Jaime Pressly's 15 Best Movies And TV Shows

The best Jaime Pressly movies and TV shows contain an interesting mix of genres but she always stands out when she gets her chance to shine. Presley started her career as a teenager when she got involved in modeling while also training as a gymnast. By the time she was 15, she dropped out of high school and moved to Japan to further her modeling career. This led to her first TV appearance, where she had an uncredited role on Baywatch, which then led to her first major breakout.

In 1997, the 20-year-old Presley was cast as the lead in Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, the third movie in the franchise that starred Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano before her. From there, her career started to pick up steam, although she almost found herself typecast in similar roles in movies like Joe Dirt and TV shows like My Name is Earl. Despite this, she has remained notable in her choices of roles, picking up several nominations for My Name is Earl and, more recently, the TV show, Mom.

15 100 Girls (2000)

Jaime Pressly Played Cynthia

At the turn of the millennium, Jaime Pressly appeared in her 8th feature film, the teen rom-com 100 Girls. Directed and written by Michael Davis, 100 Girls features an incredibly simple premise and is one of the best examples of the comedic skills that came to define much of Pressly's acting career. In some ways, 100 Girls loosely resembles Prince Charming's attempts to find Cinderella from all the women in the kingdom using only her glass slipper, albeit with a modern, raunchy twist. The plot focuses on college student Matthew (Jonathan Tucker) trying to figure out the identity of a woman he had intercourse with in an elevator during a blackout.

Jaime Pressly plays Cynthia in 100 Girls, one of the women Matthew believes could be the mysterious stranger from his pitch-black encounter. The film is incredibly lighthearted, and having Pressly as part of the ensemble cast only adds to the appeal and tone that films of the genre from the early 2000s shared. While not Pressly's most nuanced role, it does stand as the perfect example of her comedic abilities, especially from those of her earlier years on-screen.

14 Ringmaster (1998)

Jaime Pressly Played Angel Zorzak

Ringmaster

Comedy

Release Date: November 25, 1998
Director: Neil Abramson

Cast

Jerry Springer
Jaime Pressly
William McNamara
John Capodice

1998's Ringmaster is one of the best Jaime Pressly movies from her early career, and one of the first in which she took a leading role. While Ringmaster, from director Neil Abramson, is most notable for starring Jerry Springer, it was Jaime Pressly's performance as Angel Zorzak which was the most memorable. It was a role that helped cement her rise to stardom, and displayed many of the specific talents and skills she'd later come to rely on in movies and TV shows like My Name Is Earl.

In Ringmaster, Jaime Pressly's character Angel Zorzak is a young woman hungry to find fame. However, she believes the best way to do this is to secure an appearance on a Jerry Springer-like reality TV show. Despite the premise sounding comedic, Angel is a surprisingly nuanced character. Her background as one of an impoverished family living in a trailer park gives plenty of opportunity to explore the issue of financial inequity in society and how this is often exploited by reality TV production studios. While not her most well-known project, it was a defining moment for Jaime Pressly, and more than watchworthy for her fans.

13 DOA: Dead Or Alive (2006)

Jaime Pressly Played Tina Armstrong

DOA: Dead or Alive

PG-13

Action

Adventure

Thriller

Release Date: September 7, 2006
Runtime: 87 minutes
Director: Corey Yuen
Writers: J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross, Seth Gross

Cast

Jaime Pressly
Devon Aoki
Holly Valance
Sarah Carter

Video game adaptations have dominated the world of movies and TV shows in the 2020s, though it took the genre several decades to reach momentum. In the 2000s, many film studios were starting to invest fully in bringing many video games to the big-screen as live-action stories, and DOA: Dead or Alive is one such attempt, and one of the best Jaime Pressly movies. Based on the video game franchise of the same name, DOA: Dead or Alive starred Jaime Pressly as Tina Armstrong, one of several characters from the beat-em-up to make it to direcotr Corey Young's adaptation.

A professional wrestler taking part in a martial arts tournament, Tina from DOA: Dead or Alive was an interesting role for Jaime Pressly, and one that stands out from many of the other performances in her best movies and TV shows. Pressly delivers a fierce intensity to Tina, one that makes her stand out from the likes of Deon Aoki's Kasumi or Holly Valance's Christie. It's not her most nuanced role, but it's definitely one of Jaime Pressly's strongest appearances when it comes to action movies.

12 Evel Knievel (2004)

Jaime Pressly Played Linda

The 2004 TV movie Evel Knievel is a biopic detailing the rise to fame of the titular stunt performer. It also featured an incredible performance from Jaime Pressly as Linda Bork, Evel Knievel's wife. While the film, from director John Badham, aired on TNT and never had a theatrical run, it rivals many of Jaime Pressly's earlier movies both in terms of quality and how well she portrayed her character.

The direct-to-TV biopic is fascinating in its own right, as it deals not only with Knievel's career but also the legal battles around toy companies using his image.

Linda Bork was far from a simple role, often finding herself torn between supporting her husband's career and fearing for his safety. Jaime Pressly brings all of these real-life moments, and the emotional nuance of them, to the screen with flying colors. The direct-to-TV biopic is fascinating in its own right, as it deals not only with Knievel's career but also the legal battles around toy companies using his image. However, it's the scenes between Jaime Pressly as Linda and George Eads as the Evel that steal the show.

11 Inferno (1999)

Jaime Pressly Played Dottie Matthews

1999's Inferno, from director John G. Avildsen, featured an ensemble cast that included several legends of the action genre such as Jean-Claude Van Damme, Pat Morita and Danny Trejo. Among them was Jaime Pressly in her 7th feature-film appearance as Dottie Matthews. While the movie was panned by critics, the gritty action-thriller has since gained a cult following. What's more, Pressly's performance remains one of the strongest of her early career.

Jaime Pressly's character Dottie Matthews is a waitress who finds herself caught in the middle of a twist-filled crime story. Pressly portrayed the character exceptionally well, and despite her relatively limited screen time, Inferno provided her an ample opportunity to display the talent that would later see her appear in films like 2004's Torque and 2001's Ticker. It may not be her most prominent or central role, but for fans of Jaime Pressly seeking to explore her earlier on-screen roles, Inferno is essential viewing.

10 Jennifer Falls (2014)

Jaime Pressly Played Jennifer Doyle

One of Jaime Pressly's lesser-known TV roles was the sitcom, Jennifer Falls. That is likely because it was on the network TV Land and only lasted for one season. In this series, Pressly stars as Jennifer Doyle, the title character, a single mother who loses her high-paying job because of her anger issues and has to move in with her mother, Maggie (Arrested Development's Jessica Walter). Once there, she has to figure out how to move on and rebuild her life, while reassessing what led to her downfall.

It featured a reunion for Pressly and Ethan Suplee, who starred in My Name is Earl with the actress.

The series lasted only one season and 10 episodes and received a lukewarm response from critics. That said, it featured a reunion for Pressly and Ethan Suplee, who starred in My Name is Earl with the actress. Pressly is in fine form in the series as a woman with serious anger issues, and it almost seems like a warm-up for her later role on Mom, although she was surrounded by a much better show in the latter one. Despite that, she remains highly entertaining in this short-lived series.

9 Torque (2004)

Jaime Pressly Played China

While in no way considered a great movie, Torque does have a following from fans of high-octane action movies and motorcycles. Martin Henderson (Virgin River) stars as Cary Ford, a biker who is framed for murder. This not only sends the law after him, but puts a target on his head by Trey Wallace (Ice Cube), the leader of a biker gang known as The Reapers, who believes Ford killed his brother. Jaime Pressly stars as one of the film's villains, a biker named China.

China is the girlfriend of Hendy James, the leader of a biker gang known as the Hellions. Henry is who really killed Trey's brother and it is China who gives a false police report that implicates Ford in the murder. This all leads to a big moment where China ends up face-to-face with Ford's longtime girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur). The film received poor reviews, but critics did appreciate the tongue-in-cheek humor and the fact that the cast, Pressly included, seemed to know what kind of movie they were in.

8 Welcome To Flatch (2022-2023)

Jaime Pressly Played Barb Flatch

Welcome to Flatch is a sitcom that aired on Fox from 2022 to 2023. It lasted for two seasons and 27 episodes and Jaime Pressly joined the cast in season 2 as Barb Flatch. The series is a mockumentary sitcom that sees the filmmakers head into the small town of Flatch, Ohio, to meet the eccentric residents. The series is similar to My Name is Earl when it comes to the small-town people on display, while it also shares a lot of the heart with that previous Pressly hit series.

Pressly's appearance came in the premiere of season 2 when Shrub's (Sam Straley) grandmother, the oldest woman in Flatch, dies and the next oldest woman takes her place (Old Lady Flatch). Pressly shows up as Barb, her daughter, and she plays a huge role in the second season, restarting her real estate business in the town. She had a huge presence on the show, which kind of played against what made it popular in its first season (Kelly and Shrub's lives), and the series ended after the second season.

7 Joe Dirt (2001)

Jaime Pressly Played Jill

For a period of years, it seemed that Jaime Pressly was almost typecast as a small-town, trailer park woman on TV and in films. Her best movie role during this period was the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt. In this movie, Spade plays Joe Dirt, a janitor with a ridiculous mullet haircut who is telling his life story to a shock jock (Dennis Miller) on a radio broadcast. According to Joe, his family forgot and left him at the Grand Canyon, and he grew up to learn how to support himself in a small "chicken town."

While the movie received bad reviews, it ended up as a cult classic and actually received a sequel in 2014.

Jaime Pressley stars in the movie as Jill, a girl in the town who starts to hit on Joe Dirt at the carnival he works at. She had one of the best moments in the story when the two of them decided to have sex before Joe began to think that she might have been his sister. It is disturbing at points, but then it leads to very funny moments as he retells the story. While the movie received bad reviews, it ended up as a cult classic and actually received a sequel in 2014.

6 Poison Ivy: The New Seduction (1997)

Jaime Pressly Played Violet

Jaime Pressly's first big movie role came in 1997, when she was 20. She was cast in the straight-to-video sequel Poison Ivy: The New Seduction.This was the third entry in the franchise, which starred Drew Barrymore in the first film and Alyssa Milano in the second. All three of the first movies in the series had the same basic plot, with a young sexually dominant woman who develops a fascination with someone close to them and proceeds to ruin their lives when they won't reciprocate their feelings.

It still held a spot for fans of 1990s erotic thrillers and helped make Jaime Pressly a star.

The film was not received as well as Barrymore's installment, but it still held a spot for fans of 1990s erotic thrillers and helped make Jaime Pressly a star. While never matching up to the first, it was at least a marked improvement over the second movie, Poison Ivy: Lilly. With critics pointing out the "sleaze" and "wicked fun," it enjoyed a nice life on the DTV market and ended up as one of the most aired installments of the franchise on cable networks for years to come.

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