Anne Hathaway makes politeness interesting: it can reassure, seduce or keep an opponent at a distance. We rate her highly when directors use that uncertainty; asking her merely to be likeable wastes a good deal of what she can do.
Fi1m perspective
In Eileen (2023), Anne Hathaway's Rebecca smokes wherever she pleases and treats the prison's men as faintly ridiculous. She makes Thomasin McKenzie's Eileen feel singled out, without settling how much of that attention she should trust. William Oldroyd lets her be funny, and Ari Wegner's smoke-filled photography makes her blonde hair the brightest thing in the frame. We felt unexpectedly happy when she and McKenzie danced in the bar: Eileen had spent so much time making herself invisible. The film's abrupt finish disappoints, but Hathaway makes the longing convincing.
The breakthrough was The Princess Diaries (2001), but the move into drama was already under way by Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005). As Lureen Newsome, she belongs to a film that takes the women's unhappiness seriously, though we wanted her to have more of its attention. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) kept comedy central, while Rachel Getting Married (2008) and her Fantine in Les Misérables (2012) gave her more demanding dramatic work.
Decency is still a job she can do well, even when the writing treats it as sufficient. In David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026), her Andy Sachs holds the centre opposite Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly, leaving the more conspicuous jokes to others. Hathaway makes Andy worth following, but the reunion is too anxious to please to give her much to resist. She deserves more to do than keep a reunion companionable.
David Robert Mitchell asks more of her body in The End of Oak Street (2026). Denise Platt begins by holding a household together through willpower, then becomes fast, dirty and unglamorous when the animals arrive. Hathaway is the reason to watch, and the film is most convincing when Mitchell simply follows her getting on with survival. Its neglected family drama matters: we can believe this woman will keep moving, but the writing does too little with the people she is trying to protect.
Christopher Nolan finds a quieter use for that determination in The Odyssey (2026), after working with her on Interstellar (2014). Her Penelope runs a household under siege, making politeness a way of exercising authority. These are the finest scenes in a film whose middle stretches test the patience, because Hathaway makes the work of maintaining control worth watching. Start there for her restraint, or with Eileen for the pleasure of not quite trusting her.
Biography
Anne Hathaway is an American actor. She began her career in the television series Get Real (1999) before making her film debut in The Princess Diaries (2001).
She is known for roles including Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and its 2026 sequel, Lureen Newsome in Brokeback Mountain (2005), Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Rebecca in Eileen (2023). Her other credits include The End of Oak Street (2026) as Denise Platt and The Odyssey (2026) as Penelope.
Hathaway has received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance as Fantine in Les Misérables (2012).
