Cameron Diaz’s Rise to Fame in the ‘90s Still Has Us Talking: A Look Back at Her Best Movie Performances

Cameron Diaz hooked fans in with her debut role in 1994’s The Mask — and for 20 years she was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

The actress surprised fans in 2018 when she announced her retirement from the industry, having last starred in 2014’s Annie . During her break, Diaz wed Benji Madden in 2015 and the couple have gone on to welcome daughter Raddix and son Cardinal via surrogate.

“When you do something at a really high level for a long period of time, when you’re the person that’s sort of delivering on this one thing, everything around, all parts of you that isn’t that, has to sort of be handed off to other people,” Diaz told Kevin Hart in August 2021 during an appearance on his talk show, Hart to Heart . “Just, the management of me as a human being … Cameron Diaz is a machine. But for my personal, spiritual self, I was realizing that one part of me that functioned at a high level wasn’t enough.”

A source exclusively told Us Weekly in March 2022 that Diaz had “no regrets” on taking a step back after going “at a hundred miles an hour for so many years.”

A Timeline of Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden’s Private Relationship

Two months later, Diaz announced that she was ready to make her movie comeback alongside longtime friend Jamie Foxx . The pair costar in Back In Action , which is due out in January 2025, but until then, Us is taking a look back at Diaz’s most iconic movies.

Scroll down for a blast to the past — and to see which of Diaz’s films are her absolute best: