5 Best Dolly Parton Movies and Shows, Ranked

3 weeks ago 21

Dolly Parton as rebellious secretary Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5.

Published Sep 24, 2026, 5:04 AM EDT

There is a reason Dolly Parton can walk into a scene dressed like Dolly Parton and somehow make everybody else look overdressed. The hair is enormous, the rhinestones are doing their own publicity campaign, and then she starts talking and the whole image becomes secondary to how quick she is. That has always been the fun of watching her. People inside the movie notice the glamour first. Five minutes later, the smartest person in the room is usually the woman they underestimated.

And that is where her screen career gets surprisingly personal. Dolly has never needed movies to prove she is talented. The music already handled that. The good roles understand something more interesting about her, especially the humor, the stubbornness, the warmth, and that very specific ability to tell somebody off while sounding almost hospitable. When a film catches that properly, you stop seeing “country superstar acting” and start wishing she had made twice as many movies.

5 'Dolly Parton's Heartstrings' (2019)

Each episode of Dolly Parton's Heartstrings takes one of Parton’s songs and builds a standalone story around it, with Dolly introducing the material and occasionally stepping directly into the drama. That could have become eight glossy music videos stretched to television length. Instead, the anthology uses songs including “Jolene,” “Two Doors Down,” and “These Old Bones” as starting points for stories about relationships, family, prejudice, regret, and the kind of small-town secrets country songs have always been very good at holding.

The results naturally vary, but there is genuine pleasure in hearing a familiar lyric and then watching the show take it somewhere you did not expect. “Jolene” is especially smart about refusing the easiest interpretation of its title character. Instead of simply turning the famous other woman into a villain, the episode gives her an actual life beyond somebody else’s marriage. Dolly’s presence keeps the whole project from feeling like a museum devoted to her catalogue. She seems genuinely delighted that songs written decades earlier can keep growing new stories. For fans, that warmth does a lot of the work.

4 'Straight Talk' (1992)

Shirlee Kenyon (Dolly Parton) leaves her dead-end life in Arkansas, moves to Chicago, and accidentally gets mistaken for a radio psychologist after walking into the wrong studio. Rather than immediately correcting everyone, Shirlee sits behind the microphone and starts giving callers the kind of plainspoken advice that actually helps. Straight Talk knows exactly why that premise suits Dolly. Of course strangers would call this woman with their problems. Of course she would ignore professional jargon and tell them what they already know but are scared to admit.

The movie gets especially enjoyable once reporter Jack Russell (James Woods) starts investigating the mysterious new radio sensation and discovers that Dr. Shirlee is neither a doctor nor particularly interested in pretending to be sophisticated. Their romance is light, but the radio scenes are the real reason to watch. Shirlee listens to people without treating them like fools, then cuts through their nonsense with a kindness that keeps the advice from sounding cruel. It is basically the screen version of the feeling people have always had about Dolly herself. You suspect she could fix half your problems over coffee, and you would probably thank her after she roasted you.

3 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' (1982)

Dolly Parton in a metallic dress smiling next to a laughing man in a suit

Mona Stangley (Dolly Parton) runs the Chicken Ranch, a long-established Texas brothel that has quietly existed with the cooperation of local authorities until crusading television personality Melvin P. Thorpe decides exposing it will be excellent for ratings. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas turns that fight into a huge, cheerfully bawdy musical where politics, hypocrisy, romance, and show-business spectacle keep bumping into one another.

Mona is exactly the sort of character Parton understands from the inside. She is glamorous without being naïve, sentimental without losing practical sense, and completely aware that the respectable people condemning her establishment are often benefiting from the same arrangement. Her relationship with Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd (Burt Reynolds) gives the movie more feeling than the title promises, especially when their affection runs into the public scandal surrounding the Ranch. Then there is “Hard Candy Christmas,” which lands much harder than anyone expects after all the jokes and dancing. The movie may be broad, but Dolly never lets Mona become one.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

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Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

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How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

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What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

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What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

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Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

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What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

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What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

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How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

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What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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2 'Steel Magnolias' (1989)

Dolly Parton and Olympia Dukakais gossip at an outdoor event in Steel Magnolias.

Truvy Jones (Dolly Parton) runs a Louisiana beauty salon where hair appointments routinely turn into therapy sessions, gossip exchanges, emergency meetings, and unofficial town councils. Steel Magnolias gathers a group of women around Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts)’s wedding and follows their friendships through much heavier years than that celebration initially suggests. Truvy may own the salon, but everybody who walks through the door seems to own a piece of the conversation.

Dolly fits into that ensemble so naturally that it is easy to forget how much star power is sitting behind the styling chair. Truvy’s famous line about there being “no such thing as natural beauty” is funny because the entire salon understands the joke, while her sharper observations usually arrive without announcing themselves. The movie belongs to the whole group, especially as Shelby’s health changes the emotional center, and that is part of what makes Dolly so good in it. She never fights for the spotlight. Truvy is simply there with the hairspray, the gossip, and exactly the right thing to say until suddenly you cannot imagine the room without her.

1 '9 to 5' (1980)

Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda next to each other in in 9 to 5

Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) is newly divorced and completely overwhelmed by office life in 9 to 5. Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) knows the company better than the men promoted over her. Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton) is dealing with coworkers who assume she is sleeping with their sexist boss, Franklin Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman), because Hart himself has encouraged the rumor. 9 to 5 puts those three frustrations in the same office, gets the women stoned together, lets them fantasize about murdering Hart, and then somehow turns a workplace comedy into a kidnapping plot.

Doralee announcing that she will turn Hart “from a rooster to a hen with one shot” is still glorious because the threat arrives after she has spent far too long tolerating his behavior. From there, the movie lets all three women enjoy taking control of the workplace and discovering that many of the supposedly impossible improvements Hart resisted are completely manageable once he is tied up elsewhere. Flexible hours, childcare, equal treatment, actual respect. The joke keeps exposing how ridiculous the original office was. And then there is the title song, written by Dolly using her acrylic nails to imitate the sound of a typewriter. 9 to 5 is angry, warm, hilarious, ridiculously rewatchable, and still painfully recognizable. If somebody wants to understand why Dolly Parton belonged in movies, start here.