Hayden Panettiere’s Top 5 Most Popular Movies, From ‘A Bug’s Life’ to the ‘Scream’ Franchise

Following the death of actress Hayden Panettiere at age 36, fans have been revisiting the film career that ran alongside her more prominent television roles on “Heroes” and “Nashville.” While Panettiere became best known to audiences through television, several of her film credits reached significant commercial and cultural popularity throughout her career. Here are five of her most widely recognized movies.

1. “A Bug’s Life” (1998)

Panettiere’s earliest brush with major box office success came before she was even 10 years old, when she voiced the character Dot in Pixar’s second animated feature film. Released in 1998, “A Bug’s Life” became a major commercial hit for the studio, introducing Panettiere’s voice to millions of moviegoers years before she became a recognizable on-screen presence. The film remains one of the most widely seen credits of her entire career, given its enduring popularity as a staple of late-1990s family animation.

2. “Remember the Titans” (2000)

Panettiere appeared alongside Denzel Washington in this biographical sports drama, which tells the story of a newly integrated high school football team in Virginia in 1971. Playing Sheryl Yoast, the young daughter of assistant coach Bill Yoast, Panettiere featured in what became one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular sports films of its era. “Remember the Titans” has remained a frequently watched and referenced film in the decades since its release, cementing it as one of Panettiere’s most widely recognized credits.

3. “Ice Princess” (2005)

Panettiere starred in this Disney sports drama centered on competitive figure skating, one of several family-oriented films she took on during her teenage years as she built her profile ahead of her breakout television role. The film found a lasting audience among younger viewers and has remained a recognizable part of Disney’s mid-2000s family film slate, contributing to Panettiere’s visibility as a rising young star during that period of her career.

4. “Scream 4” (2011)

Panettiere joined the long-running horror franchise as Kirby Reed, a sharp, horror-savvy character who quickly became a fan favorite among the film’s ensemble cast. Released as the franchise’s fourth installment after more than a decade away from theaters, “Scream 4” reintroduced the Ghostface killer to a new generation of horror audiences while drawing longtime fans back to the series. The film performed well commercially and introduced Panettiere to a broad audience of horror moviegoers who had not necessarily followed her earlier television work.

5. “Scream VI” (2023)

More than a decade after her franchise debut, Panettiere reprised her role as Kirby Reed in “Scream VI,” surprising fans who had believed the character had died at the end of “Scream 4.” The film became one of the franchise’s most successful entries at the box office, and Panettiere’s unexpected return generated significant promotional buzz and fan excitement ahead of its release. Her reappearance was widely covered by entertainment outlets as one of the film’s key selling points, making “Scream VI” one of the most prominent and recent film credits of her career.

Beyond these five films, Panettiere’s broader filmography included a range of other notable credits that also found audiences over the years, including Disney’s animated feature “Dinosaur,” the family comedy “Racing Stripes,” the teen romantic comedy “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” and the television movie “Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy,” in which she portrayed the American college student wrongfully convicted, and later acquitted, in the 2007 murder of her roommate in Italy.

Panettiere’s film career often ran in parallel with her more widely recognized television work, including her breakout role as Claire Bennet, an indestructible cheerleader, on NBC’s “Heroes,” which aired from 2006 to 2010, and her later role as country singer Juliette Barnes on the ABC and CMT drama “Nashville,” which earned her two Golden Globe nominations during its six-season run from 2012 to 2018.

Panettiere began her acting career as an infant, appearing in television commercials before she was 1 year old, and had her first television role on the soap opera “One Life to Live” around age 4. That early start placed her among the most experienced child performers of her generation by the time most of her peers had barely begun their acting careers, laying the foundation for the multi-decade career that followed across both film and television.

Panettiere’s death was confirmed Sunday by her representative in a statement provided to media outlets, in which her father, Skip Panettiere, described his daughter as “an incredible light and a force of nature” to everyone who knew her and to the audiences who had followed her work for nearly three decades. Authorities in Greenville, South Carolina, where Panettiere was found unresponsive at an apartment complex, have said their preliminary investigation found no signs of foul play, though a specific cause of death has not yet been publicly released pending further examination.

As tributes and retrospectives continue to circulate following her death, Panettiere’s film work, spanning family animation, sports drama, teen comedy and horror, has drawn renewed attention from fans and critics alike, reflecting a career defined by range and longevity across genres that began before she had even started elementary school and continued through her final theatrical release in 2023.