America Ferrera names her four favourite movies
The biggest downside about everyone in Hollywood weighing into the decision to omit Barbie from the ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Actress’ categories at the Academy Awards is that America Ferrera’s nomination was shunted to the sidelines of the conversation.
So many people were up in arms over Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie being snubbed for their respective contributions that it seemed to pass everybody by that the emotional anchor of the entire billion-dollar blockbuster had been recognised as a ‘Best Supporting Actress’ contender.
Not that Ferrera needed to prove herself to anybody, with her first-ever Oscar nomination coming long after she’d won a Primetime Emmy for ‘Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series’ and a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy’ thanks to her star-making turn in Ugly Betty.
She’s been a regular presence on-screen for two decades and is even eying a move behind the camera to direct her first feature, with Barbie landing her an Oscar nod just the icing on a cake that was already plenty delicious. The highest-grossing release of 2023 won itself a legion of adoring fans, but when it comes to Ferrera’s own personal favourite films, she likes to keep her inner child at the forefront.
When pressed to name her quartet by Letterboxd, Ferrera prefaced her selection by noting how “I’m going to answer them as in when I was a kid and wasn’t trying to be fancy,” which in turn opened the doors to her top choice. “Number one, made-for-TV movie version of Gypsy starring Bette Midler. Changed my life.”
The second was technically cheating a little bit, but that didn’t prevent the star from opting for “the Mighty Ducks series,” with the trio of family-friendly sports comedies being released between 1992 and 1994 and giving rise to a merchandising phenomenon that saw Disney get into the ice hockey business for a spell.
“Grease was pretty impactful,” Ferrera continued to echo the sentiments of multiple generations. “Watched that a hundred million times as a kid.” She was far from the only one, and the same can be said of her fourth and final candidate, which drummed up so much repeat business it became the biggest hit in the history of cinema during its initial theatrical run.
“Titanic, I saw it four times in the movie theatre,” she explained. “I mean, I was in middle school when Titanic came out so I was ripe for a massive, heart-crushing crush on Leonardo DiCaprio.” Again, that was something the entire global population felt as 1997 gave way to 1998 and James Cameron’s epic romance reigned as pop culture’s biggest talking point, so Ferrera was far from alone in her obsession with the intertwined fates of DiCaprio’s Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose.
America Ferrera’s favourite movies:
- Gypsy (Emile Ardolino, 1993)
- The Mighty Ducks (Stephen Herek, 1992)
- Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)
- Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
