Kristen Bell's 10 Best Movies And TV Shows

The best Kristen Bell movies and TV shows demonstrate how her unique abilities as a comedic actor have allowed her to cement a solid career and celebrated reputation in the genre. Born in Michigan in 1980, Kristen Bell has been an active performer since 1992 in theatrical productions, though she wouldn’t find herself in front of a camera until 1998 (albeit in an uncredited film role in the comedy-drama Polish Wedding).

Following this, Bell spent several more years on the stage, finally finding her way back to the small screen in 2003 in FX’s The Shield. It was 2004 that she got her big break thanks to landing the titular lead role in Veronica Mars, and from there her career exploded. The best Kristen Bell movies and TV shows may mostly be comedies, but she’s far from limited to one genre, and has displayed her capabilities across a variety of roles on both the big and small screens.

10 Pulse (2006)

Kristen Bell Plays Mattie Webber

The overwhelming majority of the best Kristen Bell movies and TV shows are comedies, as it’s her ability to portray funny characters that has defined her career. This is why 2006’s Pulse, from director Jim Sonzero (with a script co-written by the legendary Wes Craven), stands out, as it’s one of her rare ventures into the realms of horror. It’s also noteworthy as it’s one of the first feature films in which Bell was cast in a central role.

Adopting the Kiyoshi Kurosawa J-horror of the same name, Pulse sees Kristen Bell’s Mattie Webber caught up in a series of strange supernatural phenomena that sees spirits attempting to return to the world of the living through the internet. While the movie itself was panned by critics, Bell herself gave an incredibly strong performance, and so, Pulse more than warrants its entry among the best Kristen Bell movies due to it showing her range is much wider than comedy.

9 The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window (2022)

Kristen Bell Plays Anna Whitaker

Kristen Bell has had several successful collaborations with Netflix, such as 2024’s Nobody Wants This. Among them is the miniseries The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (also commonly known as TWITHATSFTGITW). The dark comedy sees Kristen Bell take the lead role as Anna, a woman struggling with mental health and hallucinations who comes to convince herself that she’s witnessed a murder.

The show parodies many aspects of the kinds of thrillers and true-crime shows that Netflix has built a reputation for creating, and Bell manages to make the character of Anna incredibly funny without making her over-the-top or unbelievable. The comedic elements of TWITHATSFTGITW work incredibly well, though it never loses its central mystery either. It’s a series where nothing is as it seems, and Bell’s performance as Anna ties everything together incredibly well.

8 Queenpins (2021)

Kristen Bell Plays Connie Kaminski

2021’s Queenpins, the comedy from writer-directors Aron Gaudet and Git Pullapilly, stars Kristen Bell as Connie Kaminski. Kaminski is a former Olympic speed walker frustrated with her mundane life as a mother and homemaker. However, after receiving a coupon for free cereal following a complaint to the company that produces them, she and her friend JoJo (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) concoct a scam to turn the corporate practice into a lucrative money-making scheme.

Kristen Bell gives a laugh-out-loud performance as Connie, and it’s this that marks Queenpins as one of the best of her more recent movies. It also stands out among the best Kristen Bell films as it shows how she’s matured as a performer, and how suited she is to playing older, middle-aged characters as her live-action appearances enter a new career phase. However, while it’s a comedic venture, Bell also gets to display her aptitude for more emotional moments thanks to Connie’s attempts to conceive through IVF and her trauma following a miscarriage.

7 Nobody Wants This (2024)

Kristen Bell Plays Joanne

At the time of writing, Kristen Bell has been shortlisted for several awards thanks to her performance in 2024’s Nobody Wants This, including a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy. The Netflix romantic comedy series stars Bell as Joanne, an agnostic sex and dating podcaster who finds herself romantically drawn to a Rabbi, Adam Brody’s Noah Roklov.

Season 2 of Nobody Wants This has been greenlit by Netflix thanks to the show's high level of critical acclaim, and season 1 of the series currently sits with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While it currently doesn’t have the cultural impact as some of Kristen Bell’s other TV shows like Veronica Mars, The Good Place, or Gossip Girls, future seasons of Nobody Wants This could change this.

6 Gossip Girl (2007-2012)

Kristen Bell Narrated

The teen drama Gossip Girl ran on The CW from 2007 to 2012 and remains one of the most successful, and culturally impactful, original shows the network ever put out. While she didn’t appear on-screen, Kristen Bell was an essential ingredient and member of the Gossip Girl cast. Every episode would be peppered with narration from the enigmatic Gossip Girl, an unknown student at an Upper East Side high school who holds nothing back in their quest to ensure every piece of dirty laundry the students want to hide is aired publicly.

Kristen Bell provides the voice for Gossip Girl, narrating every episode. Bell is a celebrated voice actor known just as much for her vocal skills as she is for her live-action performances, and she brings these abilities to Gossip Girl with incredible results. This cements the series as one of the best Kristen Bell TV shows. She also made a cameo in the final episode as a fictionalized version of herself.

5 Bad Moms (2016)

Kristen Bell Plays Kiki Moore

2016’s Bad Moms comes from directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and features an ensemble cast of celebrated comedians such as Mila Kunis and Kathryn Hahn. Joining them to make up the lead trio is Kristen Bell as Kiki Moore, a stay-at-home mother of four. As the title suggests, Bad Moms is a comedy that focuses on a group of mothers who rebel against the expectations of society and their spouses - and it makes for one of the most hilarious roles of the latter stage of Kristen Bell's career.

While it’s Mila Kunis as Amy who takes the central focus of the plot, Kristen Bell’s Kiki is arguably the funnier character. Not only does she share incredible chemistry with both Kunis as Amy and Kathryn Hahn as Carla, but her portrayal of the frazzled and beyond-stressed Kiki is brimming with authenticity - making it one of the best comedy movies Bell has so far appeared in and landing hers a nomination for Favorite Comedic Movie Actress at the 2016 People’s Choice Awards.

4 Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2009)

Kristen Bell Plays Sarah Marshall

2009’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall has become problematic in the years since its release thanks to being led by the now-controversial figure Russell Brand, but this doesn’t stop it from being counted as one of the best Kristen Bell movies. In the raunchy rom-com, Kristen Bell plays the titular Sarah Marshall, the ex-girlfriend of Jason Segel’s heartbroken composer Peter Bretter.

Peter decides to go on a vacation to forget about Sarah, only to discover - much to his horror - that she’s staying at the same resort with her new boyfriend, the rockstar Aldous Snow (Brand). Kristen Bell made the character of Sarah laugh-out-loud hilarious, and was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy and Breakout Female Star at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards for her performance, alongside a joint-nomination for Best WTF Moment alongside Jason Segel at the MTV Movie Awards the same year.

3 The Good Place (2016-2020)

Kristen Bell Plays Eleanor Shellstrop

Running on NBC from 2016-2020, The Good Place isn’t only one of the best Kristen Bell TV shows, but it also stands as arguably her most surreal. The fantasy-comedy series focuses on a group of recently deceased people who find themselves in the titular ‘Good Place’, which they’re led to believe is Heaven by the architect of their utopia, Michael (Ted Danson). Kristen Bell gives a hilarious performance as Eleanor Shellstrop, who realizes she’s ended up in a posthumous paradise due to an administrative error.

However, all is not what it seems, and Eleanor (along with the rest of the characters) finds out the Good Place may not be so good after all. The show was highly acclaimed, as was Kristen Bell’s performance. Bell was nominated for a slew of awards for The Good Place, including a Golden Globe nomination in 2019 for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy.

2 Veronica Mars (2004-2019)

Kristen Bell Plays Veronica Mars

Kristen Bell’s career has had several stages, and her first breakout role came when she took the titular lead in the UPN (and, eventually, The CW) teen noir mystery series Veronica Mars. Playing the young investigator brought Bell some of her earliest accolades, including a nomination for Best Actress on Television at the 2005 Saturn Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series at the Satellite Awards the same year. She later went on to win a Saturn Award in the same category the following year.

As the titular lead character, Kristen Bell was the central focal point for the many twisting narratives that kept viewers hooked on Veronica Marsthroughout all four seasons, and the 2014 movie spinoff. While she’s taken on many roles since, Veronica Mars remains the best Kristen Bell TV show so far, and one of the strongest performances of her career on both the big and small screens.

1 Frozen (2013)

Kristen Bell Plays Anna

Of all the best Kristen Bell movies and TV shows, none have had as significant a cultural impact as 2013’s Frozen (and, by extension, 2019 sequel Frozen 2). Alongside Idina Menzel as Elsa, Kristen Bell voiced one of the most iconic Disney princesses of all time - Anna, who braves the snowy wasteland created by her sister to save both her and the kingdom of Arendelle.

Not only did Kristen Bell give a hilarious performance as Anna, she also sang some of the memorable musical numbers that ensured Frozen has become the most successful Disney franchise of the 21st century so far (such as “Do You Want To Build A Snowman”). No character the actor has portrayed so far has become anywhere near as instantly recognizable, and it’s this and her performance that cement Frozen as the best Kristen Bell movie or TV show.

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