Here are 12 movies with people dressed like cats.
While cats may not be “man’s best friend,” everyone would agree that cat costumes tend to look better than dog costumes. Which may explain why there have been so many cat costumes in cinema, from the slinky to the silly.
Here are 12 movies featuring people costumed as cats. Grab your saucer of milk and read on.
Batman Returns (1992)
Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman helped revitalize the superhero movie, so he had a lot of freedom for the sequel.
This time he went with two great villains from the Caped Crusader’s rogues gallery: Danny DeVito’s Penguin, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman.
As is often the case in onscreen portrayals of Catwoman, Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle was villanious at times, but wanted, in the end, to be good.
The costume design for Catwoman, highlighted by heavily visible stitching, is one of many artistic highlights of Burton’s goth Christmas action film. While Batman Returns is weirder than Batman, and decidedly less interested in Batman, it has some devoted defenders.
Catwoman (2004)
Finding defenders for Catwoman is harder. As the protagonist of this movie, Catwoman is much more of an antihero. Yes, she dresses up in a cat costume, and she commits crimes, but she’s also trying to take down the villainous cosmetics mogul played by Sharon Stone.
In this film, Patience Phillips, aka Catwoman, takes on feline traits. The film goes further down that road than even the campy, comedic ’60 Batman TV show. Unfortunately, Catwoman wasn’t received as campy fun, and the film flopped.
Still, the timing of Halle Berry playing Catwoman led to a memorable award show moment. Fresh off her Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball, Berry won Worst Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, for Catwoman.
She had enough of a sense of humor to accept her Razzie award in person.
The Cat in the Hat (2003)
The Cat in the Hat is perhaps the quintessential Dr. Seuss story, and in this live-action adaptation, Mike Myers donned quite a cat costume to play the titular hero.
How did this happen? Myers had nixed a film based on his Saturday Night Live sketch “Sprockets,” and to settle that and to avoid legal issues, it was agreed he’d star in The Cat in the Hat.
Intriguingly, there’s a new Cat in the Hat movie coming soon, with a different SNL alum as the cat: Bill Hader will voice the mischievous feline, though this version will be animated, not live-action.
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
This one features not one but three people dressed like cats. An underrated comedy about selling out, Josie and the Pussycats stars Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid and Rachael Leigh Cook as bandmates balancing art and commerce.
Based on the Archie Comics series, it could have gone the cute and silly route, but opted to Trojan Horse in witty messages about staying true to yourself and resisting the corporate overlords. That ambition lands the film a place on our list of Smart Movies Disguised as Dumb Movies.
All that, and the songs are power pop masterpieces – notably “3 Small Words,” which features Letters to Cleo vocalist Kay Hanley on lead and Cook, Reid and Dawson singing backup.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Sure, this is an animated film. However, a human character does dress as a cat. This may be the most successful film ever to feature a human dressed as a cat: The Super Mario Bros. Movie made $1.361 billion dollars worldwide and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year.
At one point in the film, our favorite Italian plumber is battling Donkey Kong. To try and help him best his foe, Mario dons the Cat Suit found in the 2013 game Super Mario 3D World.
While the Cat Suit did help Mario defeat Donkey, it also was central to a comedic set piece within the film. Many certainly enjoyed the Cat Suit shout out, and the upcoming The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is even more packed to the brim with Easter eggs.
Night of the Demons (2009)
We shall start at the beginning. In 1988, the pulpy teen-centered horror movie Night of the Demons came out. It’s cheap looking, and it features questionable acting across the board, but it has emerged as a cult classic. The film got a couple of sequels, and then eventually Hollywood got around to remaking Night of the Demons in 2009.
Once again, the film centered on teenagers having a libidinous party to celebrate Halloween that is, you know, impeded by demons. Characters are costumed, naturally, and that includes one of the female characters, played by former Guess? model Diora Baird, above, dressed as a cat.
The film, also starring Shannon Elizabeth and Edward Furlong, is a remake of a 1998 cult classic.
Cat People (1942)
A seminal work of strange, early horror filmmaking, Cat People is focused on a woman who is certain she is descended from, well, a tribe of Cat People who are able to transform into panthers when sufficiently charged emotionally. That belief, of course, has complications for our protagonist.
Cat People is now considered an important work of the horror genre in the 1940s. A sequel, Curse of the Cat People, came out in 1944. Paul Schrader remade the film in 1982. It stars Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell and you know it’s just so incredibly chill and normal. Schrader’s film gets more into the people-as-cats thing in his subtle way.
Now, Cat People is not as overly a movie about people dressing as cats, either in costume or by playing anthropomorphic cats. However, we are talking about a movie literally called Cat People, so it is very much part of this equation.
Mean Girls (2004)
Much of the humor of Mean Girls comes from Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan in her defining role, discovering the logistical realities of being in an American high school. Once she falls in with “The Plastics,” it’s only a matter of time until she learns the ways of the high school Halloween party.
While Cady opts for a proper, inventive Halloween costume, her Plastics compatriots go for different animal- themed outfits. Karen is a mouse. Duh. Regina is a bunny.
Then, there’s the oh-so fetch Gretchen Wieners, who shows up as a cat.
This scene scored Mean Girls the profound honor of being on both this list and our list of the Best Movies With People Dressed Up in Bunny Costumes. Happy Easter.
Rent (2005)
Well, at least the film version of Rent went better than the film version of Cats. There are fewer humans dressed as cats in Rent, though. The musical, based on the opera La Boheme, is about life in New York for a handful of friends trying to navigate the world. Spoiler: They have issues with their rent.
The musical has devoted fans, though it also went in for some mockery in Team America: World Police. That doesn’t detract from its sheer star power and panache.
To wit: There is a Halloween funeral in Rent in which the wickedly talented Idina Menzel’s Maureen wears a cat costume. A lot of people who love a musical don’t necessarily love adaptations to the screen, but Rent seems to have done just fine by the musical’s fans (cat costume included).
Idina Menzel may be best known, these days, for providing the voice of Elsa in the Frozen films and especially her stunning delivery of “Let It Go.”
Madam Satan (1930)
We’re going old school, and pre-Production Code. Plus, any chance to talk about a movie called Madam Satan is worth taking. No relation to the character from Archie Comics, for the record. Also, would you believe that Madam Satan is a musical comedy?
The film was directed by none other than Cecil B. DeMille. At a certain point, the action on the movie centers on a massive masquerade ball aboard a zeppelin. Now that’s so very 1930! One of the characters, Angela (Kay Johnson), hopes to win over her husband, who she fears is straying. Thus, she puts on a mask and a slinky outfit and becomes “Madam Satan.”
Now, there is a witchiness to the costume, to be sure. However, there is also a feline touch to Angela’s outfit. This, of course, makes sense. Black cats and witches, and thus black cats and Satan, are tied together in popular sentiment.
In 1930, a witchy feline costume would be an easy way to get the point across to filmgoers.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007)
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is a perhaps dated story about heterosexual firefighters who get married to each other in order to get insurance benefits.
At one point, Jessica Biel’s lawyer character dresses up in a cat costume and dances around at a costume party to fundraise for same-sex protections.
Look, it’s for charity.
Cats (2019)
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats was a smash success. It was also very polarizing. There has never been a point in time where Cats, which is effectively a bunch of cats singing silly songs about themselves, hasn’t had vocal detractors. That being said, it was not surprising that Cats was adapted into a big-budget film, one with an impressive cast.
What unfolded with Tom Hooper’s Cats was a fiasco. This proved to be the consensus opinion. Quickly, “rowdy screenings” of Cats, wherein laughing and cracking jokes were encouraged, sprung up. Even Taylor Swift didn’t emerge from Cats unscathed.
The problem was how the film looked, and specifically how the cats looked. Visual effects were used to try and make the likes of Judi Dench and Idris Elba look like cats, but the whole thing lived in the Uncanny Valley. Truly, a sight to behold, even for those who absolutely loathed it.
Honorable Mention: Irma Vep (1996)
Going from the massive, I.P.-mining Super Mario Bros. Movie to the small, moody indie Irma Vep might give you whiplash. Olivier Assayas’ French dramedy is odd, specific, and quite meta. It is, after all, a movie about making a movie.
Actress Maggie Cheung plays herself in Irma Vep. She agrees to star in a new film by a temperamental French director who, seemingly, is on his last strike when it comes to the French film industry. His film is an adaptation of a silent French film serial called Les Vampire, with “Irma Vep” being an anagram of vampire.
Cheung’s character, as with the character in Les Vampire, is a stylized cat burglar. She also wears a cat suit, befitting the nature of the crime. Assayas would later adapt Irma Vep into an HBO miniseries himself. This time, Alicia Vikander was the star.
Why is this an honorable mention? Because dressing up in a catsuit and dressing up as a cat aren’t exactly the same. Which also explains the next film on this list.
Honorable Mention: The Avengers (1998)
No, not that Avengers. This is the Avengers based on the hit British TV show, not the Marvel comics superheroes.
Although: Uma Thurman’s Emma Peel catsuit is awfully similar to the one Avengers star Scarlett Johansson would wear a decade later to play The Black Widow.
Of course, catsuits are a mainstay of film and TV. And perhaps it all goes back to
Many a famous female character has worn a catsuit that is almost as famous. One of the greatest popularizers of the catsuit, especially for badass female characters, was the British TV show The Avengers. Both Cathy Gale and Emma Peel (played by Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg, respectively) on The Avengers.
Is Thuman literally dressed like a cat? No, you’ve got us there.
Main image: Night of the Demons. Seven Arts Pictures
Editor’s Note: Corrects typo in intro.