In August 2022, Hollywood and fans around the world were left shocked by the tragic news that the beloved actress Anne Heche had tragically been killed. Following the murky details early on, it first seemed like she had crashed her vehicle into a house while driving intoxicated. It’s since been confirmed that she was not under the influence of alcohol or any illicit substances at the time. However, all the events leading up to her final accident, made it likely that she was struggling with her mental health at the time. Amid all the tabloid stories speculating on her life, almost a year on, fans of Heche have now turned to simply remembering her work and what a great actress she was.
Despite the seemingly bizarre, and ultimately tragic circumstances of her death, those who knew her best were all left with a great sadness for her loss. Unfortunately, her death, like her career, was often marred by her personal life. While she was at the peak of her career, back then it was her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres that usually made all the headlines.
Nevertheless, Heche’s fans still remember her best for the many great film and television appearances she made more than anything else. In keeping with this aspect of her life, here’s a look back at Anne Heche’s best movies according to their Rotten Tomatoes ratings.
10 Catfight – 74%
Debuting at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, Catfight was a dark comedy starring Sandra Oh and Anne Heche as its leads. Since the early 2000s, Heche’s fallout with Hollywood over her relationship with Ellen prompted her to do more theater productions and indie films. This one saw her playing a woman named Ashley. As a struggling artist, Ashley meets another woman named Veronica at a dinner party.
Their conversation soon leads to barbed comments, and then outright insults which causes a huge physical fight. The result leaves Veronica in a coma. Waking up two years later to find that her life is in ruins, she has no memory of the fight. She also learns that she’s lost her husband to suicide and her son to the war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Ashley has gone on to become a famous artist. Veronica’s resentment begins to boil over, and she tracks down Ashley and reignites the fight between them all over again.
9 The Adventures of Huck Finn – 75%
Back in 1993, Heche starred as Mary Jane Wilke in The Adventures of Huck Finn. In one of the most memorable film renditions of Mark Twain’s famous novel, this one saw a very young Elijah Wood in the lead as the eponymous character. In this version, while on his famous adventures, Huck stumbles upon a group of con artists and joins up with them as they seek to pull off a big score.
Together with his companions, the group poses as British relatives of the wealthy Wilkes family and uses this as an opportunity to rob them of their fortune. Mary Jane was one of the daughters of the family. When Huck later has a change of heart and seeks contrition to save his friend, Jim, she is instrumental in helping him do it.
8 Opening Night – 83%
Opening Night was a superb musical dramedy that took a look at all the behind-the-curtain drama during a Broadway production. Topher Grace stars in the lead, with the likes of other stars like Taye Diggs alongside him. Opening Night revolved around the Stage Manager’s attempts to keep his troublesome cast and crew in line long enough to pull off a stressful play as opening night approaches
The film was hilarious at times, but tactfully done, and features some great performances all around. As the Stage Manager, Topher’s character has to put up with diva dancers, overly dramatic and accident probe actresses. Heche played one of the lead actresses in the play from the film.
By this point, Heche had gained a reputation for never fitting neatly into any conventional Hollywood leading lady boxes. This was mainly due to her refusal to live according to the industry’s rules. Here’s how The Guardian aptly characterized this side of the late star.
“She was too potent and pointed a presence to be comfortably cast in the traditional supporting roles of sister, colleague or best friend. Heche was charismatic and cool, with a terrific camera presence, an intriguing and sexually charged opaqueness, on the verge of disillusionment or hostility. Maybe longform TV was a better platform for her complexity, although it was clear that she was developing some excellent work in cinema in character roles and dark comedy.”
7 Cedar Rapids – 86%
Cedar Rapids told the story of a supremely naive small-town Wisconsin insurance agent named Tim Lippe who learns fast just how sheltered his life has been. After being asked to attend a company conference, Tim must navigate new experiences like being on a plane and even staying at a hotel for the first time. At the conference, he meets three people who have attended the event many times in the past.
They show him how to really cut loose and Tim is soon partying and getting himself into all kinds of racy situations. Anne Heche plays a woman named Joan in the film and is one of the veteran attendees who shows Tim how to have a good time. Some very funny and raunchy humor, mixed with a sweet undertone made this one a hit with critics, even if audiences were a little on the fence.
6 My Friend Dhamer – 86%
In the brilliant biographical thriller of one of the world’s most infamous serial killers, My Friend Dahmer saw Anne Heche playing Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother. The film charted the troubled killer’s past and the events that led to him turning his psychotic and cannibalistic fantasies into reality.
Early on, we see that Dahmer was odd and enjoyed things like collecting dead animals that he kept in bottles. His father was very hard on him for being unsociable. On the other hand, his mother suffered with ongoing mental illness and eventually leaves him behind as she takes his brother and moves away. A chilling and disturbing film, it rightly earned rave reviews, with Heche being among the pick of its best performers.
5 Wag the Dog – 86%
In Wag the Dog, a dark political satire, Anne Heche played a Presidential Aid. The film sees a pair of political fixers fabricate a war in Albania to distract the public from the fact that the President was caught making advances on an underage girl. The film seemed to parallel the events of President Clinton’s scandal with Monica Lewinsky.
This was mainly due to the Clinton administration’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in the wake of the scandal, which drew comparisons to the film’s plot. With a sharp and witty story, Wag the Dog was driven by brilliant performances from an unbelievable cast. Though not all of them were stars then, itfeatured Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Anne Heche, Kirsten Dunst, William H. Macy, and Woody Harrelson, among others.
4 You’re Killing Me – 86%
Anne Heche was such a prolific and brilliant actress till the time of her death that even close to a year on from it, she’s already had three films released posthumously, and two more currently in post-production. You’re Killing Me was about a young female student named Eden Murphy who attends a coveted party thrown at her classmate, Brice’s home.
As the son of a Congressman, she detests Brice’s arrogance but hopes to score a recommendation letter from his father for her application to a dream college. However, during the course of the night, she discovers unsettling truths about her classmates, his family, and how the rich and powerful sometimes live truly murky lives. Before Eden knows it, she’s thrust into a fight for her life as dark secrets about the family emerge. Heche played Brice’s contentious mother in the film.
3 Walking and Talking – 88%
1996 was a great year for Anne Heche’s career and great Indie films. Walking and Talking starred Catherine Keener as Amelia and Heche as Laura, two best friends whose romantic lives take very different turns. While Laura gets engaged to her boyfriend, Amelia is left feeling abandoned. Her own love life seemingly going nowhere, she strikes up a relationship with a local store clerk. While she isn’t attracted to him, he grows on her, but he leaves her when he overhears a friend refer to him as “the ugly guy.”
Meanwhile, Laura becomes attracted to another man and begins to self-sabotage her relationship by causing fights with her fiancé and flirting with other men. The two friends meet again and have some difficult arguments that ultimately lead them to make up and advise each other on how to fix their lives. Another great drama with some complex themes and great performances, it was yet another critical hit for Heche.
2 If These Walls Could Talk – 88%
That same year, Heche starred in another terrific Indie film. If These Walls Could Talk boasted an excellent cast that starred the likes of Heche, Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek, and Cher. The film was set in the same house across three generations of women who all lived there 22 years apart in the years 1952, 1974, and 1996.
The film depicts the experiences and changing political and cultural landscapes of how abortion was viewed across the three timelines. Heche played a student named Christine in the 1996 part of the film. Impregnated by her married professor, Christine decides to have an abortion. However, on the day, after the procedure is completed, her doctor is attacked by an unhinged anti-abortion activist.
1 Donnie Brasco (88%)
While she was a supporting character, Heche once played the role of Johnny Depp’s wife to great acclaim. Donnie Brasco was a tense and harrowing story based on the true-life exploits of FBI Agent Joe Pistone. Under the alias of Donnie Brasco, Pistone infiltrated the infamous Bonnano crime family of New York and became a part of their inner circle. While his efforts reportedly resulted in over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions, the toll it took on his personal life was harrowing.
As Pistone’s wife in the film, Anna Heche appeared in some of its most dramatic scenes, such as when Pistone’s duel life blurs the lines between both, and he even beats her for talking back to him. Starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as the leads, this iconic gangster film has earned a ton of acclaim for its visceral nature. Films like this and many other fantastic ones remind us what a great actress Heche was, and what a great loss her death was for her industry.