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Which movie made you realize that you were hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Jennifer Garner? For many, the answer is 13 Going On 30, in which Garner’s overnight-adult Jenna Rink made audiences of all ages want to look at their lives with fresh eyes. She’ll break your heart in Dallas Buyers Club and leave you fiercely protective in Juno with that earnest, endearing Miss Honey demeanor that makes you trust her in an instant. Of course, that’s when Ms. Garner feels like playing nice: we can’t forget she got her start with the likes of Alias and Daredevil, and she’s just as comfortable taking out her enemies as she is reeling them in. Jennifer Garner is America’s sweetheart, America’s field agent, and everyone’s dream girl — and I have the movies to prove it.
If I sound smitten, I am: Jennifer Garner’s movie history is a treasure trove of nostalgia and enthusiastic fun, and there’s never been a better time to celebrate the many performances for which she’s loved best. (Yes, I’m including Catch Me If You Can, because her chemistry with Leo is real and it’s important.) When she became a mom to kids Violet, Seraphina, and Samuel with ex-husband Ben Affleck, she was vocal about making the conscious choice to step back from acting — and as those kids become teens(!), Garner’s acting gigs are once again picking up speed. In other words, catch up now, because we’re sure this list will only get longer.
Read on for the Jen Garner movies that will remind you exactly why she’s America’s crush (like you’d ever forget).
A version of this was originally published in 2021.
13 Going on 30 (2004)
One day, Jenna Rink is just a 13-year-old on the nasty end of her cool classmates’ prank; the next, she’s an über-cool magazine executive with a fancy apartment, a killer wardrobe, and a charming (looking) boyfriend. 30, flirty, and thriving! But of course, the high life comes at a cost — and childhood sweetheart Mark Ruffalo is there to help her see what that cost is.
Love, Simon (2018)
Simon Spier is a 17-year-old with an online crush and a secret he just can’t seem to admit to his friends and close family, including mom Jennifer Garner. Love and acceptance wins the day in this teen drama, but secrets and tensions grow worse before they get better.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Jennifer Garner’s role may be small in this one, but it’s worth the wait. Frank Abagnale, Jr. is a master forger, bank robber, and imposter who seems to have nine lives — none of them traceable by the FBI. Garner plays a call girl named Cheryl Ann.
Daredevil (2003)
Yes, this is the movie set on which Garner met husband-to-be Ben Affleck, but it’s also so much more in this gritty Marvel adaptation on blind lawyer-turned-vigilante Daredevil (Affleck) and his fight for justice alongside assassin girlfriend Elektra (Garner).
Danny Collins (2015)
Al Pacino plays an aging rocker who has a late-in-life change of heart and decides to seek out his son in this quirky family drama. That son has a wife (Garner) and daughter, and the sudden appearance of this father figure crafts a shaky balance between being a blessing and a curse.
Peppermint (2018)
We’re not sure if Garner just needed to blow off some steam, but Peppermint saw her back in full action mode for the first time in a long time, this time playing a woman whose husband and daughter were brutally killed, leading her to devote her life to becoming an unstoppable fighter and exacting revenge.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
Come on — if Jennifer Garner was your ex, you’d let her haunt you too. In this early 2000s rom-com (is there any better kind?), playboy photographer Matthew McConaughey faces his past in the form of his ex-lovers, come back to hash out his wrongdoings.
Juno (2007)
Elliott Page’s star turn in Juno as an impregnated teen alongside hapless Michael Cera as her boyfriend made this Diablo Cody movie genuinely funny, but it was Jennifer Garner’s role as the hopeful mom-to-be that will stay with you long after the end credits.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner face off in very different roles from their rom-com past in this moving story of a cowboy diagnosed as HIV positive and given a grim 30 days to live, while Garner plays a doctor involved in early clinical trials for an HIV drug in the 1980s.
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