatu is motivated by the desire to stop global warming instead of nuclear war), "The Day the Earth Stood Still" doesn't hold a candle to the original. According to Silver Screen Analysis, the movie feels derivative of other blockbuster disaster movies, with a few plot points lifted from the 1951 classic. Roger Ebert wrote that Keanu Reeves is positively robotic in the role of Kaatu, making it difficult to become emotionally invested in the movie.

Bates plays Regina Jackson, the U.S. Secretary of Defense. According to The Guardian, Bates is "very much channeling the spirit of Hillary Clinton in her 3am-crisis-phonecall mode." Rodney Twelftree from Fernby Films says that Bates perfectly embodies the suspicion and paranoia that humanity would display whenever faced with an alien invasion. In fact, Twelftree even goes so far as to say that Bates alone gives the only decent performance in this disastrous remake.

"A Little Bit of Heaven" wasn't the only Kathy Bates movie that attempted to smash together a romcom with more serious themes of mortality (and then fail spectacularly). In "Krystal," Taylor (Nick Robinson) has a condition that makes his heart rate accelerate to dangerous levels whenever he gets excited. Naturally, he starts to fall in love with Krystal (Rosario Dawson), who can literally make his heart skip a beat. However, Krystal is afraid to commit to a relationship, especially since her last boyfriend (played by T.I.) was an abusive jerk.

According to Robert Kojder from Flickering Myth, Taylor's heart problem doesn't even make any sense, since it conveniently only kicks in whenever the plot requires it. What's more, Taylor lies to Krystal in order to appear cool around her, and the movie treats that like it's okay.

Bates is featured in the trailer, even though her character (Taylor's boss at the art gallery) plays such a small role. The filmmakers were probably just trying to capitalize on her status as an Oscar winner, but even then her immense acting talent is largely wasted. Every Movie Has a Lesson writes, "She gets a half of a hospital scene to remind us of her chops, but that scene and her presence is of little consequence when it should mean more."

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After the titular Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) loses her job and catches her husband (Nat Faxon) cheating on her, she decides to leave her small-town life behind. So Tammy and her grandma Pearl (Susan Sarandon) get into a bunch of hijinks (including robbing a fast food joint). Bates plays Tammy's rich lesbian cousin Lenore, and she leans too much into stereotype for this role, according to Chris Cummings from The Cinephiliacs. Cummings adds, "She is so, so much better than this."

Ian Buckwalter from NPR insists Tammy is a far cry from McCarthy's character in "Bridesmaids," who had plenty of heart underneath her absurdity, and whose scene-stealing performance was fitting because she was part of an ensemble cast. In "Tammy," however, McCarthy is the lead and needs to carry the whole movie. She's trying too hard to steal every scene — as Buckwalter says, her performance "screams for attention when you already have it."

When we say "Diabolique," we're not talking about the creepy French horror movie from 1955, but instead the 1996 remake. Still, you'd be better off watching the original. After teacher Nicole (Sharon Stone) grows fed up with her abusive lover (Chazz Palminteri), she teams up with the man's timid wife (Isabelle Adjani) to murder him. According to The Baltimore Sun, "Diabolique" is all style and no substance, and it's not even all that scary. The script is a mess, littered with "appallingly crude patches of dialogue," per The Spokesman.

Still, it's worth mentioning that the detective investigating the murder was a man in the original. In the sole interesting departure for the remake, Detective Vogel is played by Bates. "Bates ... genuinely brings the film alive when she arrives on the scene, a cynical and very funny '90s feminist twist on the old Bogart-style detective," wrote Deseret News, and some of the best scenes involve Vogel butting heads with Nicole. Still, not even Bates can pull off a salvage job here.

"The Death and Life of John F. Donovan" is inspired by director Xavier Dolan's own experience as a boy writing fan letters to a celebrity (except in real life, he wrote to Leonardo DiCaprio instead of John F. Donovan). The film follows young Rupert Turner (Jacob Tremblay) as he exchanges letters with closeted gay actor John F. Donovan (played by Kit Harrington). After Donovan's death nobody believes Rupert when he says they were pen pals.

Hal Kitchen from 25 Years Later says that the movie doesn't hold a candle to the other works of Xavier Dolan, but that might just be because almost two hours of scenes ended up on the cutting room floor (including every single scene with Jessica Chastain's character). Kitchen adds that Bates, who plays Donovan's manager, "nearly steals the film with a tough love monologue in the last third." Variety disagrees, describing the monologue as more like a lecture. All in all, says Variety, it's a self-absorbed film that focuses too much on Dolan's self-insert and not enough on the tragic story of the actor who inspired him.

"Fred Claus" proposes that Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has a brother named Fred (Vince Vaughn). In their mother's (Kathy Bates) eyes, St. Nick has always been the golden child. When Fred wants to open his own casino, Nick lends his brother money in exchange for Fred's assistance up at the North Pole, giving Fred an opportunity to show that he is just as capable as his saintly brother. Most reviewers agree that Bates (who plays Mother Claus) is wasted in "Fred Claus"; her main contribution to the movie is simply lending another well-recognized celebrity to the cast list, argues Mountain Xpress. "Kathy Bates' nagging mom shtick grows a bit weary," adds The Independent Critic.

Eric Snider from MTV writes that "Fred Claus" is a sloppy mess. It suffers from plot holes, gratuitous romantic subplots, and a lack of a unifying purpose. Meanwhile, Sounds of Cinema says that director David Dobkin (who previously helmed the R-rated comedy "Wedding Crashers") must have a bit restricted by the PG rating, and as a result, the comedy "always holds back, waiting for permission to be naughty." The movie isn't as terrible as "Bad Santa 2," but it's certainly no "Bad Santa."

In "Little Black Book," Stacy (Brittany Murphy) begins to wonder if her boyfriend (Ron Livinston) is actually staying faithful to her, so she teams up with her coworker Barb (Holly Hunter) to poke around in his past and investigate all his exes, under the pretense of interviewing them for a talk show. Needless to say, some of the things Stacy finds convince her that maybe ignorance is bliss.

Credit where credit is due: "Little Black Book" tackles a fascinating premise. Alas, it doesn't do much with the idea, instead settling for "sitcom situations and thinly-realized characters," says DVD Talk. Ken Hanke from Mountain Xpress writes that the movie misses an opportunity to make a biting satire of reality TV. By far the best part of the movie is Holly Hunter, who brings a delicious complexity and unpredictability to her character.

Bates plays the heroine's boss, a chatty talk show host named Kippie Kann. Most critics agree that her performance here was middle-of-the-road. Bates is "far too talented to waste her time with such mediocre material," according to USA Today.

Adapted from a short story by Joseph Conrad, "Swept From the Sea" follows a shipwrecked Ukrainian immigrant named Yanko (Vincent Perez) after he washes up in a village in Cornwall, where the village wants nothing to do with him. However, a quiet girl named Amy (Rachel Weisz) soon falls in love with him because he is an outcast like her.

According to The New York Times, the movie tries too hard to be romantic, and comes off as cloying instead. "Swept From the Sea" has so much potential, wrote Roger Ebert, thanks to Ian McKellen's performance as the doctor who disapproves of Amy and Yanko's romance. The implied reason for the doctor's disapproval is that he's in love with Yanko himself, but Ebert wished the movie had directly confirmed the doctor's sexual orientation.

"Even Bates, who's normally dependable, is awful," says Deseret News, which criticized her distracting attempt at a British accent. Although Bates brings some warmth to Miss Swaffer, the only other villager sympathetic to Yanko's plight, her role in the frame story is largely unnecessary.

In "P.S. I Love You," Holly (Hillary Swank) is still mourning the death of her husband Gerry (Gerard Butler) when she receives a posthumous letter from him. As it turns out, Gerry wrote her a bunch of letters before he died, meant to be given to Holly incrementally through the grieving process and encourage her to start living again.

This romcom certainly deserves credit for killing off its primary love interest at the beginning of the movie, and kudos to Butler for stepping outside his action-hero comfort zone. But the problem, according to James Berarddinelli of ReelViews: "The execution is sloppy and the writing often seems amateurish."  AV Club, meanwhile, points out that the way that Gerry tries to tell Holly how to live her life from beyond the grave may come off as unintentionally creepy.

In the role of Holly's mother, Bates isn't given much to do, aside from disapprove of Gerry's letters, saying they will only make it harder for Holly to let go in the long run. (She might have a bit of a point.) Derek Armstrong from AllMovie argues that Bates is easily the best part of the movie, but "her superlative scene comes far past the point when most viewers will have given up."

In this road-trip comedy, the middle-aged Arvilla (Jessica Lange) travels with her friends Margene (Kathy Bates) and Carol (Joan Allen) from Idaho to California to transport her late husband's ashes. Despite her daughter-in-law's wishes, Arvilla decides to scatter a bit of her husband's ashes at every stop.

Through no fault of the three leads — all of whom had been Oscar nominees in the past — "Bonneville" is a little underwhelming. The movie is bogged down by a generic script, and it tries a bit too hard to be sentimental, but the charisma of the three heroines is almost enough to redeem the film. "Thank heavens for the practical presence and humor of Bates," wrote Paul Byrnes of The Sydney Morning Herald, who said that Bates overshadows the lead actress by far. "Bonneville" is by no means a complete failure, but as Matt Mazur of PopMatters wrote, "It isn't befitting of the American acting royalty that acquiesced to star in it."

Picture "A Star is Born" as a TV movie, except with two real-life Hollywood screenwriters who had an affair during the mid-20th century, and you might get something like "Dash and Lilly." Dashiell Hammett (Sam Shepard) is an alcoholic screenwriter whose career is taking a nosedive, especially after he's arrested during the McCarthy-era Red Scare. His lover Lillian Hellman (Judy Davis) still has a promising career ahead of her, yet is speaking in Hammett's defense before the House Un-American Activities Committee. According to Caryn James from The New York Times, Shepard and Davis give very convincing impressions, but their performances are just that: impressions. As James points out, both actors are so talented they could have easily done more.

Here Kathy Bates steps behind the camera to direct. Tom Wiener from All Movie argues that Bates is "timid" at the helm of the project. However, Variety wrote, "Bates' directorial debut is visually stunning," insisting that the movie fails thanks to writer Jerry Ludwig, whose script seems to hero-worship the two stars and misses an opportunity to explore their flaws. Nevertheless, Bates got an Emmy nomination for her work.

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"Bruno" (renamed "The Dress Code" for its DVD release) didn't get a lot of recognition, but New York Mag insists that it deserved better; "Bruno" is much smarter than the average cable movie and a "surprisingly affecting fable." The titular Bruno (Alex D. Linz) attends a Catholic school. He is bullied by his classmates and Mother Superior (Kathy Bates) because he likes to wear dresses, but Bruno gets a chance to earn everyone's respect when he rises to the top of the Catholic National Spelling Bee Championships.

"Bruno" is Bates' second collaboration with Shirley MacLaine. According to Lael Loewenstein from Variety, Shirley MacLane's portrayal of Bruno's grandmother is just a variation on the archetype she played in "Terms of Endearment," but she still does a decent job. The reviewer also gives a shout-out to Kiami Davael (who is outstanding in the role of Shaniqua, the Black girl at school who likes dressing up like a boy), though as Loewenstein writes, "Pros like Sinise and Bates are confined to playing one- or two-note characters."

In "White Palace," wealthy widower Max (James Spader) falls in love with a scrappy woman named Nora (Susan Sarandon) who works at a burger joint and is more than 15 years his senior. Bates plays Max's boss, who is curious about his new girlfriend, even though he's afraid to publicly announce he's dating an older woman.

It's a pretty nuanced and refreshing take on a May-September couple, and Sarandon especially is magnetic with her take on the character, which Variety called "raunchy yet vulnerable." However, Cinehouse points out that the film is problematic in the same way that "Pretty Woman" is problematic: it places too much emphasis on the male lead "saving" his romantic co-star from a dead-end situation.

Most reviewers didn't pay much attention to Bates, though Psychotronic Cinema argues that Bates manages to steal the spotlight in the handful of scenes where she appears. Meanwhile, The Spinning Image likes that Bates served as an audience surrogate, "[a sounding board] for how we should react [who] contributed to the overall sincerity" of the film. Mostly, though, "White Palace" is significant merely because it came out little more than a month before "Misery" propelled Bates to stardom.

In "Angus," the titular awkward teenager (Charlie Talbert) doesn't have the guts to tell popular girl Melissa (Ariana Richards) he loves her, until he and Melissa are chosen as Winter Ball King and Queen. It turns out this was a prank meant to humiliate Angus, but he decides to embrace the Winter Ball as a chance to win Melissa's heart.

According to The Spokesman, "Angus" doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel -– it relies on a lot of common high school comedy tropes –- but its earnestness is still endearing, if you can look past all the clichés. Crustula gives credit to the character of Angus, who is a bit different from the average "high school underdog" archetype because he's involved in sports and sometimes even stands up for himself against bullies.

Critics were divided on Bates, who played the hero's mom. The Spokesman described it as a "winning performance," while The Tampa Bay Times argued that Bates was "slumming" in a subpar role.

Critics are divided on "A Home Of Our Own." Variety described it as a sappy family drama that would be more suited as a TV movie, while Deseret News argued that the film is a full step above most others in its genre. The plot: after single mother Frances Lacey (Kathy Bates) loses her job, she and her six children move into a dilapidated house in rural Idaho and begin patching it up.

Although "A Home of Our Own" may try too hard to be moving, says Cinapse, its saving grace is definitely Bates. In the hands of a lesser actress, Frances Lacey "could have been all squishy and soft at the center," according to Desert News. "But Bates plays her as being angry at the cards she's been dealt, and she doesn't intend to take life lying down." 

However, Variety wrote that Bates ultimately just portrays "a variation on the roles that won Oscars for both Ellen Burstyn and Sally Field" (in two better films of the same genre: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "Places in the Heart," respectively). Regardless, her performance here is "underrated," insists Coming Soon. 

Created in response to the 1967 movie "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Highwaymen" retells the story of the two outlaws from a different angle. It's written from the perspective of the two Texas Rangers -– Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson) -– tasked with hunting down Bonnie and Clyde.

Costner provides a grounding presence, and Harrelson is effortlessly entertaining, according to Brian Tallerico from RogerEbert.com. Another highlight is Kathy Bates as Governor Ferguson, who only reluctantly calls these two Rangers out of retirement for the job. Collider says Ferguson is "probably the strongest, most colorful and interesting character in the movie," and wishes she had gotten more screen time.

The Atlantic insists "The Highwaymen" is a welcome revision of the myth, since the 1967 film more or less romanticized a pair of serial killers. Meanwhile, The Independent argues that the movie misunderstands why some Depression-era people looked up to Bonnie and Clyde, and that it sends the problematic message that Hamer and Gault are above the law. Regardless of its implications, this Netflix film is a competent Western, if not a groundbreaking one.

After Wilson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) learns that his wife Liza (Annie Morgan) has committed suicide, he loses touch with reality. He cuts himself off from his loved ones and becomes addicted to inhalants. He doesn't dare open the final message that Liza wrote him before her death, no matter how much Liza's mother (Kathy Bates) wants to read it.

Critics were impressed by the deep performances by Hoffman and Bates. As Liza's mother, Bates is amazing, especially when she interacts with Hoffman's character. (The scene where he shouts up to her window is intense in the best way possible.) The best showcase of her talent arrives in a moment when an oblivious neighbor asks to see Liza, not knowing that she's dead. The reaction Bates gives will moisten the eyes of even the most stoic viewers. On her face, says The Seattle Times, "there's hope (Could Liza still be living? Could it all be a bad dream?), disbelief, then a flood of sadness."

At times, "Love Liza" may suffer from a disjointed plot, says The Independent Critic, but Roger Ebert argued that this was irrelevant, because the film is "not about a plot but about a condition."

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Fresh out of prison after serving 17 years for murder, Marvin (Jake McLaughlin) skateboards back into his small-town community to take care of his dying mother (Kathy Bates). He also begins making amends with Delta (Aisling Franciosi), the granddaughter of the murder victim.

Film Threat praises the way that "Home" portrays Marvin and the other characters with empathy. Meanwhile, Carlos Aguilar from The Wrap writes that the romantic subplot may be sappy and cliché, but the film is strikingly original in its portrayal of an ex-convict who is serene instead of bitter. According to Aguilar, "Home" demonstrates that Bates "can make herself noticeable in any given role with the might of her bitter cheekiness."

As Bates explained to The Boston Herald, she took this role very seriously. Not only did she conduct research by reading the accounts of mothers whose children grew up to be killers, but she also requested not to meet McLaughlin in-person until the first day of shooting. That way, she would react to him as if he were a complete stranger -– which is exactly how a mother might feel if she was separated from her son for more than a decade.

You know the story:  Annie (Alicia Morton) lives in an orphanage run with an iron fist by the abusive Miss Hannigan (Kathy Bates), but Annie is given a chance at a better life when she's adopted by the wealthy Daddy Warbucks (Victor Garber). Craig Butler from AllMovie.com writes that this 1999 TV movie is a huge improvement upon the 1982 movie adaptation, and truer to the spirit of the original 1977 stage musical. Variety says the movie strikes just the right tone, playing the story "more like a spirited fairy tale and less like a cartoon," even if Bates occasionally slips into caricature in an otherwise subtle performance.

Does Bates make a good Hannigan? While Carol Burnett is certainly outstanding as Miss Hannigan in the 1982 movie, Rachel Charniak from Onstage Blog points out that comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Had Bates tried to take the same route as Burnett, she would have just seemed like Kathy Bates playing Carol Burnett -– and obviously, she would pale in comparison to the original. The New York Times insists Bates is a "genius to make Hannigan simultaneously monstrous and sympathetic, just a victim of career frustration."

"Revolutionary Road" was the highly-anticipated reunion of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, more than a decade after "Titanic." These two actors deliver some astounding performances, even if this movie adaptation never quite measures up to the original book. The movie follows Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) as their marriage crumbles, with the once-ambitious Frank content to settle, while April longs to escape her suburban cage and pursue her dream of becoming an actress. The film is mature and unflinching in its portrayal of a relationship that is slowly but surely decaying.

Bates plays Helen Givings, Frank and April's neighbor with a neurodivergent son (Michael Shannon). Screen Daily feels that Bates plays the role competently, even if it's very similar to other archetypes she has played before. Bates is excellent in the moments when her character takes center stage, according to Laura from Reeling Reviews, yet "whenever Bates interacts with other characters it's like she's some kind of emergency stand-in acting with a well-oiled cast." Laura adds that the movie's biggest flaw is that it spends a lot of time on the couple's misery, but never fully explores why the pair might have once loved each other or why their love began to sour.

In one of her best roles, Bates plays an obsessive fangirl -– no, we're not talking about Annie Wilkes from "Misery" (though we'll get to her in good time), but instead the character Stella Mae from "Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." Bates co-stars in this stage-to-film adaptation with Sandy Dennis, Cher, Marta Heflin, and Karen Black as childhood friends who used to call themselves the "Disciples of Jimmy Dean" and are reunited 20 years after the death of the legendary actor.

"Come Back" may be a bit too sentimental and the ending is easy to predict, but David Brook from the Blueprint Review argues that the movie is more about the journey than the destination, as each of these women reflects on how their lives didn't turn out the way they hoped. "Kathy Bates doesn't have the meatiest role in the film," adds Brook, "but she makes an impression." However, AllMovie says that Bates, who was in the original stage production, treats the movie as if she is still onstage, which interferes with the transition from theater to film.

Still, "Come Back" boasts an innovative trick with a two-way mirror (per Roger Ebert), and great acting all around. (At the time, nobody would've guessed that Cher could be such a great actress.)

In "Straight Time," Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman) is fresh out of prison and just wants to stay out of trouble. Yet thanks to the callousness of an uncaring parole officer (M. Emmett Walsh) and the influence of Max's ex-con friends, he gets sucked back into a life of crime.

"Straight Time" marked the first speaking role for Kathy Bates. She plays the wife of Max's friend Willy (Gary Busey), and she warns Max to stay away from her husband. William Boyle from Goodbye Like a Bullet sums up her performance best: Bates "makes something out of a throwaway role ... Her eyes are hard. She knows what Dembo can bring into Willy's life and she wants nothing to do with it."

The basic plot of an ex-convict getting back in the game is a common enough concept, but what makes "Straight Time" unique is its angle, writes Birth. Movies. Death. The film focuses on the gritty and mundane details, the aspects of a post-prison life that don't often get depicted in the movies yet ring incredibly true. Geek Vibes Nation praises Dustin Hoffman for his sympathetic yet unromanticized portrayal of Max. In fact, the performances in "Straight Time" are so excellent that it would arguably rank higher on this list, were it not for the fact that Bates gets such a small role.

In this political satire, politician Jack Stanton (loosely based on Bill Clinton and played by John Travolta) tries to win the Democratic presidential primary, with the help of his wife Susan (Emma Thompson) and his campaign team.

While not always historically accurate (per The Guardian), "Primary Colors" is an acute satire and a complex look at politics. The film wisely chronicles the campaign through the eyes of Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), a compassionate campaign manager who grows disillusioned by the end of the movie, and it presents a compelling moral dilemma with great maturity, says The Washington Post. When a good-natured Democratic candidate named Fred Picker (Larry Hagman) threatens to overtake Stanton, Henry must choose: sling mud at Picker so Stanton will win the primary (which goes against Henry's values), or avoid such underhanded tactics knowing that it will probably guarantee the victory of the opposite party, who will no doubt use the same tactics anyway.

ReelViews calls Bates is a "scene-stealer" in the role of Libby Holden, a cynical campaign strategist bent on getting the dirt on Picker. The scene in which she threatens a man at gunpoint until she gets a signed confession is unforgettable, to say the least. Libby's suicide is also unforgettable, though in a very different way. Roger Ebert described her performance as "Oscar-caliber," correctly predicting her Oscar nomination for the role.

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We don't seriously need to review the plot of "Titanic," do we? Okay, if you insist. Rich girl (Kate Winslet) and poor boy (Leonardo DiCaprio) board ship. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Ship hits iceberg. Boy dies to save girl. Of course, that facetious plot summary doesn't even begin to do justice to James Cameron's epic. Everything in this movie somehow works beautifully, when in the hands of a lesser team it would have sunk (no pun intended). The choice to spend several giddy scenes on Jack and Rose's romance halfway through the movie, while the iceberg is fast approaching, could have been a tonal misfire. Instead, it gives viewers a satisfying high point, made all the more poignant with the foreboding knowledge that everything is about to go south. Like all the best tragedies, "Titanic" has highs alongside its lows.

One particular highlight of the movie is Bates in the role of the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown. It's a relatively minor role, but Bates makes it memorable by injecting Molly with a strong personality, one that's totally unlike the stiff upper-crust folks around her. Bates portrays Molly as the only first-class passenger with a sense of humor. She is arguably the only one (besides Rose) with any courage, too, as seen by her heart-wrenching performance in the lifeboat when she pleads to go back and search for survivors.

In Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," nostalgic writer Gil (Owen Wilson) brings his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) to Paris, but he is more enamored with the city than he is with his lover. So Gil is delighted to discover that, whenever he stays up past midnight, he can travel back in time to the 1920s, where he can meet F. Scott Ftizgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), and so many other writers he admires. One such writer is Gertrude Stein, whose confident and frank personality is captured perfectly by Bates. David Edelstein from NPR writes, "Kathy Bates proves that in an absurd context, playing it straight can make you funnier than a thousand clowns."

Perhaps the most magical thing about "Midnight in Paris," according to Roger Ebert, is that Allen doesn't feel a need to explain why Gil is able to time-travel. There doesn't need to be a reason for it –- it simply is.