The quality of actress Jenna Ortegas movies has ranged from great, like The Babysitter: Killer Queen, to less-than-stellar, like Saving Flora. Ortega rose to stardom with the title role in the Netflix supernatural dramedy series Wednesday, a role that scored her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, but she’s been acting since 2012. The actress has appeared in both big-budget blockbusters like Iron Man 3 and smaller indie films like Wyrm and The Fallout. Her roles in horror films like X, Insidious: Chapter 2, and the Scream franchise have earned her a place in the “scream queen” pantheon.
Wednesday Addams is the role that defines Ortega’s career, but she’s played a wide variety of characters. In addition to playing the Addams Family’s morose daughter in her own TV spin-off, Ortega has played a school shooting survivor, an adult film star, and a Scream final girl who broke the trope in feature-length movies. She’s starred in box office successes, critical darlings, and sleeper hits that have launched a franchise. The actress always brings her A-game to each role, but some Ortega movies have turned out better than others.
13 The Little Rascals Save The Day (2014)
Ortega plays Mary Ann in the ensemble cast of The Little Rascals Save the Day. This reboot updates the characters from Hal Roach’s Our Gang shorts and reimagines a lot of their classic comic scenarios. While the timeless Our Gang franchise is crying out for a reboot, The Little Rascals Save the Day is typical direct-to-video fare that fails to recapture the magic of Roach’s original shorts.
12 Saving Flora (2018)
Saving Flora stars Ortega as Dawn, who takes a circus elephant that’s due to be euthanized on a dangerous journey across the jungle to save its life. While this is a nice, simple story about one girl’s efforts to save an elephant’s life, Saving Flora was controversial for hiring its elephant actor from Have Trunk Will Travel, a company with a documented history of animal abuse (via PETA Asia).
11 After Words (2015)
Marcia Gay Harden stars in After Words as a librarian who goes to Costa Rica after losing her job and gets a new lease on life when she falls for a younger man. Ortega plays the supporting role of Anna Chapa. Harden brings her all to the lead role, but this conventional romance didn’t make much of an impression on audiences.
10 American Carnage (2022)
Ortega plays Camila Montes in American Carnage, a horror thriller about the children of undocumented citizens evading arrest by volunteering to care for the elderly. With a middling Rotten Tomatoes score of 58%, American Carnage is a muddled attempt at Get Out-style social commentary through horror that gets points for its satirical ambition.
9 Studio 666 (2022)
Studio 666 is a unique horror take on a movie like A Hard Day’s Night as the Foo Fighters portray exaggerated versions of themselves recording an album in a haunted mansion. Ortega establishes the stakes of the movie as Skye Willow, a heavy metal drummer who gets killed in the cursed studio in the opening scene. While it may come to be re-evaluated as a cult classic, Studio 666 was met with mixed reviews and tepid box office returns on its initial release.
RELATED: Studio 666’s Most Intense Deaths, Ranked
8 Yes Day (2021)
The Netflix original movie Yes Day sees a couple of parents who always tell their kids “no” setting aside a day in which they promise to say “yes” to all their chidlren’s wildest wishes. Ortega plays Katie Torres, one of the kids. A big hit with Netflix viewers, Yes Day is an affable, heartfelt family comedy that takes full advantage of its fun premise.
7 Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
Ortega plays the minor role of Annie in Insidious: Chapter 2. The second Insidious film is a disappointing sequel lacking the suspense and atmosphere that made the original a hit, and it relies on jump scares that can be seen coming from a mile away. Although the Insidious sequel received mostly negative reviews from critics – scoring 38% on Rotten Tomatoes – it still struck a chord with audiences and became a big box office success.
6 The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)
In The Babysitter: Killer Queen, the sequel to the hit Netflix horror comedy The Babysitter, Ortega plays Phoebe Atwell, a new student at Cole’s school who becomes his love interest when he’s once again targeted by a Satanic cult. The Babysitter: Killer Queen might not be as fresh or lively as its predecessor, but it’s still plenty of gory fun. Ortega joins the cast with a standout performance that steals the show. While critics weren’t as kind to the sequel as the original, The Babysitter: Killer Queen scored impressive viewership on Netflix.
5 Iron Man 3 (2013)
Ortega made a cameo appearance as the Vice President’s daughter in Iron Man 3. This minor character was crucial to the plot: the Vice President got involved in the Extremis project in a bid to cure his daughter, leading to Tony Stark’s next high-flying superhero adventure. With worldwide returns of more than $1.2 billion (via Box Office Mojo), Iron Man 3 is one of the MCU’s highest-grossing solo movies. It polarized Marvel fans with its bold Mandarin twist – revealing Iron Man’s arch-nemesis to be a soccer hooligan in disguise – but Shane Black’s script is subversive and action-packed as usual, and Robert Downey, Jr. gives a typically great performance as Stark.
4 Wyrm (2019)
Set in an alternate 1990s, Wyrm centers around an awkward teenager who reluctantly partakes in a school requirement to wear an electronic collar that will only detach when he has his first kiss. Ortega plays the supporting role of Suzie. Wyrm is a quirky, offbeat teen comedy that uses its oddball dystopian sci-fi premise to reflect the social pressures faced by middle schoolers. It wasn’t a particularly big hit with audiences, but it was praised by critics.
3 The Fallout (2021)
Ortega stars as Vada Cavell in The Fallout, a powerful drama about the trauma suffered by a school shooting survivor. The Fallout handles its sensitive subject matter delicately, and Ortega and Maddie Ziegler anchor The Fallout with moving performances as Vada and fellow survivor Mia, while Finneas O’Connell provides a poignant musical score in his film composing debut. The movie was acclaimed by critics and proved to be popular with audiences when it streamed on HBO Max.
RELATED: The Fallout Ending Explained
2 X (2022)
Ti West’s X revolves around the cast and crew of a 1970s adult film getting picked off by the sexually frustrated elderly couple they rented the set from. Ortega plays Lorraine Day, the screenwriter’s girlfriend who asks to star in a scene and ends up locked in a basement. X is a fresh spin on the slasher formula with stunning visuals and impeccable performances from Ortega as Lorraine and Mia Goth as both starlet Maxine and killer Pearl. X was universally praised by critics (indicated by its 94% Rotten Tomatoes score), and while it wasn’t a huge box office hit initially, it became popular enough with audiences to spawn a trilogy.
1 Scream Franchise (2022-2023)
Ortega leads a new generation of youngsters against the Ghostface killers as Tara Carpenter in the rebooted Scream series. With their references to “requels,” toxic fandom, and subverting audience expectations, the 2020s’ Scream movies have successfully reinvented the self-aware satire of the franchise for the modern horror landscape. The Ortega-starring Scream films have been popular with both critics and audiences, earning positive reviews and drawing huge crowds to movie theaters. In terms of their critical success and popularity with audiences, the fifth and sixth Scream installments are by far the best Jenna Ortega movies.
Sources:
PETA Asia
