The best Catherine O’Hara movies and TV shows prove that she is one of the smartest and quick-witted comedic actresses of her era. She got her start as a comedy performer, working with The Second City in Toronto and learning as an understudy to Gilda Radner. She then got a big break when they started the sketch comedy showSCTVand she became one of the regulars on it. This led to cartoon voice roles and television guest spots until she got her breakout in various TV roles in the 80s and onward.
Many people discovered her when she took on a main supporting role in the 1988 movieBeetlejuice,but then she had the biggest role of her career just two years later whenshe starred as Kevin’s mother Kate in the holiday classicHome Alone. While she has enjoyed movie success, with some greatroles in Christopher Guest’s mockumentary filmsas a highlight, she has really succeeded by remaining on television with her most recent prominent role inSchitt’s Creek.
Monster Housewas made in 2006, when motion-captured animated movies were enjoying a rise thanks to Robert Zemeckis’sThe Polar Express. However, while that film had some unsettling animated character designs,Monster Housewent more cartoon-based and ended up as a fun, spooky movie for the kids. In this tale, young D.J. believes that the house across the street might have an evil spirit that comes to life to steal toys and kids alike. It is up to D.J. and his friends to stop the evil.
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Catherine O’Hara had a smaller role in the movie as D.J.’s mother, although as is the case with most films of this sort, she is not around when her kids need her, and that leaves it on their young shoulders to survive the experience, very similar to her role years before inHome Alone. The film was a small box office success, and it received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film and six Annie Award nominations, although it didn’t win any there either.
Released in 2009, Sam Mendes took a small break from his award-contending movies to make a smaller romantic comedy road trip film.Away We Gostars Maya Rudolph (two years after leavingSaturday Night Live) and John Krasinski (in the middle of his run onThe Office). They start as a couple (Burt and Verona) in their early 30s, and they learn they are about to become parents and have no idea where and how to raise a child in a happy family.Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels play Burt’s parents.
It is Burt’s parents who reveal they are leaving the country and renting their home to someone else, saying they won’t help their son. This sets Burt and Verona on a road trip to find the best place to settle down with their new baby. The film received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising the “quirks and charms” in the story while saying it is an uneven but sweet road trip movie.
For Your Considerationis one of Christopher Guest’s improvisational comedies, where his troop of repeat actors are given situations and scenes and allowed to come up with the lines on their own.Catherine O’Hara is one of Guest’s frequent collaboratorsand has been in almost all his improvisational comedies. WithFor Your Consideration, the team took on something they know well. They showed the making of a fictional film where three actors learned they were getting awards-notice - even though they hadn’t finished the movie yet.
As expected, the arrogance and ridiculous nature of shooting a possible award-winning movie makes things spiral out of control. Catherine O’Hara stars as Marilyn Hack, the actress playing a dying matriarch of a Jewish family living in the Southern United States in the 1940s. Marilyn gets breast implants and plastic surgery when doing the press and becomes almost unrecognizable. The movie received mixed to positive reviews, with praise for the cast but criticism based on comparisons to Guest’s other films.
In 2023, Pixar released the movieElementalinto theaters after a few years of mostly straight-to-Disney+ releases. It proved that Pixar belongs in theaters because, even with an extremely high $200 million budget, it still finished its run as widely successful at the box office. The animated film takes place in a world where all beings are based on elements (fire, water, air, etc.). However,when a fire elemental named Ember falls in love with a water elemental named Wade, they must figure out how to make it work.
The themes were clear, and that helped bring this wonderful movie to fans' attention and helped its box office. While the leads were mostly smaller names (Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie), there were a few familiar voices in the supporting cast. Catherine O’Hara was one of these, as she voiced Brook Ripple, Wade’s mother. The funniest parts of the movie come when Wade and Ember visit Wade’s family, and mishaps occur.Elementalwas nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
Dick Tracy
Cast
Dick Tracy: Released in 1990, Dick Tracy stars Warren Beatty as the titular comic strip detective. The film follows Tracy as he contends with the seductive advances of Breathless Mahoney, played by Madonna, while simultaneously confronting the powerful mob boss Big Boy Caprice.
In 1990, the classic newspaper cartoon stripDick Tracywas adapted into a major motion picture. The film was directed by and starred Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy, while Madonna had the second major lead role as femme fatale Breathless Mahoney. Al Pacino was also part of the cast as the villain, Big Boy Caprice, the city’s leading crime boss. Beatty chose to film the movie in a colorful, comics-like look, and that remains what it is best known for decades later.
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Catherine O’Hara stars in the movie as Texie Garcia, a female criminal who works under Big Boy Caprice and is his sometimes-girlfriend. While she was only a minor character in the film, she stood out as one of the only women involved in the major meetings of the criminal underworld. It was a fun performance for O’Hara, who had no problem going over the line in her acting during her scenes in the comic film.Dick Tracyearned seven Oscar nominations, winning three of them.
Waiting for Guffman
Waiting for Guffman is a mockumentary film directed by Christopher Guest that follows the town of Blaine, Missouri as it prepares for a community theater production. The film focuses on the townspeople’s expectations and experiences as they await the arrival of famous Broadway director Mort Guffman, who is rumored to be attending the production.
Catherine O’Hara had a big career working in comedy, starting with SCTV and thenmoving on to work with Eugene Levy and Christopher Guest on their mockumentariesthat focused a lot on the improvisational skills of the cast. O’Hara was part of all of their movies, and the first of these remains a true cult classic. Released in 1996,Waiting For Guffmanwas the first mockumentary that Guest directed (he wroteThis is Spinal Tap). The film follows the production of a fake stage musical in a small town in Missouri community theater.
On top of O’Hara, other stars in this film included Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Levy, Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer.
Guest and Levy create outlines of their movies and allow the cast to improvise most of their lines before editing together the best takes to create the movie. On top of O’Hara, other stars in this film included Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Levy, Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Critics loved the movie’s inventiveness, awarding it a 91% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score and it picked up three Independent Spirit Award nominations.
Frankenweenie
Frankenweenie is a 2012 stop-motion animated remake of Tim Burton’s eponymous 1984 short film. It tells the story of young scientist Victor Frankenstein, who brings his dog Sparky back to life and tries to stop his experiment from wreaking havoc across his town.
Catherine O’Hara did voice work on several cartoons early in her career and kept tackling these projects in later years for big screen animated releases. In 2012,she re-teamed with herBeetlejuicedirector, Tim Burton, to voice Susan Frankensteinin his animated release,Frankenweenie. The movie was based on a short film that Burton made in the 1980s but Disney felt was not right for the company. Burton returned to the idea two decades later and created a masterpiece.
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In this movie, Frankenstein is a young boy and the Monster is his dog who died when hit by a car. Frankenstein brings the dog back to life, but then his classmates use it on their dead animals and soon there are real animal monsters rampaging the town. O’Hara not only voiced Frankenstein’s mother, but she also had two other roles as a Weird Girl in class and the Gym Teacher at the school.Frankenweeniewas nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards that year.
Where the Wild Things Are
In this adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book, a young boy named Max sails away from home and discovers a wondrous land of creatures known as “Wild Things,” who name Max their new king.
In 2009, Spike Jonze adapted the beloved children’s bookWhere the Wild Things Areinto a live action/CGI animated film. In the movie, Max Records plays Max, a young boy with a vivid imagination who runs away from home after a fight with his mother. He ends up on a small boat and is transported to an island where there are seven large monsters known as Wild Things. Max pretends to be a king with powers, but he ends up in danger when one monster, Carol, learns the truth.
Judith was the three-horned lion who is both aggressive and wild, giving the actress a lot of play with when voicing the character.
Catherine O’Hara voices Judith, one of the seven monsters in the movie. Judith was the three-horned lion who is both aggressive and wild, giving the actress a lot of play with when voicing the character. Critics gave the movie mostly positive reviews for its imagination and creature effects. However, commercially it was a disappointment, ultimately losing money for the studio. Despite that, it ended up on several best-of lists that year.
Arguably, Catherine O’Hara’s least-known great movie isTemple Grandin, which was released on HBO in 2010. It is a biographical film about a woman named Temple Grandin, who was diagnosed with autism but went on to create inventions that revolutionized the human handling of livestock on cattle ranches.Claire Danes starred as Templein the movie, whileCatherine O’Hara took on the role of Aunt Ann, Temple’s aunt by marriage.
It was Aunt Ann’s cattle ranch that Temple visited as a child, which influenced her inventions. The film starts with Temple as an uncommunicative child whose frustration causes meltdowns into an adult who fights sexism and ignorance to achieve her goals and change an entire industry. Critics praised the film, awarding it a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score and O’Hara weas nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, losing to co-star Julia Ormond.
The Studiois the newest TV series with Catherine O’Hara in one of the lead roles. It premiered in March 2025 and stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of a movie studio that tries to make it work during social and economic changes. However, what really makes this stand out is that Matt is a film geek who loves movies, but he is now in charge of a studio and realizes that he has to kill the thing he loves the most.
Catherine O’Hara stars as Patty Leigh, the former head of Continental Studios, who Matt steps over to get the job (from CEO Griffin Mill, played by Bryan Cranston). Despite replacing her, Patty remains Matt’s mentor and delivers a great performance. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg directed every episode and the 10-episode series is full of big laughs. According to early reviews,The Studiois a hilarious look at the movie industry and one that doesn’t require only film geeks to enjoy the jokes.
