Remember Anne Heche With Her 13 Best Movie Roles
Anne Heche will be remembered for her diverse film roles: a mix of comedy, drama and thrillers.
Though the late actress, who died Friday following a car crash a week prior, was well-known for her TV roles (including her breakthrough Emmy-winning role in Another World and starring roles in The Brave and Men In Trees), Heche had more than 30 movie credits to her name. All of this was a far cry from her first paying job of $ 100 a week at the 76 House Dinner Theater in South Jersey.
Look back at Heche's theatrical legacy with her 13 most memorable film roles.
Related: Anne Heche Revealed How She Wanted to Be Remembered
13 Best Anne Heche Movies
1. Milk Money
The 1994 romantic comedy Milk Money, directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris, is about three suburban 11-year-old boys who find themselves behind in "the battle of the sexes," believing they would regain the upper hand if they could just see an actual naked lady. Heche plays the part of Betty.
2. The Juror
This 1996 American legal thriller film is based on the 1995 novel by George Dawes Green. It was directed by Brian Gibson and stars Demi Moore as a single mother picked for jury duty for a Mafia trial and Alec Baldwin as a mobster sent to intimidate her. The movie also stars Heche, James Gandolfini and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
3. Donnie Brasco
An FBI undercover agent infiltrates the mob and finds himself identifying with the Mafia life—at the expense of his regular one. Donnie Brasco, considered one of the greatest Mob movies made, stars Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Michael Madsen.
Heche plays Maggie Pistone, the wife of Depp's Joseph Pistone, an American FBI agent who worked undercover as Donnie Brasco from 1976 through 1981, as part of an infiltration into two of the five major New York City crime families. The movie is based on Joseph Pistone’s book, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia.
4. Volcano
Heche stars in the 1997 disaster film alongside heavy hitters Tommy Lee Jones, Don Cheadle and Keith David. Volcano follows an effort to block lava from wrecking the streets of Los Angeles following the formation of a volcano at the La Brea Tar Pits. The movie was directed by Mick Jackson.
Related: Anne Heche's Son Breaks Silence After Her Fatal Crash
5. Wag the Dog
The 1997 political satire and black comedy Wag the Dog follows a president caught in a sex scandal two weeks prior to his re-election—and the team that helps him distract the public from it. Heche plays an adviser who enlists the spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), who decides a distraction is the best course of action. Brean approaches a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to help him fabricate a war in Albania to distract the voters from the POTUS' actual drama.
6. I Know What You Did Last Summer
Heche appears in teen slasher classic I Know What You Did Last Summer. The film follows four friends (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.) who receive a threatening letter after accidentally killing a man in a hit and run.
7. Six Days Seven Nights
Heche stars as a New York magazine editor alongside a gruff Harrison Ford as two survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island. The 1998 movie billed as an action-adventure comedy was directed by Ivan Reitman and also stars David Schwimmer. It is considered to be one of Heche's most compelling and memorable film performances.
8. Return to Paradise
Two friends must choose whether to help a third friend who was arrested in Malaysia for drug possession. The 1998 movie—part thriller and part romance—stars Heche, Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix. It was directed by Joseph Ruben.
9. Psycho
Directed by Gus Van Sant, the 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho stars Heche as Marion Crane, who reenacts the infamous shower scene, with Vince Vaughn starring as the creepy Norman Bates. Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen and William H. Macy also appear in the well-received film.
10. John Q
Denzel Washington stars as the titular John Q in what's a tragically common circumstance in the only first world country without a national healthcare system: a father whose son is can't get a heart transplant because his insurance refuses to cover the procedure. Archibald holds hostages at the hospital and forces them to perform the transplant to save his son's life. Heche plays hospital administrator Rebecca Payne. Robert Duvall, James Woods and Ray Liotta also star.
11. Birth
The 2004 drama Birth stars Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Danny Huston, Heche and Cameron Bright. The film follows Anna, who becomes convinced that her dead husband Sean is reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy.
12. My Friend Dahmer
Heche stars as Joyce, the unstable mother of future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in this unsettling origin story of one of the most horrific murderers America has ever seen.
"I have a very particular point of view of children, who end up really messed up, which obviously is fitting of a statement about Dahmer," Heche previously told Parade. "Do I feel that there is a responsibility when you bring in a child into the world to take care of and nurture them, respect them, pay attention to them and feed them? Yes. Do I feel like Joyce didn’t do that? Yes, 100 percent, and that’s why I wanted to play her."
Related: Anne Heche and Sandra Oh On Beating the Daylights Out of Each Other in Catfight
13. Girl in Room 13
Heche stars in the upcoming Lifetime movie Girl In Room 13. The film has a powerful message to stop violence against women. This movie, her fourth for Lifetime, stars Heche as the mother of a human trafficking victim named Grace. Grace becomes addicted to opioids after suffering a sports injury and is ready to leave her addiction behind under the watchful eye of her mother, but her past won’t let her go when she is kidnapped in a motel room in order to be sold. The movie has a scheduled September 2022 air date.
