15 Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows Rated From Best to Worst

Quick Facts

Manhattan-born Ann Cusack has had a very stellar career, distinguishing herself in guest/recurring performances in a number of television series such as One Tree Hill, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Charmed, The Unit, Boston Legal, and Criminal Minds. The first among siblings with fledgling acting careers, Ann’s siblings John, Joan, Susie, and Bill Cusack are all great actors in their own right. She has also made appearances in movies like the 1996 comedy Multiplicity. A list of top Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows will be incomplete without a mention of her portrayal of Amy in Grosse Pointe Blank. Let us explore some of her best movies and TV Shows.

List of 15 Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows From Best To Worst

1. Nightcrawler

Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, Night Crawler is a thriller set in the bustling city of Los Angeles where a struggling man Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers he can earn big bucks by getting to crashes, fires, murder scenes in time to get live footage. He buys equipment and sets up a freelance journalism outfit but along the line, he couldn’t help the innate urge to cut corners. Ann Cusack played Linda in the movie.

The movie was released to favorable reviews, it won four nominations at the 68th British Academy Film Awards and three at the 20th Critics’ Choice Awards and is rated 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Shot on a budget of $8.5 million, it garnered $50.3 million at the box office.

2. Mr. Mercedes

Ann Cusack put in a sterling performance as Olivia Trelawney season 1 of the crime drama TV series Mr. Mercedes.  A trilogy which includes Finders Keepers and End of Watch, the story is about a retired cop who is determined to hunt down a killer who killed sixteen people when he drove a stolen Mercedes right through a queue of job-seekers who were attending a job fair.

Starring Brendan Gleeson, Scott Lawrence, Harry Treadaway, Kelly Lynch, Jharrel Jerome, and Robert Stanton Mr. Mercedes which is rated at 93% by Rotten Tomatoes will remain a favorite when chronicling Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows.

3. Boston Legal

Created by David E. Kelley, Boston Legal is a legal drama that aired on ABC from October 2004 to December 2008. The plot is a spin-off from The Practice and follows the legal shenanigans going on at Legal legal firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. Ann Cusack stars as Dr. Donna Follette in the excellently rated (87%) show. Boston Legal also stars James Spader, William Shatner, Mark Valley, Rhona Mitra, and Taraji P. Henson.

4. Frasier

Ann Cusack played Antonia in this sitcom which ran form 1993-2004. The plot of the TV show is centered around the life of Psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane who returns back home to his native Seattle and amidst several family and personal struggles and begins to host the Dr. Frasier Crane Show – a call-in psychiatry show on talk radio.

Fraiser has been described as one of the most successful spin-offs (Fraisier is a spin-off of 80’s sitcom Cheers) in modern times. It was received well and had very favorable reviews running for an impressive 11 seasons on NBC. It has a near-perfect score of 9/10 on IMDb.

5. Grosse Pointe Blank

Ann Cusack plays Amy and stars alongside her brother John and sister Ann in this 1997 classic crime-comedy movie which tells the story of a professional hit-man who has a mission to execute in Grosse Pointe, a small Detroit suburb.

Directed by George Armitage and released in 1997, Grosse Pointe Blank has received a wide range of reviews oscillating from favorable to criticism. One thing that is however obvious is its decent showing at the box office where it grossed $31,070,412 on a budget of $15 million. It is rated 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.

6. The Informant

Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns, The Informant is a comedy-crime film centered around an ambitious staff of an agro-based firm who decides to turn in evidence of fraud against his employers. As the FBI investigation unravels, FBI agents realize that their informant isn’t at all a fraud-loathing honest citizen that he makes out to be.

Ann played Robin Mann on the Informant alongside Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey,  Scott Bakula, and  Ann Dowd. Shot on a budget of $22 million, it raked in $41 million at the box office and it received largely positive reviews.

7. Grey’s Anatomy

Perhaps not many would stick Grey’s anatomy on a list of Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows, partly because she wasn’t a lead actor that had to appear in multiple episodes. Ann played Amy in this medical drama which aired from October 2004 to December 2008. Created by Shonda Rhimes, Grey’s Anatomy follows the medical adventures and experiences of doctors at a Seattle teaching hospital and Cusak appears in the season 2 episode titled What Have I Done to Deserve This? which is rated an 8/10 on IMDb. Her role was expanded and included in the spin-off Private Practice which has been equally successful.

8. Scandal

Ann Cusack plays NSA Director Corinne Stark in Season 2 of the Political thriller Scandal. In the episode she appears, crisis manager Oliver Pope is confronted with facts about a government program called ThornGate that is aimed at spying at citizens without their knowledge. Exasperated and confused, Pope is shocked at revelations pointing to how high up the food chain the conspiracy goes.

On the average, Scandal has received above-average reviews airing on ABC from April 5, 2012, till April 19, 2018. Ann Cusack stars on this season alongside Scott Foley, Debra Mooney, Bellamy Young, and Kate Burton.

9. Bones

Bones is a crime-procedural TV show centered on the use of forensic science to solve a crime. Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan leads his team at the Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab to partner with the FBI to unravel cases of murder. Throughout the series, themes such as faith, family and human behavior are all touched on. Most of the stories are loosely based on the life experiences of the producer, forensic anthropologist, and novelist Kathy Reichs. Ann Cusack played Dianne Hochman in a 2006 episode. The show has received very positive reviews and has been very successful.

10. Cannes Man

This is a hilarious comedy directed by Richard Martini and features quite a line up of Hollywood heavyweights who make brief cameo appearances from time to time. A fumbling movie producer Sy Lerner (Seymor Cassel) takes a bet that he has what it takes to transform anyone on the streets into a movie star, his first experiment is with a New York cab driver Frank (Francesco Quinn). Ann Cusack plays Kitty Monaco on this independent comedy which was released in 1996 to average reviews. It is rated 50% on Roten Tomatoes. Alongside her on this project were Francesco Quinn, Rebecca Broussard, Jim Jarmusch, and Johnny Depp.

11. What Planet Are You From

Ann Cusack plays Liz in this 2000 science-fiction comedy. Directed by Mike Nichols, the movie was written by Ed Solomon, Garry Shandling, Peter Tolan, and Michael Leeson.

When an alien from another planet is sent to earth to impregnate a woman and return home with the hybrid baby, little did they envisage that he would fall in love with the woman, thereby altering the course of the mission? To back up this intriguing plot, a quite impressive cast is assembled, including Ben Kingsley, Annette Bening, John Goodman, and Camryn Manheim. Shot on a budget of $60 million, the movie recouped a meager $14.1 million at the box office, making it a total flop!

12. Renaissance Man

Every list of Ann Cusack Movies and TV Shows will surely rank this film somewhere close to the bottom for very obvious reasons. The plot, production, and delivery aren’t the greatest you’d find.

Directed by Penny Marshall, The Renaissance Man is a comedy centered around Bill Rago (Danny DeVito) a divorced advertising executive who gets a new gig at to teach Army men comprehension and literacy. While at it, he builds interesting relationships along the way. Ann Cusack plays Bill’s Secretary. The film performed poorly at the box office after a budget of $40,000,000 was invested, it only turned over $24,332,324 at the box office.

13. Ladies Man

Starring Alfred Molina, Sharon Lawrence, Betty White, Stephen Root, Alexa Vega, and Ann Cusack as Delilah, this star-studded cast does little to live up to the promise that its cast portended. Created by Chris Thompson, this 1999 comedy series tells the story of a family man and his various issues with been surrounded in a home with women.

Ladies man ran on CBS from September 1999 and lasted for two seasons on CBS until June 2001. It was released to a mixed reception, its highlight being its enticing cast which succeeded in reuniting Betty White and her costars from Golden Girls.

14. Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America

Written by Richard McGee and Directed by Richard Pearce, this two-hour movie tells the story of an American man who gets infected with the deadly Avian Flu while on a business trip in China. He spreads it to passengers on board his jetliner and they, in turn, infects others and in no time, panic hits the nation as the virus turn into a potential global crisis.

Starring Joely Richardson, Stacy Keach, Scott Cohen, and Ann Cusack as Denise Connelly, Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America was released to negative reviews and was rated a 4 out of 10 on IMDb.

15. Ace Ventura Jr: Pet Detective

This is the third among two previous Ace Ventura films, the first two being Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Directed by David M. Evans and written by Jeff Sank, Justin Heimberg and Jason Heimberg. The plot of Ace Ventura Jr: Pet Detective is about Ace Ventura’s seventh-grade son who takes after his dad to hunt down the person who kidnaps his mothers baby panda.

Ann Cusack plays as Melissa Ventura, wife of Ace Ventura Sr. and the mother of Ace Ventura Jr. Upon release, the movie received negative reviews across board, and most of the criticism was centered on the below-par acting, humorless jokes and cheap soundtrack.

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