Quite simply, there are more valleys than peaks - too often, we root for her more than the movie she’s in. Ranking her performances proves to be a bit bittersweet. Edgy yet sweet, comforting yet sharp, Melissa McCarthy hasn’t always found material worthy of her talents, but she always tackles it with gusto. Give her two minutes as a surprise cameo in something like Central Intelligence, and she simply radiates goofy goodness like no one else in modern movies. Since then, McCarthy has parlayed that success into a string of hits whose quality ranges from sublime to “Please, God, don’t make me ever watch Identity Thief again.” She’s risked typecasting herself as the bulldozing brute, engaging in increasingly desperate slapstick, but her best work argues that she’s selling herself short if she thinks that’s what audiences love most about her. But it wasn’t until 2011’s Bridesmaids that she broke through on the big screen: As Megan Price, the crass weirdo who ends up being the voice of reason, McCarthy earned an Oscar nomination and stole the movie from her more-famous co-stars. Years of movie bit-parts later, she landed her own series, Mike & Molly, which won her an Emmy. And not only is McCarthy a star, she’s a writer and producer of a lot of her own vehicles, collaborating with husband Ben Falcone on a series of unapologetically broad comedies that, for the most part, have clicked with audiences.Īn alumnus of the Groundlings, the actress cut her teeth doing sketch work and developing funny characters before being cast as Sookie on Gilmore Girls.

In an industry that’s still dominated by male-driven movies, she’s nearly alone among female stars when it comes to her ability to open big, mainstream comedies that aren’t solely rom-coms.

No one in the Hollywood biosphere is quite like Melissa McCarthy. This article was first published in 2018 and has been updated to include Melissa McCarthy’s more recent films - including The Little Mermaid.

Photo-Illustration: Maya Robinson/Vulture

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