From Friends to Cake, Look Back at Jennifer Aniston’s Best Roles

Jennifer Aniston has had her share of costars. A leprechaun, however, easily takes the cake for most unusual.

For 10 seasons—beginning in 1994—Aniston played everyone’s favorite gal pal Rachel Green on Friends. She nabbed a Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of our favorite girl-next-door…and her iconic haircut. 

Trouble arises for Aniston’s on-screen marriage to Mike McGlone when a new woman comes into the picture in this 1996 rom-com.

Aniston’s character Joanna does not need 37 pieces of flair to express herself, OK? 

This 2001 film is a classic. In it, Aniston’s Emily Poule dates Mark Wahlberg‘s Chris “Izzy” Cole who has dreams of being a rock star, which he achieves while totally looking the part.

Aniston’s not-so-funny role in The Good Girl as a discount store clerk who strikes up an affair with a moody Jake Gyllenhaal was a huge hit with critics.

The actress plays Grace, who is in love with Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) despite his change in behavior and new duties as God.

Ben Stiller’s character wasn’t sure what he got himself into when he started dating Aniston’s Polly Prince in this 2004 flick. After some spicy food and salsa dancing, there was no denying these co-stars had chemistry.

After leaving her high-paying job, Aniston’s Olivia reevaluates her successful and wealthy friends choices as well as her own.

Talk about a nasty separation. Aniston and Vince Vaughn play a couple whose relationship had so many issues we can’t even count them in this rom-com.

In 2008, Aniston graced our screens in the iconic sitcom 30 Rock as Claire Harper, a former roommate of Liz Lemon (Tina Fey). Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) takes to Claire and ignores Liz’s advice that she’s crazy, only to find Claire stealing a gun from a police officer and planting it on him at the end of the episode. Aniston’s portrayal of the insane character got her a nomination at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category. 

If you are a dog lover, tissues are a necessity while watching Aniston and Owen Wilson help raise, and later say goodbye, to their lab named Marley.  

Based on the best-selling book about romance and dating dynamics, this star-studded movie includes Aniston as well as Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Connelly and many others.

Aniston thinks she has found the man of her dreams with Aaron Eckhart in Love Happens, but unfortunately, his wife’s passing could be holding him back from true love.

If there’s anyone we’d like to have arrest us, Gerard Butler would definitely be on the list. In this 2010 action-comedy flick, Butler plays a bounty hunter sent after Aniston’s character for skipping out on bail, only to see the two rekindle their connection.

Jason Bateman as an accidental sperm donor?! Trouble, confessions and laughs ensue in this comedy where Bateman ends up being an unintentional father figure to Aniston’s precocious son.

It might’ve just been a cameo, but when Aniston teamed back up with Friends costar Courteney Cox to appear on her show as Glenn, we were overjoyed!

The California native plays Katherine, the assistant to Danny (Adam Sandler), who finds herself pretending to be his ex-wife while on a complicated trip to Hawaii with his new girlfriend and her kids. Hilarity ensues as the pair figure out the hard way that their love stories might be more connected than they’d like to admit.

Aniston as a horrible boss? We can’t imagine. In the 2011 comedy, however, Aniston gives Charlie Day‘s character a run for his money as Stacy the dentist, his boss who is sexually harassing him. She also reprised her role in the 2014 sequel Horrible Bosses 2 and was equally as funny.

In Wanderlust, a couple find themselves unemployed and therefore decide to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love is the name of the game. The movies also stars Paul Rudd and Aniston’s ex-husband Justin Theroux.

We’ve seen the star act out many roles, but who knew she’d play a stripper so well? In the film, Aniston plays Rose, a stripper who works with a drug dealer (Jason Sudeikis) and pretends to be a part of his fake family to sneak weed into the U.S. from Mexico.

This is a side of Aniston we had never seen before and she nailed it. The actress plays a woman who not only suffers from chronic pain in Cake, but is also a prescription pill addict on the verge of committing suicide. The performance went on to garner Aniston a SAG Awards nomination.

Aniston plays Sandy, a divorced mom of two boys trying to deal with her husband getting remarried as one of the many stories of moms and their different struggles in Mother’s Day.

After his sister (Aniston) threatens to shut down his branch of the company, Clay (T.J. Miller) throws an epic Christmas party to try and save the company and all his employees’ jobs in this 2016 holiday comedy film.

In 2018, Aniston became a part of the Netflix family with Dumplin‘. In the movie, she is a former beauty queen and pageant director for Miss Teen Bluebonnet, which her plus-size daughter Willowdean (Danielle Macdonald) enters as a protest against the stereotypical pageant lifestyle and its lack of diversity.

Aniston and Sandler team up again in this Netflix film where they play a married couple who get caught up in a hilarious whodunnit when a fellow passenger on their yacht is murdered. The film went on to get nominated at the 2019 E! People’s Choice Awards for The Comedy Movie of 2019 and nabbed Aniston a nod for The Female Movie Star of 2019.