The 26 most iconic cats of cinema

Cats have been a cinema staple for more than a century, dating all the way back to the 1901 silent short film The Sick Kitten. Sometimes they're cute, and sometimes they're creepy, but a film is almost always more interesting with a feline element.

To celebrate these furry stars, EW is looking back on some of the most famous felines in film. (FYI, we decided to narrow the list to actual housecats. Our apologies to Aslan, Baby from Bringing Up Baby, and the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro.)

Hunger Games fans were outraged when a black-and-white tuxedo cat was cast to play the Everdeens' yellow-ish tabby in the first movie. The mistake was rectified in Catching Fire, with a new cat actor playing Buttercup in all his ginger glory.

The enigmatic, unnamed cat helps guide Coraline through both her own world and the eerie Other World—with plenty of sarcasm along the way.

One of Disney's more underrated cats is an orphan who has to learn how to navigate New York City—with help from a streetwise mutt voiced by Billy Joel.

Art Carney won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a retiree who makes a cross country trip with his best friend, Tonto.

Responsible for one of the catchiest, jazziest tunes about how great it is to be a cat.

The bad news: Jeff Goldblum's stately Persian meets his end when Willem Dafoe hurls him out the window. The good news: Goldblum gets to deliver the best line in the entire movie: "Did he just throw my cat out the window?"

Dr. Evil's hairless companion is nearly as evil his owner. After all, when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people die.

The fluffy white Persian made his debut in From Russia With Love, reappearing in multiple 007 flicks throughout the decades. And through many of the first Bond films, the only glimpse we get of the nefarious Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a closeup of him stroking his beloved cat.

This Disney flick follows a mischievous Siamese cat as he roams his neighborhood, clashes with the neighbor's dog, and helps foil a kidnapping. Good kitty.

Don't you hate it when you stumble upon some evil witches and they transform you into an immortal black cat, doomed to walk the earth for centuries?

This '70s campy classic tells the story of an extraterrestrial kitty on the run from Earth's government.

Cats! Sometimes they throw up in your shoes, but sometimes they save you from ancient undead monsters!

Kim Novak's witchy familiar is one of the most recognizable film cats of all time, with his bright blue eyes and penchant for casting spells.

Sally Field voices the tenacious Sassy in this '90s remake, which follows the cat and her two dog companions as they cross the country in search of their family.

Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key's screwball comedy follows a kitten who's so cute, he causes break-ins, shootouts, and all sorts of action movie shenanigans. And it's not hard to see why—I mean, just look at that face.

The grey, striped tabby on Vito Corleone's lap wasn't actually in the original script. Director Francis Ford Coppola found the cat as a stray near the Paramount lot and handed him to Marlon Brando as a last-minute addition. The cat underscores Vito's soft, unassuming exterior—but remember, cats have hidden claws.

Hayao Miyazaki's coming-of-age classic centers on the friendship between a young witch and her black cat (voiced in the English version by Phil Hartman). The loquacious Jiji sounds exactly like what you'd expect from a talking cat—snarky and sarcastic, but fiercely loyal to his friend Kiki.

Sure, Oscar Isaac is charming, but his fuzzy orange costar steals every scene he's in.

Anne Hathaway's Mia Thermopolis may have to deal with romantic entanglements and an unexpected royal title, but at least she's got her best friend Louie at her side.

This stunning Turkish documentary profiles seven of the thousands of street cats roaming Istanbul. The result is a gorgeous look at the relationship between cats and the humans who love them.

Technically, Carol Danvers' fuzzy orange companion isn't a cat but a flerken, an alien with monstrous tentacles in its stomach. But Goose's general feline exterior and helpfulness in the face of danger earns her a spot on our list.

Dogs and cats living together… Mass hysteria!

J.K. Rowling's wizarding world is filled with plenty of felines (shoutout to Crookshanks), but the most memorable is Filch's beloved tabby, who skulks around Hogwarts in search of misbehaving students.

Poor Winston Churchill kicks the bucket—only to return from the dead and terrorize his former family. It's not his fault he was laid to rest in a cursed burial ground!! This undead kitty was creepy in the original 1989 film, but he's even more haunting in the 2019 remake. Talk about the cat who came back...

The ship cat and unofficial mascot of the USCSS Nostromo is a sci-fi and horror icon—and of the few to survive the deadly xenomorph. Sigourney Weaver may be the lead in Alien, but Jonesy is obviously the star.

Poor no-name slob: He belongs to nobody, and nobody belongs to him. Holly Golightly's unnamed cat is the ultimate film feline, a fluffy orange sweetheart who, like most cats, observes everything around him with a sort of passive disapproval.