Sarah Michelle Gellar began her profession at an especially younger age with a task within the 1983 tv movie An Invasion of Privateness. Her first main position got here within the teen drama TV present Swans Crossing, which was adopted by her breakthrough as Kendall Hart within the cleaning soap opera All My Kids. In 1997, she gained recognition as the enduring Buffy Summers on the beloved cult traditional sequence Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a task she’s going to quickly return to.
Since then, she has labored on quite a few movies and reveals, with a few of her most notable together with Merciless Intentions and Scooby-Doo. The horror group is aware of her greatest for her position as Helen Shivers within the ’90s slasher I Know What You Did Final Summer season, however she has a couple of different scary flicks underneath her belt.
In a protracted listing of filmography, these are her 10 greatest motion pictures, in accordance with Rotten Tomatoes.
10
‘Scooby-Doo’ (2002)
32% Tomatometer
With a screenplay by James Gunn and directed by Raja Gosnell, Scooby-Doo brings the Thriller, Inc. gang to life in reside motion kind. Two years after disbanding, the group comes collectively once they’re individually summoned to Spooky Island, a spring break scorching spot stricken by supernatural entities. As they examine, tensions resurface, they usually understand the thriller is extra private than they may have anticipated. The movie sits at 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics consensus studying: “Although Lillard is uncannily spot-on as Shaggy, Scooby-Doo is a drained live-action replace, stuffed with lame jokes.”
An Replace to a Beloved Character
Regardless of being a important flop, the film was a business success and developed a cult following over time. The chemistry between the forged, which additionally contains Linda Cardellini, Rowman Atkinson, and Freddie Prinze Jr., is among the film’s most pleasant features, with every of them killing it of their roles. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Daphne is a extra nuanced, complicated character than the damsel in misery she’s depicted as within the cartoon. The subversion into a powerful and good lady is a welcome one, elevating Daphne and the story itself to new ranges.
9
‘Harvard Man’ (2001)
33% Tomatometer
In Harvard Man, Adrian Grenier (Entourage) stars as Alan Jensen, a Harvard basketball participant determined for cash after his dad and mom’ home is destroyed in a twister. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Cindy Bandoloni, a Boston school cheerleader and one among two ladies he is sleeping with, convinces him to throw a sport, telling him that if he loses on function, he’ll be paid a good-looking quantity by her mobster dad. After blowing the sport and getting the cash, he takes an enormous dose of LSD. What follows is a protracted acid journey as he is pursued by the mob and the FBI.
A Semi-Autobiographical, Trippy Movie
The film is strongly impressed by an eight-day LSD journey James Toback, the writer-director, took within the mid-60s when he was a scholar at Harvard. Whereas a couple of appreciated the movie, it usually did not do too properly with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Phil Corridor of Movie Menace wrote, “Followers of so-bad-they’re-good cinema might discover some enjoyable on this jumbled mess.” The critics’ consensus on the location reads: “Harvard Man is a pretentious, incoherent mess.”
8
‘TMNT’ (2007)
36% Tomatometer
When the CGI-animated superhero movie TMNT got here out in 2007, it had been 14 years since a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film had been created. The film helped skyrocket the recognition of the Turtles as soon as once more, and led to extra movies being launched. In TMNT, the group has disbanded after beating The Shredder, however are pressured to reunite when an historic warlord named Yaotl releases a military of 13 monsters. Sarah Michelle Gellar performs April O’Neil, an previous pal of the Turtles and an vital character within the story.
A Movie That Divided Critics and Audiences
TMNT was divisive amongst critics and audiences, which is mirrored in its 36% critic rating and 60% viewers rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Whereas followers had been extra appreciative of the efforts to reinvigorate the franchise with a darker tone, the critics’ consensus was that “TMNT’s artwork path is splendid, however the plot is non-existent, and the dialogue lacks the irony and goofy wit of the sooner Ninja Turtles motion pictures.”
7
‘The Grudge’ (2004)
40% Tomatometer
The Grudge is a part of a string of American remakes of Japanese horror movies that surged within the 2000s. Based mostly on Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge, the movie stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Karen Davis, a younger American nurse dwelling in Tokyo. Tasked along with her first in-home affected person, Karen turns into unwittingly embroiled in a terrifying curse of a home the place a lady suffered a violent loss of life and lingers there to hang-out anybody who enters.
A Huge Field Workplace Hit
The film’s fragmented narrative construction sparked destructive evaluations. On Rotten Tomatoes, it sits at 40%, with critics calling it issues like “fashionable however shallow horror” and “a slump-in-your-seat, would-be thriller, is a shockless shocker.” Regardless of being met with poor important reception, it was an enormous hit, making $187 million on the field workplace on a finances of $10 million. It was adopted by two sequels and a reboot in 2019. The Grudge may not be the most effective of movies, but it surely has performed a permanent half within the horror style.
6
‘Southland Tales’ (2006)
41% Tomatometer
Written and directed by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko), the post-apocalyptic black-comedy thriller Southland Tales is a mosaic of a number of interwoven storylines. Set in a near-future 2008 Los Angeles, it facilities round a brand new type of power known as “Fluid Karma,” rogue navy experiments, porn stars with actuality reveals, and homicide. SMG performs Krysta Now, a former porn star who received into psychic actuality TV. The forged additionally contains Dwayne Johnson, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, and Amy Poehler.
A Deeply Bizarre, Satirical Fever Dream
The overall critics’ consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is: “Southland Tales, whereas providing an intriguing imaginative and prescient of the long run, stays frustratingly incoherent and unpolished.” It was broadly bashed by critics. Regardless of being some of the critically panned movies of the 2000s, there are some who consider it is overrated, and even those that reward the movie as a massively underrated work.
5
‘I Know What You Did Final Summer season’ (1997)
47% Tomatometer
Most cinephiles are accustomed to the story: 4 pals cowl up a hit-and-run and are stalked by a hook-wielding killer in a fisherman’s slicker one yr later. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Helen Shivers is an icon in horror film canon, along with her legendary chase sequence broadly considered top-of-the-line within the style’s historical past. Practically 30 years later, and lots of nonetheless make the case that the doomed magnificence queen deserved the ultimate lady remedy.
An Important Slasher
I Know What You Did Final Summer season was dismissed by critics for being a wanna-be Scream and for being predictable and clichéd. On Rotten Tomatoes, the consensus is that it is a “by-the-numbers slasher.” Regardless of not being a important success, the film went on to turn into a cult traditional. After a sequel and a direct-to-video standalone entry within the movie sequence, the film received a ugly reboot in 2025, reinvigorating the love for the franchise.
4
‘Suburban Lady’ (2007)
50% Tomatometer
Sarah Michelle Gellar stars alongside Alec Baldwin on this age-gap romcom written and directed by Marc Klein. Brett Eisenberg is an assistant ebook editor with goals of changing into a big-time editor, however struggles with self-assuredness. At a ebook signing, she meets the older Archie Knox, a publishing playboy with problems with his personal, and sparks fly between them. Though there’s romance within the story, it’s finally a story of self-acceptance and rising into oneself.
A Distinctive Romcom
Described by Selection as “a mix of Intercourse and the Metropolis and The Satan Wears Prada” and a “pseudo-sophisticated romantic comedy,” Suburban Lady was met with usually blended evaluations. On Rotten Tomatoes, its Tomatometer rating is 50%. The yr it got here out, one critic known as it “a pleasing shock” and “Sarah Michelle Gellar’s greatest work.” One other wrote that it lacked any allure. The film may not have been a important success, but it surely did one thing fully totally different from what 2000s-era romcoms had been doing on the time. Gellar shines in her position and is cause sufficient to look at.
3
‘Merciless Intentions’ (1999)
54% Tomatometer
The romantic thriller Merciless Intentions efficiently modernized the story of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, recognized in English as Harmful Liaisons. For these unfamiliar with ’90s cinema, the film follows a pair of step-siblings, Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn Merteuil (Gellar), who torment New York Metropolis’s elite. After they goal Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), the headmaster’s daughter, in a guess of sexual conquest, Sebastian develops actual emotions.
A ’90s Cult Basic
Kathryn Merteuil is the It lady of all It women and the imply lady of all imply women. SMG’s efficiency is the prototype of characters like Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf and Megan Fox’s Jennifer’s Physique. The position is amongst her greatest. She’s plausible and compelling because the manipulative, ruthless, and coke-using queen bee of the Higher East Facet. Regardless of the film’s blended evaluations and never having aged properly, Merciless Intentions is among the most defining movies of the Nineties.
2
‘Scream 2’ (1997)
82% Tomatometer
The sequel to Scream follows Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) throughout her freshman yr at Windsor Faculty. After surviving the horrific occasions of the primary movie, Sidney has been attempting to select up the items and settle into a brand new life, however her efforts are upended when a brand new Ghostface begins murdering college students from campus. Sarah Michelle Gellar performs Cici Cooper, a sorority sister at Omega Beta Zeta who’s murdered on the home whereas on sober sister obligation.
A Nice Observe-As much as a Timeless Slasher
Regardless of taking part in a small position, Gellar’s character makes an influence and goes down as an icon within the Ghostface sufferer corridor of fame. Scream 2 may not have gotten the reward of the unique movie, but it surely was nonetheless critically acclaimed. It boasts an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the overall critics consensus being: “As with the primary movie, Scream 2 is a gleeful takedown of scary film conventions that manages to poke enjoyable at horrible horror sequels with out falling sufferer to the identical destiny.”
1
‘Do Revenge’ (2022)
86% Tomatometer
The darkish comedy Do Revenge takes inspiration from motion pictures like Heathers, Imply Ladies, Jawbreaker, and Merciless Intentions. Nevertheless, the Netflix authentic comes with an simple Gen Z slant. It stars Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke as Drea and Eleanor, two teen women at a prestigious highschool who assist one another get revenge on those that have wronged them a la Strangers on a Prepare. The film was a important success. It boasts an 86% rating on the Tomatometer. The Day by day Beast‘s Coleman Spilde known as it a “generation-defining masterpiece.”
A Film and Character That Pay Homage to ‘Merciless Intentions’
Sarah Michelle Gellar performs the varsity’s headmaster, and took inspiration from the aforementioned Kathryn Merteuil to play the position. The author-director, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, a fan of Merciless Intentions, really wrote the character with the icon in thoughts, sharing with IndieWire, “I actually considered Kathryn from Merciless Intentions, like, if she was the headmaster of the varsity, what recommendation would she give?”