From The Faculty to Trap, Josh Hartnett's Essential Movies & TV Shows

With Hartnett, there’s only one place to start. The Minnesota-born star was only a year in Hollywood, and only 19-years-old, when he landed his first movie role playing the son of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode in Halloween H20. This was the seventh instalment in the series but only Curtis’s first since 1991’s Halloween 2. Positioned as a direct sequel to that one, it finds Strode living under a new name in order to get away from Michael Myers — although naturally, it doesn’t take the killer long to show up... 

Coming a year after Wes Craven reinvented the slasher with Scream, you can see plenty of that film’s influences on the slick look and feel of H20. If you’re a fan of that classic and like the idea of seeing a fresh-faced Hartnett, you might really like it.  

Rory O'Connor

The same year Josh Hartnett made his screen debut in Halloween H20, he also starred in The Faculty. Whereas Halloween H20 was a critical disaster, The Faculty was a very different story.

Set in Herrington High School, the film is a teenage riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Breakfast Club as a group of teens from different cliques join together when their classmates and teachers are infected by an alien species. The young cast was one of the best of the teen horror era, with Hartnett starring alongside Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Shawn Hatosy, and Clea DuVall.

Kat Hughes

Based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides follows the tragic story of the Lisbon sisters as told through the eyes of Hartnett’s Trip Fontaine and his brothers. The feature debut of director Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a haunting and melancholic, '70s-set story of teen angst, first dates, and a series of mysterious deaths.

Far from a cheery ‘teen’ movie, The Virgin Suicides features mesmerising performances, especially from Kirsten Dunst as Lux Lisbon, and a beautiful score provided by French musicians, Air. 

Kat Hughes

In 2001, Ridley Scott made the war movie Black Hawk Down. Inspired by the non-fiction book by journalist Mark Bowden, the film chronicles a Black Hawk helicopter being shot down during the 1992 Battle of Mogadishu. Black Hawk Down is also famous for featuring almost every male actor working at the time.

That all-star cast includes Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Hardy, Jason Isaacs, and Orlando Bloom, but the list goes on and on. At the head of the ensemble piece is Josh Hartnett, who plays Staff Sergeant Matt Eversmann, the emotional crutch of the movie. 

Kat Hughes

In 2002, Hartnett started to take the foot off the gas, but not before cranking out at least one pretty decent rom-com. Looking back, 40 Days and 40 Nights is the kind of movie that he maybe could’ve given us a few more of.

The deliciously ridiculous (just look at that poster) premise sees Hartnett play a heartbroken web designer who decides to give up sex for Lent. You can probably guess what happens next — which (similar to other rom-com setups from that era, like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) is exactly why it’s so enjoyable.

Rory O'Connor

Having previously worked with director Robert Rodriguez on The Faculty, Josh Hartnett reunited with the filmmaker on Sin City.

An adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel series. Sin City tells an interconnected series of stories that unfold in the fictional setting of the same name. Rodriguez’s film is perhaps best known for its visual style, presented in monochrome with the occasional pop of colours bringing things to life.

Although not part of the main story, Hartnett’s ‘The Salesman’ character bookends the movie in an adaptation of Miller’s ‘The Customer is Always Right’ story. 

Kat Hughes

Seeing as we had to pick at least one title from the actor’s fallow years, 2015’s Wild Horses feels like the right choice. This was, like many other movies from that period, a straight-to-VOD release that boasts a meagre 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

It’s also an appropriate film to represent this in-between time as, I’m happy to admit, I’ve never seen it, nor do I think most people reading this have or will. Did the actor take on the role (as I’m sure his co-star James Franco did, too) for a chance to work with the great Robert Duvall? There are worse reasons to do a movie. 

Rory O'Connor

It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment when Josh Hartnett decided to dip his toe back into the limelight of mainstream movies, but Guy Ritchie’s Wrath of Man looks the most likely. This slick and entertaining blend of heist and revenge movie genre tropes stars Jason Statham as a cash truck security guard with Hartnett as his colleague, Boy Sweat. 

Hartnett would star alongside Statham once again in Ritchie’s 2023 movie, Operation Fortune, confirming his return to movie stardom.

Rory O'Connor

Lucky Number Slevin is a twisty crime action comedy in which Josh Harnett’s Slevin finds himself mixed up with all kinds of crazy characters. A simple case of mistaken identity places Slevin in the middle of a turf war between New York crime kingpins, the Rabbi and the Boss. Ben Kingsley stars as the Rabbi, and Morgan Freeman plays the Boss.

If that wasn’t enough prestige acting companions, Bruce Willis is also present; the trio adding gravitas to this slightly wacky, neo-noir crime thriller. 

Kat Hughes

Although Hartnett made his name acting in horror and sci-fi movies, it was almost ten years before the actor stepped back into genre territory.

The movie he did that for was 30 Days of Night. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, the horror film has one heck of a premise: Set in an isolated Alaskan town that experiences a full 30 days without sunlight every winter, 30 Days of Night places the small community under attack from an ancient fleet of vampires.

With sunlight being especially harmful to vampires, descending onto the town makes perfect sense for them. Hartnett is present as town Sheriff Eben Oleson, who must save both his town and marriage from being destroyed forever.