Abigail Kathleen Breslin (born April 14, 1996) is an American actress and singer. Born and raised in New York City, she began acting in commercials when she was three years old and made her film debut at age 5 in M. Night Shyamalan’s science fiction horror film Signs (2002), with Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rory Culkin; for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award. Other early roles include Garry Marshall’s Raising Helen (2004), with Kate Hudson, John Corbett, Joan Cusack, Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin (her real life brother), and Helen Mirren; The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), with Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews; and Keane (2004), with Damien Lewis and Amy Ryan.
Breslin garnered critical acclaim for her performance as Olive Hoover in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s road comedy-drama Little Miss Sunshine (2006), with Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, and Alan Arkin; for which she earned nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
Other films in the mid to late 2000s include The Ultimate Gift (2006), with Drew Fuller, Ali Hillis, Bill Cobbs, Brian Dennehy, and James Garner; No Reservations (2007), with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Patricia Clarkson, Bob Balaban, Jenny Wade, Brían F. O’Byrne, Lily Rabe, and Zoë Kravitz – for which she was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award; Definitely, Maybe (2008), with Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, and Kevin Kline; Nim’s Island (2008), with Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler; Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), with Julia Ormond, Chris O’Donnell, Glenne Headly, Jane Krakowski, Wallace Shawn, Cusack, and Stanley Tucci; Nick Cassavetes’s My Sister’s Keeper (2009), with Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason Patric, and Alec Baldwin; and Reuben Fleischer’s Zombieland (2009), with Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and a cameo from Bill Murray.
Films in the early 2010s include Janie Jones (2010), with Alessandro Nivola, Elisabeth Shue, Brittany Snow, and Peter Stormare; New Year’s Eve (2011), with Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Héctor Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Meyers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Paulson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Jake T. Austin, Hilary Swank, and Sofía Vergara; The Call (2013), with Halle Berry, Morris Chestnut, Michael Eklund, Michael Imperioli, and David Otunga; August: Osage County (2013), with Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, and Julianne Nicholson – for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award; Ender’s Game (2013), with Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Ben Kingsley; Wicked Blood (2014), with Alexa PenaVega, Sean Bean, Lew Temple, Jake Busey, and James Purefoy; and Perfect Sisters (2014), with Georgie Henley, James Russo, and Mira Sorvino.
Between 2015 and 2016, she starred on the horror-comedy Scream Queens on Fox, her first regular role in a television series. The series featured Emma Roberts, Skyler Samuels, Michele, Glen Powell, Diego Boneta, Keke Palmer, Ariana Grande, Oliver Hudson, Nasim Pedrad, Lucien Laviscount, Billie Lourd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Niecy Nash, Kirstie Alley, Taylor Lautner, James Earl, and John Stamos.
Films in the mid to late 2010s include Maggie (2015), with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joely Richardson; Final Girl (2015), with Alexander Ludwig, Wes Bentley, Cameron Bright, and Francesca Eastwood; Fear, Inc. (2016), with Lucas Neff, Caitlin Stasey, Chris Marquette, Stephanie Drake, Eric Lange, Mark Moses, and Leslie Jordan; Freak Show (2017), with Alex Lawther, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Nelson, Celia Weston, Laverne Cox, and Bette Midler; and Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), with the original cast plus Rosario Dawson, Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia, Luke Wilson, and Thomas Middleditch.
Films in the 2020s include Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater (2021), with Matt Damon and Camille Cottin; Slayers (2022), with Thomas Jane, Kara Hayward, Jack Donnelly, Lydia Hearst, and Malin Akerman; Miranda’s Victims (2023), with Wilson, Kyle MacLachlan, Ryan Phillippe, Mireille Enos, Emily VanCamp, Andy Garcia, and Donald Sutherland.
Breslin has also done voice work in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2010), with Chris Pine, Amanda Peet, Samuel L. Jackson, Hayden Christensen, James Earl Jones, Sandra Oh, William Shatner, Mark Hamill, Doug Jones, Spencer Breslin, Robert Picardo, and Brent Spiner; Gore Verbinski’s Rango (2011), with Johnny Depp, Fisher, Bill Nighy, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant, Stephen Root, and Ned Beatty; Zambezia (2012), with Jeremy Suarez, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, Jackson, Jim Cummings, Richard E. Grant, Jenifer Lewis, Jamal Mixon, and David Shaughnessy; and Yamasong: March of the Hollows (2017), with Nathan Fillion, Whoopi Goldberg, Freida Pinto, Peter Weller, Malcolm McDowell, George Takei, Ed Asner, and Bruce Davidson.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Signs (2002) – directed by M. Night Shyamalan
- Raising Helen (2004) – directed by Garry Marshall
- The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) – directed by Garry Marshall
- Keane (2004) – directed by Lodge Kerrigan
- Chestnut: Hero of Central Park (2004) – directed by Robert Vince
- Family Plan (2005) – directed by David S. Cass Sr. – TV movie
- Little Miss Sunshine (2006)* – directed by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
- The Ultimate Gift (2006) – directed by Michael O. Sajbel
- The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) – directed by Michael Lembeck
- Air Buddies (2006) – directed by Robert Vince – straight to video
- No Reservations (2007) – directed by Scott Hicks
- Definitely, Maybe (2008)* – directed by Adam Brooks
- Nim’s Island (2008)* – directed by Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin
- Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) – directed by Patricia Rozema
- My Sister’s Keeper (2009) – directed by Nick Cassavetes
- Zombieland (2009)* – directed by Ruben Fleischer
- Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2010) – directed by Harry Kloor & Dan St. Pierre
- Janie Jones (2010) – directed by David M. Rosenthal
- Rango (2011)* – directed by Gore Verbinski
- New Year’s Eve (2011) – directed by Garry Marshall
- Zambezia (2012) – directed by Wayne Thornley
- Haunter (2013) – directed by Vincenzo Natali
- The Call (2013) – directed by Brad Anderson
- The Screen Test (2013) – directed by James Cooper – short
- August: Osage County (2013) – directed by John Wells
- Ender’s Game (2013) – directed by Gavin Hood
- Wicked Blood (2014) – directed by Mark Young – straight to video
- Perfect Sisters (2014) – directed by Stanley M. Brooks
- Maggie (2015) – directed by Henry Hobson
- Final Girl (2015) – directed by Tyler Shields
- Fear, Inc. (2016) – directed by Vincent Masciale
- Freak Show (2017) – directed by Trudie Styler
- Dirty Dancing (2017) – directed by Wayne Blair – TV movie
- Yamasong: March of the Hollows (2017) – directed by Sam Koji Hale
- Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)* – directed by Ruben Fleischer
- Stillwater (2021) – directed by Tom McCarthy
- Slayers (2022) – directed by K. Asher Levin – also producer
- Miranda’s Victim (2023) – directed by Michelle Danner
- Magda (2023) – directed by Kasia Pilewicz & John Eric Steiner – short
- Classified (202-) – directed by Roel Reiné
- Saturday at the Starlight (202-) – directed by Phillip Clark Davis
- Canyon of the Dead (202-) – directed by Coerte Voorhees
- The Italians (202-) – directed by Michelle Danner
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