5 Essential Rachel Sennott Movies & TV Shows You Need To Watch

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Rachel Sennott is the funniest young woman working in Hollywood right now. (And I don't just say that out of Irish Catholic Connecticuter solidarity.) Sennott has the "sardonic Zillennial girl" market cornered, but she's just as capable of loud, ridiculous, hyperactive comedy as she is at Daria-esque, bitter observational snark. No matter what comedy set Sennott is performing, she's hilarious.

First breaking out as a stand-up and Twitter comedian, Sennott has used her fame to build an acting career, from web series to television to movies. Some of her more high-profile projects, such as the short-lived HBO series "The Idol" and the 2024 film "Saturday Night," use her only as a supporting player. But the most memorable films she's appeared in typically have her in a leading part; that's not a coincidence. I curse that the 2023 live script reading of "Jennifer's Body" (starring Sennott as Jennifer and Ella Purnell as Needy) wasn't streamed for the public. Sennott is also currently developing a comedy TV series, starring herself, for HBO, but no word on when that is coming out yet.

In the meantime, what Rachel Sennott films and TV shows can (and should) you watch to get the best taste of what she has to offer the movies? Allow me to be your guide.

Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri attended New York University at the same time, and walked away as friends and frequent creative partners. (With all the cameos on Edebiri's series "The Bear," I'm surprised Sennott hasn't popped up yet.)

An early showcase for the both of them was the Comedy Central web series, "Ayo and Rachel Are Single." The two are, as you can tell from the title, playing themselves in stories inspired by their dating lives in New York City (with a bit of exaggeration, I presume). Sennott is the comic and Edebiri plays the straight woman, but both of them have a handle on the show's rapid-fire, slightly absurd dialogue.

There are only three episodes that run five minutes each, but they can all be watched for free on the Comedy Central YouTube channel: "How Bad Can A Double Date Get?," "If All the S**tty Guys on Dating Apps Were at One Party," and "The Dating Trends That Put Ghosting to Shame."

The opening of that last one is my favorite scene in the series: Rachel has arrived at a restaurant for a date, but he's not texting back. Then her phone recommends her an online listicle: "Are You Being Ghosted, Girlie?" Reading through it, she looks straight in the camera with a horrible realization: "Oh. My. God. I'm Girlie!" (Each word comes with a jump cut, a closer-and-closer close-up, and the frame's angles going off-kilter.) 

You'll likely wind up watching all of "Ayo and Rachel are Single" in one sitting (not just because the episodes are bite-sized), and walk away wanting the show remade as a full-blown half-hour comedy series.

Sennott is a friend and go-to collaborator of director Emma Seligman; their stars have risen together. Like how Sennott met Edebiri, she attended NYU at the same time as Seligman and met when Sennott auditioned for and won the lead role in Seligman's thesis film "Shiva Baby." When Seligman expanded that into a feature, she brought back Sennott to once again play main character Danielle.

An aimless college senior, Danielle has to attend a family shiva with her parents (Polly Draper and Fred Melamed). At the shiva, she runs into both her ex Maya (Molly Gordon) and her sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari) — who is there with his wife Kim (Dianna Agron) and their new baby. Seligman, a queer Jewish woman, seems to put a lot of herself in Danielle. Sennott still slots into the character perfectly, even if she "grew up... eating baked ziti and meatballs at wakes rather than rugelach at shivas" (via Refinery29).

There's comedy in "Shiva Baby," but it's more cringe than laugh-out-loud. Danielle is standoffish; the whole movie is an exercise in showing how uncomfortable family gatherings, or just any party you don't want to be at, can be a horror story. "Shiva Baby" is one of those movies that is great because it's stress-inducing, a la "Dog Day Afternoon" or "Uncut Gems." Danielle's anxiety (and ultimately the audience's) comes through loudest in some extreme close-ups, scored with music that'll have you thinking you're watching "Hereditary." 

"Shiva Baby" can feel like an extended second act of a longer story we'll never see (its short film origins coming through), but Sennott gives you every bit of context and empathy you need to understand Danielle.

I don't love "Bodies Bodies Bodies" (directed by Halina Reijn), but I adore Rachel Sennott's performance in it.

The wealthy Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and her working-class girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) travel to a mansion to meet up with Sophie's similarly rich friends. One of them, David (Pete Davidson), winds up dead, making them all think a murderer is hiding among them. But scratch the murder mystery and you'll find a simple black comedy about how Hell is other (Gen Z) people.

Sennott stars as Alice, a podcaster with a big mouth and older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace). She may barely know his name, but she does know that he's a Libra moon. ("That means a lot!") Though "Bodies Bodies Bodies" rests a lot on Sennott's talent at comedy, it's still a bit against type for her. She typically plays smart and angsty characters (see: Danielle), while Alice is a complete airhead idiot. She is able to deliver a death blow to Jordan (Myha'la), though: "Your parents are upper. Middle. Class." 

Speaking to /Film back in 2022, Sennott said that unlike Danielle (who keeps her anxiety bottled up), Alice is an anxious extrovert. "I think Alice is anxious, but she projects her anxiety outward and definitely makes other people feel anxious," Sennott explained. Introverted or extroverted, Sennott is still so funny.

Sennott, Edebiri, and Seligman brought their talents together for their greatest work yet in 2023: "Bottoms." A passion project for Sennott and Seligman, "Bottoms" is a raunchy high school comedy, yet as bloody as "Heathers" and way more queer.

Sennott and Edebiri star as two best friends, PJ and Josie, respectively. They're the spitting image of loser protagonists in typical high school comedies: they're unpopular (not for being gay, but for being "ugly and untalented") and obsessed with losing their virginities to cheerleaders. But instead of cishet white guys like in "American Pie," they're lesbians, and "Bottoms" doesn't sanitize any of its queer representation.

PJ and Josie hatch a scheme to finally hook up with their crushes, Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), by starting a club after school. What's the club about? Women's self-defense; in practice, it's basically a fight club, one where the girls of Rockbridge Falls High School can let out their rage both by opening up to and punching each other. Since the loser virgins of "Bottoms" are women just like their crushes, they're able to cloak their quest to get laid in feminist empowerment.

While Sennott and Edebiri are the comedy stars of "Bottoms," each character in the ensemble gets at least one moment to be funny. Former Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch makes a pivot to acting as the fight club's faculty supervisor, Mr. G. He's hardly John Keating (Robin Williams) from "Dead Poets Society," but also not as oblivious as PJ and Josie peg him as. The other scene stealer is the peppy punk Hazel (Ruby Cruz), who has a crush on the oblivious PJ. Even Brittany and Isabel stand out as deeper than just "mean cheerleaders," and while the script could easily make them clones of each other, it digs deeper into their characters.

Sennott wasn't just the first-billed star of "Bottoms," she also co-wrote the screenplay with Seligman. The script, and her stand-up routine, prove that Sennott's comedy skills aren't restricted to just saying lines that other people wrote.

Warning: references to sexual assault follow.

Writer-director Ally Pankiw's "I Used to Be Funny" has a fitting title, because it is by far Sennott's most dramatic work as an actor to date. Sennott stars as Sam Cowell, a Toronto comedian struggling with depression and PTSD. When Brooke (Olga Petsa), a teen girl who she used to nanny for, goes missing, Sam's old wounds reopen.

Brooke's father, Cameron (Jason Jones) raped Sam and was sentenced to prison for it, which understandably broke apart Sam's sisterly relationship with Brooke. Sam couldn't be around Brooke anymore because of the trigger she became, and Brooke (too young to truly understand what happened) lashed out and blamed Sam for taking her dad away.

"I Used to Be Funny" uses a non-chronological structure to show Sam is always reliving the past. Some critics have said this structure only distracts from the story's power, but I don't think it matters that much because when you've got a strong performer like Sennott pulling the pieces together. As a stand-up comedian, Sam is arguably the character who Sennott has played who is closest to the actress herself. The challenge of the movie is if she can play a character who had the same comic talent as her, but who then had that spark dimmed by tragedy. Sennott's performance as Sam is a loud "Yes, she can."

"I Used to Be Funny" is streaming on Netflix.