Gina Rodriguez's 10 Best Movies And TV Shows

The best Gina Rodriguez movies and TV shows feature a large number of quality series and a handful of movie appearances over her career. Rodriguez was born in Chicago and began dancing at the age of 7, which she continued to do until she was 17 and wanted to start acting more. This led her to attend the Tisch School of the Arts, where she trained in theater and then finally made her television debut on an episode of Law & Order when she was 20.

It took her 12 years of working in small roles on TV and movies before she finally achieved her breakout as the lead in Jane the Virgin. This TV series won her a Golden Globe Award and helped turn her into a major television star. She has since taken on several more starring roles in TV shows built around her and has also appeared in both major theatrical movies, streaming offerings, and even had some big voice roles in both films and TV shows.

10 Miss Bala (2019)

Gloria Fuentes

In 2019, Gina Rodriguez took on the lead role in the action thriller Miss Bala. The actress, who had made her name mostly in dramas and comedies, plays a woman who trains to take down a Mexican drug cartel after they kidnapped her friend. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke helmed the film, a remake of a 2011 Mexican thriller of the same name. Unfortunately, the film was a box office failure, barely making its production budget back.

However, while critics blasted the movie for too closely following the original and remaining too predictable, they did praise Rodriguez for her performance, as well as that of her co-stars, which included Marvel Cinematic Universe star Anthony Mackie. In its Rotten Tomatoes consensus, the site writes that “Miss Balasuggests Gina Rodriguez has a future as an action hero; unfortunately, it also demonstrates how hard it is to balance set pieces against a compelling story.”

9 Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Andrea Fleytas

Deepwater Horizon is based on the true story of the explosion and fire that occurred on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit in 2010. The real-life event resulted in the deaths of 11 people, with 17 others injured. The movie, helmed by Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg, is based on the New York Times article about the event and focuses on the workers fighting for their survival aboard the rig.

Gina Rodriguez stars in the movie as Andrea Fleytas, the rig’s Dynamic Position Operator. She was one of the main leads, along with Mark Wahlberg, who played Mike Williams, the Chief Electronics Technician. The movie was a box office failure, thanks mostly to its $156 million gross budget, but it did receive mostly positive reviews from critics. The film also received two Oscar nominations, both for technical achievements.

8 Not Dead Yet (2023-2024)

Nell Serrano

In 2023, Gina Rodriguez picked up a new lead role in a television series when she plays Nell in Not Dead Yet. The ABC sitcom saw Nell coming back home to America after her wedding fell apart and taking a job with her old newspaper, the SoCal Independent. However, she learns they only want her to write obituaries for the paper, which ends up being the perfect job because Nell can now see and talk to ghosts.

Critics praised Rodriguez for helping the series rise above the material.

The series has the ghosts of the people she is supposed to write about telling her their story from their point of view so she can get their obituary perfect. However, the main focus of the series is Nell’s personal life and the ghost’s stories help her figure out what she is supposed to be doing with herself now that she is back on her own again. Despite an incredible list of guest stars showing up in the episodes, ABC canceled Not Dead Yet after two seasons, while critics praised Rodriguez for helping the series rise above the material.

7 Will Trent (2025)

Marion Alba

Will Trent was already developing a strong cult following before Gina Rodriguez joined the cast in the third season. The series follows a man named Will Trent, who grew up in the foster care system before becoming a Special Agent in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). Gina joined in the third season as a new character, an Assistant District Attorney named Marion Alba.

She meets Will at the start of the third season, when they are both looking for the same person for different cases (hers is a RICO case and his is a possible dirty cop case). Rodriguez plays the new love interest for Will, which comes after he arrested his last girlfriend, Angie, in season 2. Will Trent received critical acclaim for its first two seasons and received several Astra TV Awards nominations, and Rodiguez is a welcome addition to the cast.

6 Filly Brown (2012)

Majo Tenorio

Before she enjoyed worldwide acclaim for her role in Jane the Virgin, Gina Rodriguez received her first awards recognition for her role in the movie Filly Brown. In this drama, Rodriguez stars as Maria José “Majo” Tenorio, a Latina rapper who struggles both at home and in the music business. Majo takes on the rapper name of Filly Brown and she fights to make her name in the predominantly male world of hip-hop music.

Gina Rodriguez received praise for her performance as Filly Brown.

While the movie received mostly mixed reviews and was never a big hit, Gina Rodriguez received praise for her performance as Filly Brown. The movie was released at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It won Best Feature Film at the Noor Iranian Film Festival and the entire cast won the Special Achievement in Film award at the 2013 American Latino Media Arts Awards.

5 Diary Of A Future President (2020-2021)

Future President Elena

In 2020, Gina Rodriguez produced and had a role in the Disney+ streaming series Diary of a Future President. The role was not as big as her other roles, but she was still the most important character in the series. Rodriguez’s character of Elena Cañero-Reed is the future president the show’s title hints at. While Tess Romero plays a teenage Elena and leads most of the story, Rodriguez is the adult U.S. President, shown in flashforwards.

Rodriguez also has a bigger role in the second season since she starts to communicate with her younger self as part of the teenage Elena’s imagination. Disney+ canceled the series after two seasons. Rodriguez earned a Children’s and Family Emmy Awards nomination in 2022 for Outstanding Guest Performance in Preschool, Children's or Young Teen Program, while the series also received nominations from the GLAAD Media Awards, Gracie Awards, Imagen Foundation Awards, and Young Artist Awards.

4 Carmen Sandiego (2019-2021)

Carmen Sandiego

Gina Rodriguez has had several voice roles over her career in shows like Lost Ollie and Elena of Avalor and movies like Ferdinand and The Star. However, one of her more prominent roles came with the Netflix reboot of the classic cartoon Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. With the title shortened to just Carmen Sandiego, Rodriguez voices the main character, the thieving villain from the original series.

This plays out as an origin story, with Carmen’s backstory playing out so viewers can learn how and why she became the villain that she did. Joining her in the cast is Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard, a hacker who helps Carmen with her heists. The series ran for four seasons and 32 episodes and received almost universal positive reviews. The series earned six Emmy Award nominations and won Best Character Design – TV/Media at the Annie Awards.

3 Annihilation (2018)

Anya Thorensen

Gina Rodriguez stars in the female-led science fiction horror movie Annihilation. The film, directed by Alex Garland, tells the story of a zone called the Shimmer that formed after a meteor crashed onto Earth. When a team goes in to investigate, only one returns. That survivor, former U.S. Army soldier Lena (Natalie Portman) ends up going back in, this time with an all-female team, including Dr. Ventress, a psychologist, Cass, a geomorphologist; Anya, a paramedic; and Josie, a physicist.

Gina Rodriguez stars in Annihilation as Anya, the paramedic. The movie was a box office failure, but received mostly positive reviews, sitting at 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praised the story and how the entire sci-fi story was full of challenging themes and strange moments. While it missed the mark commercially, it has since become a cult classic and gained a new life on home video and streaming.

2 Big Mouth (2018-)

Gina Alvarez

While most of Gina Rodriguez’s television roles have been family friendly, she did take on a voice role in a very raunchy, yet heartfelt adult animated series on Netflix. Rodriguez voices the character of Gina Alvarez in Big Mouth. The animated series follows middle-school friends who have reached puberty, which are shown here to be Hormone Monsters. Nick Kroll voices Nick and John Mulaney voices Andrew, the main two kids in the series.

As for Rodriguez, she voices Gina Alvarez, a girl who has developed early and has caused a lot of attention at school from the other kids. Her sudden appearance changes make her the center of attention for many of the young boys and the source of envy for the girls. When she and Nick have a moment, it doesn’t go well for either of them when the kids at school find out. Big Mouth has received several awards over its run and characters like Gina are a big reason for its critical acclaim.

1 Jane The Virgin (2014-2019)

Jane Villanueva

The TV show that made Gina Rodriguez a star, and the property that she remains best known for to this day, is her role in the CW television series Jane the Virgin. In this series, Rodriguez plays Jane Gloriana Villanueva, a young religious woman who ends up realizing she is pregnant even though she is still a virgin. While she promised her grandmother she would remain a virgin until marriage, her doctor accidentally artificially inseminated her.

The series was critically acclaimed thanks to dealing with themes such as immigration status, health concerns, and lessons of self-discovery. It ran for five seasons and 100 episodes and had a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score for every single season. Gina Rodriguez won a Golden Globe Award in 2015 for Best Actress and was nominated two other times. She was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 2019.

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