Cats don’t always get the kind of prominence dogs do in movies, but there’s still been plenty of memorable feline actors over the years. Quite recently, in A Quiet Place: Day One, that was the case. The human stars Lupita Nyong’o and Joesph Quinn weren’t the only ones catching the eye. Frodo the cat was, according to director Michael Sarnoski, an essential part of the movie.
In tribute to the daring do of these feline actors, ComingSoon picks some of the best cats in movies over the years. Whether they’re real-life furballs or animated moggies, they provide memorable moments in cinematic history.
Frodo (A Quiet Place: Day One)
Frodo is played by two tuxedo cats named Nico and Schnitzel, and plays a significant role in the movie.
Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) carries Frodo with her throughout an alien invasion by noise-seeking monsters. Rather than be a hindrance by acting like my cat and meowing every four seconds, Frodo is a very good pet for the apocalypse.
The furry companion is put in the same kind of peril as their humans too, which makes this an almost literal ”Save the Cat” story. How can you not root for Frodo’s survival and happiness in this volatile world?
Church (Pet Sematary)
There are creepier and more distressing things going on in Pet Sematary than an undead cat. However, the blue British Shorthair Church is crucial to the horrible outcome of this 1989 adaptation of the harrowing Stephen King story.
Seven separate cats played Church in Mary Lambert’s film. I’m guessing they didn’t have a tolerance for acting for too long.
Church is named after former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, which is probably a worse fate than being run over and reanimated.
Jonesy (Alien/Aliens)
Ellen Ripley isn’t the only survivor of Ridley Scott’s Alien. Jonesy, the ship’s cat, breezes through the chaos as everyone is slaughtered around them. In one of many iconic scenes from the sci-fi horror classic, Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett tries to lure Jonesy out of a hiding spot, only to end up ambushed by the Xenomorph.
Jonesy then gets to live the ultimate cat dream and snoozes for a few decades in cryosleep. After that epic catnap, Ripley lets Jonesy stay home for the events of Aliens, presumably living the good cat life in space.
The Baron (The Cat Returns)
At one point, Cary Elwes was the personification of dashing and debonair onscreen. Even in animated form as an anthropomorphic cat. In the US dub of Studio Ghibli’s 2002 gem, the Cat Returns, Elwes plays the suave cat Baron Humbert von Gikkingen.
The Baron ends up being the savior of schoolgirl Haru, as she stumbles into the Kingdom of Cats and gets lined up as the trophy wife of The Cat King’s son.
He’s definitely the best cat in the movie in terms of heroism and charm, but I do have a soft spot for Tim Curry’s suitably zany turn as The Cat King.
The Cat (Coraline)
If you want the coolest-sounding talking cat ever to grace our screens, then you couldn’t do much better than picking Keith David for the job.
His mischievous yet ultimately helpful black cat helps Dakota Fanning’s Coraline Jones through her dark otherworldly adventure in Henry Selick’s fantastic stop-motion adaptation of the Neil Gaiman story.
Thackery Binx (Hocus Pocus)
Before Blinx, there was Binx…Thackery Binx, the witch-fouling feline hero of Disney’s Hocus Pocus.
Sean Murray played the boy transformed into an immortal black cat by the devious Sanderson Sisters. Having licked his paws alone for a few centuries, Thackery aids teens Dani and Max after the witches are summoned once more in the 1990s.
When the long-awaited sequel came out a few years back, fans were naturally disappointed that the only black cat in the movie was not Binx but an ordinary cat named Cobweb.
