Goldie Hawn is an American actress, producer, dancer and singer, who rose to fame in the 1970s. She's a Golden Globe and Academy Award winner and has been a successful star ever since. Many of her fans know she's Kate Hudson's mother and is the long-time partner of actor Kurt Russell. Hawn is an icon in Hollywood and has made her mark across various platforms for her talent.
But the most well-known avenue Hawn is known for is her acting. She's been a shining star in some of the best movies over the last few decades, and it's time fans get a collective list of these gems. Below are her most well-reviewed movies throughout her career and where viewers can find them.
HouseSitter: 6.1 (1992) - Rent on Vudu
HouseSitter is a rom-com directed by Frank Oz and written by Mark Stein. The movie follows an architect named Newton Davis (Steve Martin), who has just built his dream home and proposed to his girlfriend, Becky Metcalf (Julie Harris). After being turned down, he returns to the city to lick his wounds.
Almost right away, he meets a waitress named Gwen (Goldie Hawn), who is much more than she appears to be. After spending the night together, Gwen learns of the home he left behind after the botched engagement and decides to check it out for herself. Once she's there, she decides to hatch a plan that will fool the locals into thinking she's Davis's new fiancé.
Deceived: 6.2 (1991) - Rent On Vudu
Deceived is a crime-drama mystery about a woman named Adrienne Saunders (Hawn) who suddenly loses her husband Jack (John Heard). After his passing, she realizes that he might've not been the man she thought she married.
When the lies start pouring out, Saunders is dealt with the long-lost lies her husband told her throughout their marriage.
Private Benjamin: 6.2 (1980) - Hoopla
Judy Benjamin (Hawn) is a high-society woman who's been sheltered for most of her life. When her husband dies on their wedding night, Benjamin decides to enlist in the army and pivot her life towards a greater cause. While she was presented the idea as a "getaway," she has no idea what she's truly in for.
Benjamin has a rude awakening during basic training and realizes this might not be the path for her after all. But once she gets the hang of things and finishes her training, her new assignment leads her to a commander that finds her looks more important than her skills. Private Benjamin a hit and has even spawned a short-lived TV series.
The First Wives Club: 6.4 (1996) - Starz
One of Goldie Hawn's most well-known movies is the 1996 comedy The First Wives Club, starring Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and of course, Hawn. Upon meeting in college, Elise (Hawn), Brenda (Midler), and Annie (Keaton) knew they'd be friends for life, but once they graduated, they went their separate ways. When their fourth friend, Cynthia Swann Griffin, takes her own life (Stockard Channing), they come together once again and learn they have more in common than they thought.
All of their husbands or soon-to-be ex-husbands have cheated or undervalued them in one way or another, so they decide to get back at them in the best way they know how: by messing with their finances. While this is one of Hawn's best movies to date, The First Wives Club is also one of Bette Midler's best performances as well.
Death Becomes Her: 6.6 (1992) - HBO Max
Actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and writer Helen Sharp (Hawn) are frenemies, and when Sharp finds Ashton in her dressing room with her soon-to-be husband, Dr. Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis), everything comes to a head. Menville breaks off his engagement with Sharp and marries Ashton instead.
Several years later, Sharp is in a mental institution and is obsessed with seeking revenge on what she lost years before. But fast-forward another seven years, and the Menville's find themselves at a book release party for Sharp. After a decline in Ashton's marriage and career, she turns to a rejuvenation specialist to seek out a potion to make her young again, not knowing Sharp has already taken it years before. Together, they go down a dark path of death, destruction, and figuring out how to "live" with the secret they both have. While Death Becomes Her centers on Streep and Hawn, Bruce Willis has a stand-out performance as well.
The Sugarland Express: 6.8 (1974) - HBO Max
In the 1974 crime drama, The Sugarland Express, Hawn plays Lou Jean Poplin, a woman who is about to lose her son to the foster care system. To make sure that doesn't happen, she turns to her incarcerated husband Clovis Michael Poplin (William Atherton) to convince him to break out of prison and run from the law.
The movie is amongst those that are based on a real-life situation but put a Hollywood twist on it.
Overboard: 6.9 (1987) - Starz
By 1987, Goldie Hawn and her long-time love Kurt Russell starred in another movie together called Overboard. Hawn plays a snooty woman named Joanna, who comes from money and wants a luxurious closet built on her yacht. She hires a carpenter named Dean Proffitt (Russell) to do the work.
When she's unhappy with the outcome, she refuses to pay him, and the following day, Joanna receives her karma. She falls overboard and, in turn, suffers amnesia. When Proffitt sees her on television and realizes no one will claim her, he plots revenge to pick her up, tell her she's his wife, and set her to work as his doting housekeeper.
The Christmas Chronicles: 7.0 (2018) - Netflix
Fast-forward 30 years, and Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are back at it again in the Netflix Original The Christmas Chronicles. While the movie is mainly set on Santa Claus (Russell), Hawn's role as Mrs. Claus is a shining star in the holiday movie.
The movie also centers on a brother and sister who plan to catch Santa Claus on camera to prove he's real. The on-screen chemistry is still evident between Hawn and Russell, making the movie that much more lovable. In fact, if the first film didn't prove Russell is one of the best on-screen Santas, The Christmas Chronicles 2 definitely did.
Butterflies Are Free: 7.2 (1972) - Rent On Amazon Prime Video
One of Goldie Hawn's first big-screen movies was in the comedy-music drama called Butterflies Are Free. She stars as Jill, a free-spirited woman who befriends her new neighbor, Don Baker (Edward Albert). Against his mother's wishes, the blind musician appreciates the company and a friend in this new path of life.
Jill and her neighbor Don learn from one another as they create a bond that can't be broken, even by his overprotective mother, Mrs. Baker (Eileen Heckart).
Cactus Flower: 7.2 (1969) - Rent On Vudu
The best-rated Goldie Hawn movie is the 1969 rom-com Cactus Flower, directed by Gene Saks. Cactus Flower is known as Hawn's first big-screen movie, and clearly, it worked out in her favor. Hawn stars as Toni Simmons, a woman dating a dentist named Julian Winston (Walter Matthau), but there's only one problem: he's married.
In reality, Winston doesn't have a wife and doesn't have children; he only tells women that so he doesn't have to commit. But when Simmons turns out to be different from the rest, he asks his receptionist Stephanie Dickinson (Ingrid Bergman), to pose as his ex-wife.