Jenna Ortega has become one of the defining horror faces of her generation in about five years. She survived Ghostface twice, outlasted a farmhouse full of trouble in Ti West’s X, and turned Wednesday Addams into one of Netflix’s biggest hits. Below we cover every major Jenna Ortega horror movie and role, with honest scare ratings, where to watch, and what is next for her.
Jenna Ortega at a glance: the key facts
Before the picks, here is the quick version of why her name keeps coming up in horror circles.
- Born: September 27, 2002, in California’s Coachella Valley
- Breakout horror year: 2022, with Scream in January, X in March, American Carnage in July and Wednesday in November
- Biggest hit: Wednesday season 1 logged around 341 million viewing hours on Netflix in its first full week, a record for an English-language series at the time
- Awards attention: Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Wednesday, the Emmy nod in the Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category
- Box office: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) passed roughly $450 million worldwide, the biggest theatrical earner of her career
- Tim Burton collaborations: two so far, Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
That run makes her a rare case. Most actors get one genre hit that defines them. Ortega landed in three separate horror franchises inside a single calendar year.
Latest in Jenna Ortega news
Here is where things stand as of our most recent update. We grade every source, and everything in this section is officially confirmed unless we say otherwise.
Wednesday season 2 is out, and season 3 is confirmed. Netflix released season 2 in two parts, on August 6 and September 3, 2025. Ortega also took on a producer credit this time around. Netflix announced a third season before season 2 even premiered, which tells you how much confidence the streamer has in the show.
She is not in Scream 7. Ortega exited the franchise in 2023. Reporting at the time from trade outlets pointed to scheduling clashes with Wednesday, and Ortega later said in interviews that the timing simply did not work. The exit came shortly after Melissa Barrera, who played her on-screen sister Sam, was dropped by Spyglass. Kevin Williamson, who wrote the 1996 original, directed Scream 7 (2026), which recentres the story on Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott.
Two 2025 releases landed back to back. A24’s horror comedy Death of a Unicorn opened in March 2025, and the psychological drama Hurry Up Tomorrow, co-starring Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), followed in May. The first got a fun, bloody reception. The second got a rough one from critics.
What is next: beyond Wednesday season 3, she is attached to Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun opposite Amy Adams. It is not horror, but it signals where her career is heading: bigger directors, more range, fewer high school roles.
How she got here: the background
Ortega started young. She had a blink-and-miss-it part in Iron Man 3 (2013), most of which ended up on the cutting room floor. The same year she had a small role in James Wan’s Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), her first brush with studio horror.
TV paid the bills for most of her teens. She played young Jane on Jane the Virgin (2014 to 2019) and led the Disney Channel sitcom Stuck in the Middle (2016 to 2018) as Harley Diaz. She also voiced Princess Isabel on Elena of Avalor.
The pivot came in 2019 with Netflix’s You. Then came a Netflix horror sequel, a run of 2022 genre films and a role that changed everything. We think the shift worked because she never played horror like a teen-star side project. She plays fear as something physical and exhausting, and audiences noticed.
Every major Jenna Ortega horror role compared
This table covers the nine roles we recommend. Scare levels are our own ratings, out of 5. Streaming homes rotate by region and by month, so check before you plan a movie night.
| Title | Year | Subgenre | Scare level | Where to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| You (season 2) | 2019 | Psychological thriller | 2/5 | Netflix |
| The Babysitter: Killer Queen | 2020 | Horror comedy | 2/5 | Netflix |
| Scream | 2022 | Slasher | 3/5 | Paramount+ or digital |
| X | 2022 | Slasher | 4/5 | Digital rental |
| American Carnage | 2022 | Satirical horror | 2/5 | Digital rental |
| Wednesday | 2022 to present | Gothic mystery | 2/5 | Netflix |
| Scream VI | 2023 | Slasher | 3/5 | Paramount+ or digital |
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | 2024 | Horror comedy | 1/5 | Max or digital |
| Death of a Unicorn | 2025 | Creature comedy | 2/5 | Digital rental |
Everything below stays spoiler-free until the clearly marked Tara section near the end.
You, season 2 (2019)
Ortega plays Ellie Alves, a sharp, mouthy teenager living in Los Angeles with her older sister Delilah. Her neighbour is Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), who has moved west and is, as ever, not as harmless as his bookshop smile suggests. Ellie is the one character who seems to see through people, which makes every scene she shares with Joe tense.
It is not horror in the strict sense, more a stalker story that leans into dread. It suits anyone who likes a psychological thriller with a body count but no monsters. This is also the role that made casting directors realise she could carry darker material.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)
McG’s Netflix sequel picks up two years after The Babysitter (2017). Cole (Judah Lewis) is still traumatised, nobody believes his story, and a lake weekend goes badly. Ortega plays Phoebe, the new girl at school with secrets of her own.
The film is loud, gory and deliberately silly, with blood spraying like a garden hose. That makes it a good first horror pick for teens who can handle splatter but not real dread. Ortega is the most grounded thing in it, and her chemistry with Lewis gives the chaos a heart.
Scream (2022)
Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) took over from the late Wes Craven for this fifth entry, set 25 years after the first film. Ortega plays Tara Carpenter, a Woodsboro teenager who gets the phone call. Anyone who remembers Drew Barrymore in the 1996 original knows that the opening slot is the most famous in the series.
Ortega’s opening sequence is the best thing in the film. She plays it like a panic attack in real time, which is harder than it looks. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette return, but the movie belongs to the new Carpenter sisters. It earned around $140 million worldwide on a modest budget, enough to greenlight a sequel within weeks.
It suits slasher fans who enjoy meta jokes about “requels” and legacy sequels. It works without having seen the older films, although you will catch more references if you have. The franchise’s lineage of final girls runs straight back to the Jamie Lee Curtis horror movies that built the template.
If you liked this
Scream (1996): Wes Craven’s original sets up every rule this film plays with.
Ready or Not (2019): Radio Silence’s earlier film has the same blend of laughs and blood.
Halloween (2018): another legacy sequel that brings back its original final girl.
X (2022)
This is the scariest film on the list and, for our money, her best horror performance. Ti West’s A24 slasher follows a small crew who travel to rural Texas in 1979 to shoot an adult film on an elderly couple’s farm. Ortega plays Lorraine, the shy boom operator and girlfriend of the crew’s ambitious young director.
The cast is stacked. Mia Goth plays the lead and, under heavy prosthetics, a second role. Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) and Martin Henderson round out the crew. Ortega’s Lorraine starts as the quiet, slightly judgmental outsider and shifts in ways that are fun to watch. Her scenes in the farmhouse’s final stretch are pure panic.
X is a loving riff on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the film loosely inspired by the real story of Ed Gein. West takes his time. The first half is slow, sweaty tension. The second half is brutal. This is strictly for adult viewers who can handle sexual themes and graphic violence, though the horror never feels cheap. If X hooks you, the Mia Goth horror movies that followed it, Pearl (2022) and MaXXXine (2024), complete the trilogy (Ortega does not appear in either).
If you liked this
Pearl (2022): Ti West’s prequel, shot back to back with X.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): the grimy original that X is in conversation with.
The House of the Devil (2009): Ti West’s earlier slow-burn, also obsessed with period detail.
American Carnage (2022)
Diego Hallivis directed this horror satire, which slipped out quietly in 2022. After a governor orders the arrest of children of undocumented immigrants, a group of young people are offered a deal: work at an elder care facility and the charges disappear. Ortega plays Camila, and Eric Dane plays the facility’s suspiciously cheerful administrator.
It is uneven, and the jokes do not always land. We still think it is worth a watch for its political anger and for seeing Ortega in a scrappier, lower-budget film. It suits viewers who liked the social horror of Get Out (2017) but want something lighter.
Wednesday (2022 to present)
This is the role that made Jenna Ortega a household name. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar for Netflix, the series sends Wednesday Addams to Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for outcasts, where a monster is killing people in the woods. Tim Burton directed four episodes of season 1 and returned behind the camera for season 2.
Ortega’s Wednesday is deadpan, never blinks and treats friendship like a hostile takeover. She learned the cello, kept her face almost perfectly still and choreographed the now-famous dance scene herself. The dance, set to The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck”, went viral on TikTok with a sped-up Lady Gaga track. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán play Morticia and Gomez. In a lovely nod, Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1991 and 1993 films, joins the cast in season 1.
Season 2 adds Steve Buscemi as Nevermore’s new principal and a Lady Gaga guest appearance. The show is more mystery than horror, with creature attacks and occasional gore but very few genuine scares. It is the safest pick here for younger viewers who want something spooky, and a gateway into the gothic side of the genre.
If you liked this
The Addams Family (1991): Barry Sonnenfeld’s film, with Christina Ricci’s iconic Wednesday.
Coraline (2009): Henry Selick’s stop-motion film has the same creepy-cosy energy.
Sleepy Hollow (1999): peak Tim Burton gothic, with more bite than Wednesday.
Scream VI (2023)
Radio Silence moved the franchise to New York City, and the change of scenery gives this one real energy. Ortega’s Tara is in college now, trying hard to be a normal student while Sam (Melissa Barrera) hovers over her like a bodyguard. The sisters’ relationship is the emotional spine of the film.
Two set pieces carry it: a tense sequence inside a bodega and a crowded subway ride on Halloween night. Hayden Panettiere returns as Kirby from Scream 4 (2011), and Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers gets a standout scene. Neve Campbell sits this one out. The film made around $169 million worldwide, the best gross in franchise history at the time.
We rate it slightly scarier than the 2022 film. Ghostface is noticeably more brutal here. It suits anyone who enjoyed the previous entry and wants the same thing with bigger stunts.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Tim Burton’s sequel arrived 36 years after the 1988 original. Michael Keaton is back as the ghost with the most, alongside Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz and Catherine O’Hara as Delia. Ortega plays Astrid, Lydia’s sceptical teenage daughter, who wants nothing to do with ghosts until she has no choice.
It opened the 2024 Venice Film Festival and went on to become one of the year’s surprise hits. The scares are close to zero, and the tone is pure Burton: handmade effects, afterlife bureaucracy and a soundtrack gag you will not forget. Ortega plays straight to everyone else’s madness, which is exactly what the film needs. It is a good first horror-adjacent film for kids around 10 and up, depending on how they handle the odd grotesque moment.
Death of a Unicorn (2025)
Alex Scharfman’s feature debut, from A24, pairs Ortega with Paul Rudd as father and daughter. Elliot and Ridley are on their way to a weekend at his billionaire boss’s mountain estate when they hit a unicorn with their car. The rich family, played by Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni and Will Poulter, immediately start thinking about what a dead unicorn could be worth.
It is an eat-the-rich creature feature, and the unicorns are far nastier than you would expect. Ortega gets to be the moral centre, which she plays with conviction. It is not as sharp as the satire it is aiming for, but it is a gory, entertaining Friday night film. It suits viewers who liked Ready or Not (2019) or The Menu (2022).
Beyond horror: the roles that sharpened her
A few Jenna Ortega movie picks are not horror, but they explain her range and are worth knowing about.
- The Fallout (2021): Megan Park’s drama about a teenager in the weeks after a school shooting. It earned her some of the best reviews of her career and shows her dramatic chops.
- Finestkind (2023): Brian Helgeland’s Paramount+ crime drama, with Ben Foster and Toby Wallace.
- Miller’s Girl (2024): a provocative thriller opposite Martin Freeman, which divided critics.
- Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025): Trey Edward Shults directed this psychological drama built around The Weeknd’s album of the same name. Ortega plays a mysterious fan. Shults made the great It Comes at Night (2017), but this one did not connect with critics.
There is also a quick cameo in the Foo Fighters horror comedy Studio 666 (2022), which we mention for completists only.
What her horror run means for the genre
Horror has always made stars, and Ortega follows a clear line. Jamie Lee Curtis became a star with Halloween (1978). Neve Campbell owned the late 1990s with Scream. Ortega became the face of 2020s horror with a mix of slasher, prestige A24 and family-friendly gothic that nobody before her quite managed.
What stands out to us is her choices. She went from a studio slasher to an R-rated A24 film within two months of each other. Then she took Wednesday, a role that could have been a cute Halloween costume, and made it strange and specific. Even her exit from Scream reads like an actor protecting the project she cares about most.
Her success has also proven that young audiences want horror. Wednesday brought a huge teenage audience to gothic storytelling, and the dance trend kept it there for months. Many of those viewers will move on to X and Scream when they are old enough.
Where to start for your mood
If you have only one night, this is how we would choose.
- First horror film, low tolerance for scares: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Silly, spooky, no nightmares.
- Family night with older kids: Wednesday, starting at season 1 episode 1.
- Classic slasher thrills with friends: Scream (2022), followed by Scream VI for a double bill.
- The real deal, lights off, adults only: X. Her scariest film and her best horror work.
- Something gory but goofy: The Babysitter: Killer Queen or Death of a Unicorn.
Tara Carpenter’s Scream arc, explained
Spoiler warning
This section spoils the endings and killer reveals of Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023).
Tara survives both films. In Scream (2022), she lives through the opening attack, spends most of the film in hospital and ends up in the final showdown at the Riley house. The killers turn out to be Sam’s boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) and Tara’s friend Amber (Mikey Madison). Sam kills Richie, and Tara gets a key shot in during the finale.
In Scream VI, the killers are a family: Detective Wayne Bailey (Dermot Mulroney) and his children Quinn (Liana Liberato) and Ethan (Jack Champion), out for revenge for Richie’s death. Tara is badly stabbed but makes it through. The film ends with Tara, Sam, Chad and Mindy walking away from the wreckage together, a hopeful ending that left the door open for a third film.
That film never came for Tara. With Ortega and Barrera both gone, Scream 7 turns its focus back to Sidney Prescott and her family. As of now, the Carpenter sisters’ story ends on that New York street, and honestly, it is not a bad place to leave them.
FAQ
What is Jenna Ortega’s scariest horror movie?
X (2022), directed by Ti West. It is the only film on her list we rate 4/5 for scares, with graphic violence and a slow-building, oppressive atmosphere. It is strictly for adults.
Is Jenna Ortega in Scream 7?
No. She left the franchise in 2023, with reporting at the time pointing to scheduling conflicts with Wednesday. Scream 7 (2026), directed by Kevin Williamson, goes ahead without her character Tara.
Which Jenna Ortega movie is best for kids?
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) is the gentlest, with almost no real scares. Wednesday works for older kids and teens, though it has some gore and creature attacks.
How many Tim Burton projects has Jenna Ortega done?
Two so far: the Netflix series Wednesday (2022 to present) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024). Burton directed episodes of both Wednesday seasons.
Is Wednesday season 3 happening?
Yes. Netflix officially renewed Wednesday for a third season in 2025, before season 2 premiered. Ortega is expected to return in the title role and as a producer.
Was Jenna Ortega in Insidious?
Yes, in a small part in James Wan’s Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), years before her breakout. It is a minor role, so watch it for the film itself rather than for her.