Taylor Swift may be lighting up cinemas right now with her Eras Tour concert film, but Swifties know it’s far from the first time Swift has made her way to the big screen. The singer has a surprisingly long list of movie and TV credits. There are, of course, concert movies, and Swift has three feature-length ones – and she even cameoed in another band’s. Then there are documentaries about her life, including 2020’s “Miss Americana,” as well as the handful of times Swift has tried her hand at acting, including her role in 2019’s “Cats.”
Plus, fans knows that Swift has turned to directing in recent years. Recently, she directed music videos for 2022’s “Midnights” and 2023’s “Speak Now,” and in December 2022, news broke that Swift would be writing and directing her own feature-length film (how she’ll find time to do that amid the Eras Tour, we don’t know). Swift reflected on how she got started directing during a 2022 conversation with Martin McDonagh for Variety‘s Directors on Directors, explaining, “I always wanted to tell stories. I have always written stories, poetry, songs. And I think this just grew out of that storytelling. And the more I did it, the more I loved it.”
Swift also explained that her first-time directing for her 2020 video “The Man” from “Lover” happened because all the woman directors her team reached out to were booked. “So I was like, ‘I could do it, maybe,'” she recalled. “And when I did direct, I just thought, ‘This is actually more fulfilling than I ever could have imagined.'”
Ahead, we break down all of Swift’s movie and TV roles so far.
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Haley Jones in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (2009)
Way back in 2009, Swift booked her first TV role on “CSI” in the season nine episode “Turn, Turn, Turn” shortly after the release of her still mostly country pop album, “Fearless.” She doesn’t have a happily ever after on “CSI” because well, it’s “CSI”. On the procedural, the singer guest starred as Haley Jones, the teenage daughter of tawdry Vegas motel owners.
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Herself in "Hannah Montana: The Movie" (2009)
Swift is her peak country belle here, performing the charming, breezy “Crazier” in a small part of the movie based on the popular Disney Channel show starring Miley Cyrus. She’s technically playing a fictional version of herself in the film. “Crazier” remains beloved among many Swifties, and the movie also gave us Cyrus’s classic “The Climb” and iconic dance track “Hoedown Throwdown.”
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Herself in "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" (2009)
Swift also appeared as herself in the Jonas Brothers 2009 concert film, singing “Should’ve Said No” from her debut album with the band. Swift and Joe Jonas had split by the time the film premiered.
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Herself in "Journey to Fearless" (2010)
Swift embarked on her first headlining tour in 2009, the “Fearless” Tour, and her path to the show was documented in her three-part miniseries “Journey to Fearless.” The series originally aired on the channel The Hub in 2010 and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Felicia Miller in "Valentine's Day" (2010)
Swift plays a doting high school girlfriend to her actual then-boyfriend Taylor Lautner in “Valentine’s Day.” As far as rom-com roles go, hers is pretty goofy and mostly for giggles in this ensemble cast feature that includes Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher, and Jennifer Garner. For the movie, she also wrote the song “Today Was a Fairytale.” Oh, and Swift also has a hilarious little dance routine in the movie that is kind of a predecessor to “Shake It Off.”
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Audrey in "The Lorax" (2012)
Swift was enlisted in this adorable, animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s classic picture book about the plight of the trees. She voices a young environmentalist named Audrey who longs to see a real tree (and who’s also the love interest of the main character). Her fellow voice castmates include Zac Efron, Ed Helms, Danny DeVito, and Betty White.
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Elaine in "New Girl" (2013)
You might know that Jess from”New Girl” takes comfort in listening to Swift’s songs alone post-breakup. So, it was only natural that the show enlisted the megatalented pop star for a brief gig in the second season episode “Elaine’s Big Day.” As the title suggests, she plays Elaine, the longtime love interest of Cece’s then-fiancé Shivrang. Unlike Prince on season three, Swift doesn’t put on a musical performance, but her character gets an ending that’ll keep fans happy for her, and for Schmidt and Cece.
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Rosemary in "The Giver" (2014)
The pop star made a cameo in “The Giver,” another beloved children’s book adaptation, albeit a much darker one than “The Lorax.” The story is about a dystopian society that has eliminated pain by converting people to “Sameness” and stripping them of emotional depth. Donning a brunette wig, Taylor plays Rosemary, the daughter of The Giver (Jeff Bridges) who has a rather tragic fate.
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Herself in "Bluebird" (2019)
The 2019 documentary “Bluebird” is about the titular Nashville cafe, described as an “accidental landmark” where many musicians who became legends got their start. Swift performed there when she was just 14, and that’s when she was discovered by Scott Borchetta who would eventually sign her to Big Machine Records. Swift appears in and performs in the documentary about the cafe.
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Bombalurina in "Cats" (2019)
Swift joined the all star cast of “Cats” as Bombalurina, who sings the song “Macavity.” Macavity himself was played by Idris Elba (who appears at the beginning of Swift’s 2019 song “London Boy). Swift also wrote a new song, “Beautful Ghosts,” for the movie with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Though the film was panned by critics and audiences, Swift, a devoted cat lover, probably didn’t mind.
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Herself in "Miss Americana" (2020)
The 2020 documentary “Miss Americana,” directed by Lana Wilson, was released in 2020 on Netflix. It followed Swift over the course of several years and marked the first time she’d opened up publicly about many issues, including her decision to talk about politics, her eating disorder, her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and her sexual assault trial.
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Herself in "Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions" (2020)
In November 2020, after the surprise release of “Folklore” that summer, Swift released “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions” on Disney+. In it, she and collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner discuss the inspiration for each track and how the songs came together at the Long Pond Studio in upstate New York. They also perform new, stripped-down versions of the songs for the first time together (having previously kept apart due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Justin Vernon (the lead singer of Bon Iver), who features on the song “Exile,” recorded his part alone. An album version of the special was also released.
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Liz Meekins in "Amsterdam" (2022)
Swift had a small role in 2022’s “Amsterdam,” an ensemble film directed by David O’Russell. The movie also stars Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington.