Jennifer Love Hewitt’s 10 Best Movies And TV Shows

Jennifer Love Hewitt

has been acting since she was a child and Hewitt’s best movies and TV shows run the full length of her career. She has been lucky to successfully transition from roles for children to roles for adults without having too much trouble making the jump. Much of that success can be attributed to her appearing as a teenage character in projects like Party of Five and I Know What You Did Last Summer, which appealed to a wider range of audiences.

Hewitt has a varied acting resume as well. While many of her younger roles saw her play the girl-next-door-type characters, she has also played seductresses, appeared in dramas, comedies, and even done some singing. Hewitt has proven herself capable of fitting in to established ensembles, starring as the leading lady, and even taking on smaller character roles. As a result, Hewitt’s best movies and TV shows cover a wide range of projects for her.

10

Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit (1993)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Margaret

Jennifer Love Hewitt in Sister Act 2 appearing confused

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

PG

Comedy

Cast

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Whoopi Goldberg

  • Headshot Of Kathy Najimy

    Kathy Najimy

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Barnard Hughes

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Mary Wickes

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Release Date

December 9, 1993

Runtime

107 minutes

Director

Bill Duke

Writers

Joseph Howard, James Orr, Jim Cruickshank, Judi Ann Mason

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Sister Act 2 is widely regarded as not quite as good as the first movie. Despite that, it’s also incredibly well-regarded, especially by adults today who grew up watching lounge singer Delores (Whoopi Goldberg) pretend to be a nun to get a group of teenagers to bond and sing gospel music.

The cast of the movie is stacked with talent. Many of the young cast members grew up to have impressive careers in the industry, like Alanna Ubach, who is a prolific voiceover artist and TV performer. Jennifer Love Hewitt is also one of those young cast members.

Though some audience members might not remember her since she is not belting out solos like Lauryn Hill, Jennifer Love Hewitt is great as a member of the ensemble. She is always perfectly in character, which can be hard for some young actors in scenes featuring a dozen or more performers. Many times, an actor could lose focus or appear bored. Hewitt, however, is always checking her makeup, gossiping with her friends, and really selling that she is the girliest girl in the choir.

Sister Act 2 is a great demonstration that Hewitt understood early that the camera is going to pick up everything she is doing, and she has to be completely immersed in the role, even when she is not the focus of the scene.

Delores and Sister Mary look to the right with smirks in Sister Act

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9

Kids Incorporated (1989-1991)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Robin

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Kids Incorporated

NR

Comedy

Music

Drama

Release Date

September 7, 1984

Network

Disney Channel

Cast

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    Fergie

    Stacy

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    Moosie Drier

    Riley

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    Rahsaan Patterson

    Rahsaan

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    Renee Sands

    Renee

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Kids Incorporated is not as well known as children’s variety programs like Nickelodeon’s All That or Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club. That’s a shame because it also churned out some impressive child performers.

Kids Incorporated was not a sketch show, but it was almost segmented like one. The story of the show was that the group of titular kids were a music group who went on zany adventures, like finding an alien. Every episode featured a new storyline and plenty of musical performances.

This is one of the earliest projects in Hewitt’s career, and one that really sells her talent to wider audiences. Not only did she get to demonstrate her comedic talents, but she also got to show off her singing skills. As she got older, Hewitt gravitated to more dramatic parts, but she did release a handful of albums in her career, and this show likely jump started that process for her.

8

Can’t Hardly Wait (1998)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Amanda Beckett

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Can’t Hardly Wait

PG-13

Comedy

Romance

6/10

Release Date

June 12, 1998

Runtime

101 Minutes

Cast

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    Ethan Embry

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    Charlie Korsmo

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In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, high school movies were a dime a dozen. They also ran the gamut of rites of passage with so many of them focusing on Prom night, or the lead-up to it. Can’t Hardly Wait was different.

Can’t Hardly Wait bounces its story around among attendees at the high school parties to end all parties – because it really is the last one for the seniors spotlighted. Hewitt plays one of the most popular and enigmatic girls in school. It seems like everyone has a crush on her or likes her, and she is not exactly a fan of the pressure. The main storyline of the movie sees a guy who has had a crush on her for the duration of high school wanting to finally tell her how he feels.

Much of Hewitt’s part in the movie is nonverbal. She spends a lot of time in the movie appearing vaguely uncomfortable in her surroundings, and seemingly like she is ready to jump out of her own skin. She does a great job with just a few looks and a handful of lines to show just how over high school she is.

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Party of Five costar Lacey Chabert parodied her Can’t Hardly Wait character in Not Another Teen Movie.

7

Heartbreakers (2001)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Page Conners

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Heartbreakers

PG-13

Comedy

Romance

Crime

Release Date

March 23, 2001

Runtime

123 minutes

Cast

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  • Headshot Of Jennifer Love Hewitt In The Cafe Los Angeles Premiere

    Jennifer Love Hewitt

    Page Conners

  • Headshot Of Sigourney Weaver In The James Cameron And Jon Landau Handprints And Footprints Ceremony.

    Sigourney Weaver

    Max Conners

  • Headshot Of Jason Lee

    Jason Lee

    Jack Withrowe

  • HeaDSHOT oF Gene Hackman

    Gene Hackman

    William B. Tensy

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During her teen years, Hewitt became known for playing “good girl” characters or the girls next door. She was often playing the wholesome one of the ensembles, the characters who got into the least amount of trouble, so any time she was able to break from that character type provided a nice change for her fans, but also a nice demonstration of her skillset.

Heartbreakers was made at a time when Hewitt was known for playing that character type as well as at a time when she was primarily known for playing in dramas. As a rom-com with screwball comedy elements, the movie shows that Hewitt was really game for just about anything in her career.

Hewitt starred as the daughter of Sigourney Weaver, and the two were a mother-daughter con artist duo that manipulated those around them. They often seduced or married the same men in order to win big in divorce settlements, and Hewitt had to hold her own against movie veterans like Weaver and Gene Hackman. Though critics might not have loved the movie at the time, Hewitt playing against type and getting to really let her comedy skills shine makes it one of the best movies of her career so far.

6

The Client List (2010)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Samantha Horton

The Client List

NR

Drama

TV Movie

Release Date

July 19, 2010

Runtime

88 minutes

Cast

  • Headshot Of Jennifer Love Hewitt In The Cafe Los Angeles Premiere

    Jennifer Love Hewitt

    Samantha “Sam” Dale Horton

  • Headshot Of Teddy Sears

    Teddy Sears

    Rex Horton

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    Sonja Bennett

    Dee

  • Cast Placeholder Image

    Lynda Boyd

    Jacie

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…the audience cannot help but root for her…

The Client List is one of many dramas to air on Lifetime that is actually inspired by real events. In this case, the inspiration for the TV movie is a prostitution scandal out of Texas.

The movie sees a mother of three struggling to provide for her family when she and her husband are both out of work. She takes a job at a massage parlor, only to find out that the employees are also selling themselves. Rather than leave, she stays to make enough money to keep her house, but she becomes so good at her job that one of her clients starts supplying her with cocaine to keep her from being exhausted. Eventually, it all catches up to her and the entire community finds out the truth about her job.

Though Lifetime has a reputation for pushing scandalous stories with cheesy scripts, Jennifer Love Hewitt is the cast member who really makes this one work. She is completely sincere and charming in her portrayal of Samantha, and in a desperate situation, the audience cannot help but root for her to find a way out.

Hewitt was nominated for a Golden Globe for the TV movie. She also starred in the television series based on The Client List but played a different character. It was canceled after two seasons.

5

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Julie James

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I Know What You Did Last Summer

R

Horror

Mystery

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6/10

9/10

Release Date

October 17, 1997

Runtime

101 minutes

Cast

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    Ryan Phillippe

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    Freddie Prinze Jr.

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Unlike a lot of actors who rose to fame during the 1990s, Jennifer Love Hewitt does not have a ton of horror movies on her resume. Instead, she spent most of her time on television. She did, however, star in I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel alongside other actors known for their teen projects at the time: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prince Jr., and Ryan Phillippe.

The movie sees four teens hit a man with their car and cover it up. The secret tears them apart and they grow apart over the course of a year until they are all back in their hometown on the anniversary of the incident, and find themselves targeted by a killer as a result of the secret.

A composite image of Jennifer Love Hewitt screaming in front of Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr looking shocked in I Know What You Did Last Summer

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Though Hewitt has plenty of roles that require her to play dramatic (and in fact, most of her career is in dramatic roles), horror is a whole different kind of drama. The actor has to sell the suspense as much as the director or editor does in a project like this, and Hewitt excels in her role.

4

Criminal Minds (2014-2015)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Kate Callahan

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Criminal Minds

TV-14

Mystery

Drama

Crime

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8/10

26

7.9/10

Release Date

September 22, 2005

Network

CBS

Cast

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Showrunner

Erica Messer

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Criminal Minds is one of the longest-running crime procedurals of all time. The show’s hook includes examining criminals from a psychological standpoint instead of simply solving the crime based on physical clues. While much of the cast remained the same during the bulk of the show’s original run (and in its revival series through Paramount+), there was a time when the show rotated through several different cast members as new people joined the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in the show.

Hewitt is one of those rotating cast members as she joined the show for a single season. Hewitt plays Callahan as someone firmly shaped by the tragedies of her best, always hiding more emotion just below the surface. Here, she is charming in the role, which is explained as her having been an undercover operative for the FBI in the past. Hewitt slots in nicely with the rest of the cast, able to banter and keep up with their dialogue easily.

At the end of her single season on the show, it’s said that Callahan plans to take a year off to spend with her family after she learns she is pregnant, but she never returns to the team. That likely has to do with Hewitt also being pregnant at the time and giving birth to her second child during the time away. With the Criminal Minds revival going strong on Paramount+, it’s possible that Hewitt could return to the role in the future.

A composite image of Prentiss looking shocked with Rossi pointing his pistol offscreen in Criminal Minds: Evoltution

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3

Party Of Five (1995-1999)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Sarah Reeves Merrin

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Party of Five

TV-PG

Drama

Release Date

1994 – 1999

Network

FOX

Cast

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    Allan Royal

    Andrew

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    Chris Gartin

    Uncredited

  • Headshot Of Jolie Jenkins

    Jolie Jenkins

    Mélanie

  • Headshot Of Lacey Chabert

    Lacey Chabert

    Claudia Salinger

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Party Of Five was initially billed as a teen drama, but the show leaned into more family drama territory for the ‘90s. It followed the five Salinger children (hence the title) as they dealt with the aftermath of losing their parents in a car crash. The oldest brother, played by Matthew Fox, had to step up to care for all of his younger siblings, and they all banded together to run the family restaurant to keep it going.

Though Jennifer Love Hewitt was not in the first season of Party of Five, she was a staple for the rest of the series. She joined in season two as the on-again-off-again love interest of Bailey, played by Scott Wolfe, the second of the Salinger children. Her character was presented as a young woman trying to find herself, something complicated for her when she learned she was adopted.

The series tackled a lot of mature, and sometimes tragic, topics, so nearly every episode of the show was a tear-jerker. It gave the entire cast, including Hewitt, a chance to master their dramatic acting abilities.

Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in a spin off series of Party of Five called Time of Your Life, which lasted for a single season.

2

Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Melinda Gordon

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Ghost Whisperer

Mystery

Release Date

2005 – 2009

Network

CBS

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Most supernatural dramas focus on mysteries-of-the-week. While Ghost Whisperer does that to an extent, it also focuses on grieving and moving on, making it a tear-jerker of a series with bittersweet endings for nearly every episode.

The series follows Melinda (Hewitt), a woman who can communicate with ghosts. Over the course of the show, her abilities and the lore behind them are more fully fleshed out than they are at the start, but the lore is not what kept viewers turning in when the series was on the air.

Most episodes of the series feature Melinda bearing the responsibility of helping a ghost cross over. Melinda talks with ghosts, figures out what is keeping them tethered to the physical world, and helps them find a way to move on to the afterlife. Due to the nature of the storytelling, that meant a lot of the episodes also involved helping living people process their grief at losing a loved one.

The show made Melinda a counselor for the living and the dead in the way, and Hewitt gives deeply heartfelt performances in each and every episode of the series, cementing her as an impressive dramatic actor.

Hewitt won two Saturn Awards during her time on Ghost Whisperer. The series was also nominated for four Emmys during its run.

1

9-1-1 (2018-)

Jennifer Love Hewitt As Maddie Buckley Han

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9-1-1

TV-14

Drama

Crime

Action

ScreenRant logo

8/10

162

9/10

Release Date

January 3, 2018

Network

ABC, FOX

Cast

See All

  • Headshot Of Angela Bassett In The 2024 Disney Upfront

    Angela Bassett

    Athena Grant

  • Headshot Of Peter Krause

    Peter Krause

    Robert ‘Bobby’ Nash

Showrunner

Tim Minear

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…helping to ground 9-1-1 in reality.

9-1-1 takes the idea of a medical procedural and a crime procedural and combines them with a healthy dose of character-driven story arcs. The series follows a group of first responders, emergency call operators, and more as they handle a variety of emergencies in the series.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, as she did with Party of Five as a teen, joined 9-1-1 in season 2 with a connection to another main character. In this case, she plays the sibling of a character already in the show and became the love interest, and eventually wife, of another. Hewitt’s character is firmly entrenched in the show now, and it’s hard to imagine the series without Maddie as a dispatcher.

The series has a spin off set in Texas and another in development set in Tennessee.

Hewitt has tackled some serious subjects in the show beyond the cases-of-the-week offered up by the show. As Maddie, she has given a voice to Post Partum Depression symptoms in new mothers. While the series has featured some outlandish stories, Maddie’s have been some of the most realistic for the show, helping to ground 9-1-1 in reality.