There’s one clear winner for Cameron Diaz when it comes to her favorite movies to have starred in across her 20-plus years in the industry.
Cameron Diaz’s latest movie, Back in Action, is out on Netflix today (January 17) and sees the star return to her acting career after over a decade’s hiatus alongside Jamie Foxx.
The 52-year-old last starred in the 2014 musical release Annie, similarly alongside Foxx. The movie began shooting in 2013 and was released the following year, but it wasn’t until 2022 that Diaz was reported as beginning work on Back in Action.
The movie is now available to watch, bringing an end to fans’ 11-year wait and in honor of her return to the screen, Diaz has revealed her top five movies of her career for UNILAD RANKED.
5) Being John Malkovich (1999)
The fantasy comedy was written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.
It sees Diaz star alongside John Cusack (Sixteen Candles) and Catherine Keener (Capote).
The film centers around unemployed puppeteer Craig Schwartz (Cusack) and his pet-obsessed wife Lotte (Diaz) who live in New York. After taking a temp role, Craig ends up stumbling upon a portal which leads into the mind of renowned actor John Malkovich and the chaos only descends from there.
Being John Malkovich has achieved an impressive Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 94 percent and Popcornmeter score of 87.
According to IMDB, Diaz looked so different when all dressed up in her costume that some crew members didn’t recognize her and thought she was a stranger when chatting with her.
4) Gangs of New York (2002)
Written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan, this adaptation of Herbert Asbury’s 1927 novel was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese.
Diaz took on the mischievous role of Jenny Everdeane; a pickpocket and grifter whose wily ways end up attracting ‘Amsterdam’ (Leonardo DiCaprio), the son of the Dead Rabbits gang leader who was killed years earlier in a battle over territory.
Amsterdam returns to the Five Points area of the City to seek revenge against the man who killed his father, William ‘Bill the Butcher’ Cutting, played by Daniel Day-Lewis – whose nose got broken by DiCaprio while filming a fight scene in the film, IMDB notes, with Day-Lewis continuing filming the scene despite the injury.
As well as landing a place in Cameron’s top five movies, Gangs of New York has earned a Tomatometer score of 72 percent and Popcornmeter of 81.
3) Bad Teacher (2011)
Taking quite a turn from the violence set in New York, the 2011 movie Bad Teacher is a much more light-hearted tale as it features Diaz as, well, a bad teacher.
From writing duo Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, Bad Teacher was directed by Jake Kasdan and also stars Jason Segel (Shrinking), Justin Timberlake (Friends with Benefits) and Lucy Punch (Motherland), among others.
In the comedy, Diaz’s character is described as ‘lazy’ and ‘incompetent’; someone who certainly shouldn’t be in charge of the next generation, but who chooses to return to the job
after her wealthy fiancé dumps her – still wearing Christian Louboutin shoes of course, with IMDB reporting there was a contract between the designer himself and the movie producers to market them in the film.
The movie received harsh ratings from critics, earning a score of 45 percent on the Tomatometer and 36 percent on the Popcornmeter, but that didn’t impact Diaz’s fond memories of her time on set, telling UNILAD it was ‘really fun,’ cementing Bad Teacher’s position in the top three of her top five favorite films of her career.
2) The Mask (1994)
As hard as it might be to believe, it has, in fact, been over 30 years since director Chuck Russell teamed up with writers Michael Fallon, Mark Verheiden and Mike Werb to bring us the fantasy-comedy, The Mask.
At just 21 years old, The Mask was Diaz’s first movie, Russell previously telling Variety she ‘was the only person for the part as far as [he] was concerned after her first reading’.
“And then I saw the chemistry with her and Jim. Eight callbacks later, including improvs with Jim, I finally convinced producers,” he added.
The actor took on the role of Tina Carlyle, starring opposite the iconic Jim Carey (The Truman Show) as he plays bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss who finds himself transformed into a manic superhero when he puts on a mysterious, vividly green mask – who’d have guessed, eh?
Over three decades after its release, the movie remains a fan favorite with a Tomatometer score of 80 percent, and 68 percent on the Popcornmeter.
1) Charlie’s Angels (2000)
Sorry The Holiday fans, today isn’t your day. Fellow Shrek fans, I hear your cries. And how could My Sister’s Keeper not make the list? I also hear you scream. However, ultimately, for Diaz there’s no beating this icon.
When asked about the top film of her career, it was her 2000 action movie directed by McG, and written by Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon and John August, that sprung to mind.
Diaz teamed up with her fellow angels, Drew Barrymore (Blended) and Lucy Liu (Kill Bill: Volume 1) and the trio portray three private investigators assigned to track down a kidnapped software engineer.
The movie has a strong score of 68 percent on the Tomatometer, but a less impressive 45 percent rating on the Popcornmeter.
Regardless of what some critics might think, Diaz wasted no time in stating her number one: “Charlie’s Angels, of course!”
Words by Poppy Bilderbeck. Interview conducted by Rhianna Benson.
