Lindsay Lohan (birthname:
Lindsay Dee Lohan) has had one of the most mercurial show business careers in the 21
st century, rising to major movie stardom, then hobbled by many issues (including arrest for grand theft, as well as addiction and psychiatric rehab), and then returning to starring roles on the big screen in the mid-2020s. Lohan’s film debut was the lead role in Disney’s remake of director/co-writer Nancy Meyers’s
The Parent Trap (1998), with
Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson, grossing $92 million globally on a $15 million budget.
Lohan returned to Disney for the hit fantasy comedy,
Freaky Friday (2003), co-starring
Jamie Lee Curtis, with Harold Gould, Chad Michael Murray, and Mark Harmon, and which delivered a strong $160.8 million return against $26 million costs. Lohan solidified her position as a big teenage movie star in her third consecutive starring role in a Disney movie,
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), with Adam Garcia, Glenne Headly, Alison Pill and Carol Kane under Sara Sugarman’s direction, written by Gail Parent adapting Dyan Sheldon’s 1999 novel, and released by Buena Vista Pictures to a mediocre $33 million return.
Lindsay Lohan’s biggest success as a star happened with actor/writer
Tina Fey’s high school comedy,
Mean Girls (2004), co-starring
Rachel McAdams, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and
Amy Poehler under Mark Waters’s direction, and delivering a dazzling $130.5 million gross for Paramount Pictures on an $18 million budget. Lohan returned to Disney in the starring role for a reboot of another of the studio’s franchises—the Herbie series—
Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), with
Justin Long, Breckin Meyer,
Matt Dillon, and
Michael Keaton, and earning $144 million on a $50 million budget.
Lohan took on a much more serious and prestigious assignment by joining the distinguished ensemble of the highly acclaimed final film by a legendary American filmmaker, Robert Altman’s superb screen version of Garrison Keillor’s
A Prairie Home Companion (2006), co-starring
Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Virgina Madsen,
John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, premiering at the Berlin Film Festival and grossing a fine $26 million for distributors New Line Cinema/Capitol Films. Lohan co-starred with
Chris Pine in the rom-com directed and produced by Donald Petrie,
Just My Luck (2006), also produced by Arnon Milchan and Arnold Rifkin, and lost money for distributor 20
th Century Fox with a $38 million gross against $28 million.
Lindsay Lohan joined one of her few ensemble casts for director/writer/actor Emilio Estevez’s drama about the final day of Bobby Kennedy’s life in
Bobby (2006), with Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon,
Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson,
Anthony Hopkins,
Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, William H. Macy,
Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater,
Sharon Stone, Heather Graham, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Elijah Wood, launching at the Toronto Film Festival before a poor release ($20.7 million gross) for distributor MGM and producers The Weinstein Company/Bold Films.
Lohan took on one of her first supporting roles in another dramatization of an assassinated celebrity’s final moments in debuting director/writer Jarrett Schaefer’s account of Mark David Chapman’s killing of John Lennon,
Chapter 27 (2007), starring Jared Leto (as Chapman), Judah Friedlander and Mark Lindsay Chapman (as Lennon), premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, and released to very little business by distributor Peace Arch Entertainment.
Lohan co-starred with
Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman in the black comedy directed by Garry Marshall,
Georgia Rule (2007), with Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes, Garrett Hedlund, Laurie Metcalf, and Hector Elizondo, but ended up being a box-office failure for Universal Pictures with a $25 million gross against $20 million costs. Lohan starred in the widely criticized serial killer drama,
I Know Who Killed Me (2007), co-starring Julia Ormond,
Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty, Garcelle Beauvais, and Gregory Itzin, and bombing at the box office ($9.7 million gross) for Sony Pictures Releasing/TriStar Pictures.
Lindsay Lohan joined co-director/co-writer/producer/co-editor
Robert Rodriguez’s wild action movie,
Machete (2010), alongside Danny Trejo, Steven Seagal,
Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba,
Robert De Niro, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, and Don Johnson, grossing a fine $45.5 million on a $10.5 million budget. Lohan made an unusual and very striking return to the big screen (after her tumultuous and highly publicized life crisis) in the lead role of director
Paul Schrader’s and writer Bret Easton Ellis’s erotic drama,
The Canyons (2013), a crowdfunded indie movie made for $250,000, released by IFC Films and receiving some of the most critically divided opinions in recent American cinema—including some of the best reviews of Lohan’s career.
Lohan returned to a starring big-screen role--after a twelve-year absence--alongside returning co-star Jamie Lee Curtis in the Disney-produced and released sequel,
Freakier Friday (2025), with Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, and Mark Harmon under
Nisha Ganatra’s direction.