This weekend welcomes the premiere of The Housemaid, a twisty new psychological thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney.
And while Watch With Us is super excited for it, we’d be remiss if we didn’t highlight some of Seyfried’s other work.
The actress has established an impressive acting career since the mid-2000s, appearing in movies like Les Misérables, Mamma Mia!, Dear John and Jennifer’s Body.
Seyfried has the seamless ability to oscillate between dramatic roles like The Housemaid and comedies like Mean Girls. So, Watch With Us is highlighting four movies you can stream right now that showcase her skills.
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‘First Reformed’ (2017)
Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) lives a quiet life running a church in upstate New York when he has an encounter that shakes him to his core and changes the course of his life. When Toller meets with the radical-environmentalist husband (Philip Ettinger) of one of his parishioners (Seyfried), he is so shaken by the man’s views on climate change that he has a crisis of faith, increasingly spiraling out of control due to mounting worldly despairs and his own past.
Paul Schrader’s austere, thematically rich and riveting psychological thriller features a towering and tormented performance from Hawke, but also a delicate, equally powerful supporting turn from Seyfried as Toller’s pregnant parishioner, Mary Mensana. Indeed, First Reformed may be Seyfried’s greatest dramatic role to date, imbuing Mary with quiet desperation, vulnerability and a hope that counterbalances Toller’s despair.
Stream First Reformed now on Tubi.
‘Mamma Mia!’ (2008)
Based on the 1999 jukebox musical of the same name, Mamma Mia! stars Seyfried as Sophie Sheridan, a young woman soon to be married to her fiancé, Sky (Dominic Cooper), in the Greek islands where her bohemian mother, Donna (Meryl Streep), resides. However, Sophie has a secret plan unbeknownst to Donna: she’s invited the three men from her mother’s past, who are all possibly her father, in the hopes that her one true dad will walk her down the aisle.
Filled with the hit songs from the massively popular Swedish pop band ABBA, Mamma Mia! isn’t necessarily a singing showcase for most of its actors, although Seyfried in particular has got the musical goods. Otherwise, Seyfried absolutely charms her way through this fun, campy and light-hearted musical while flaunting infectious chemistry with Streep. While Mamma Mia! is also an excellent comedy showcase for Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skårsgard and Colin Firth, who play Sophie’s three possible fathers, this musical belongs to its leading ladies.
Stream Mamma Mia! now on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Mean Girls’ (2004)
The movie that served as Seyfried’s breakout, Mean Girls still remains the teen comedy classic that all others are measured against. When homeschooled Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) moves with her scientist parents to the Illinois suburbs, she experiences culture shock upon joining public school for the first time. After learning about new concepts such as cliques, popularity and push-up bras, Cady joins a group of elite girls known as the “Plastics.” But as she goes along with their mean girl antics, she starts to wonder if the casual cruelty is really worth the high school social status.
What can you really say about Mean Girls that hasn’t already been said? It’s a masterclass in comedy writing from Tina Fey and features a roster of enduring performances from Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert and, of course, Amanda Seyfried as the ditzy Plastics member Karen Smith. The iconic scene in which Karen uses her “chest” to give a weather report has been burned permanently into pop culture memory.
Stream Mean Girls now on Netflix.
‘Mank’ (2020)
In 1940, ambitious young director Orson Welles (Tom Burke) hires the acerbic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) to write the script for his next movie. While recovering from a leg injury in a motel in Victorville, California, “Mank” dictates the script to his secretary (Lily Collins) — who begins to notice that the protagonist bears unsavory similarities to a powerful businessman who could derail the picture. Mank tells the story both of Citizen Kane’s conception and 1930s Hollywood through the eyes of Mank himself, whose addictions and hang-ups threaten to derail his career.
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Mank served as a welcome return to moviemaking for director David Fincher and a showcase of across-the-board top-notch performances and keen screenwriting. In her role as actress Marion Davies, Seyfried received most of the acclaim, and despite her limited screen time, she still snagged an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She portrays the embattled Old Hollywood actress with an empathy that wasn’t afforded to her by Mank’s thinly-veiled interpretation of her in Citizen Kane, and whenever Seyfried isn’t on screen, you’re left wondering, “Where did Amanda Seyfried go?”
