Day: November 13, 2025

Garten’s rosemary roasted potatoes couldn’t be easier to make. All you need are small red and white-skinned potatoes, fresh rosemary leaves, garlic, and olive oil.

After tossing the ingredients together, you just need to throw the potatoes in the oven for an hour.

Just because they’re in sixth place doesn’t mean Garten’s rosemary roasted potatoes aren’t delicious — the competition is just that fierce when it comes to “Barefoot Contessa” potato dishes.

The potatoes develop a beautiful golden color in the oven, and the pop of rosemary makes for a lovely Instagram photo. Plus, this dish makes your kitchen smell incredible.

Garten’s rosemary roasted potatoes are also deliciously crispy, with a soft and creamy middle. Both of my parents were huge fans of the dish and liked that it was a lighter alternative to mashed potatoes or a gratin.

Get the full recipe for Ina Garten’s rosemary roasted potatoes here.

Garten loves to give a new twist to a classic dish, and her Parmesan smashed potatoes are no different.

Her recipe involves smashing the potatoes with an electric mixer, a great time-saving technique. It features unpeeled red potatoes, half-and-half, sour cream, butter, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

“The key to mashed potatoes is what you add to them to make them have great flavor,” Garten told Al Roker while demonstrating this dish on his podcast, “Cooking Up a Storm with Al Roker,” in 2021. “Two things people really miss a lot, in almost every recipe, is the salt. It needs a lot of salt to give it flavor.”

I love the texture of these thick and creamy potatoes, and the salty sharpness of the Parmesan pairs really well with the subtly sweet red potatoes. I made these for the first time at a Friendsgiving, and they were a huge hit with my fiancé and friends.

“The smashed potatoes were deliciously salty and also not overcooked,” my fiancé said. “They still had a bit of texture to them — it wasn’t just like a bowl of soup.”

“The best mashed potatoes I’ve had!” our friend Kayla added. “So creamy and thick.”

Get the full recipe for Ina Garten’s Parmesan smashed potatoes.

I know what you’re thinking: How can store-bought mashed potatoes be so high on this list? But if anyone can elevate something from the supermarket, it’s the Barefoot Contessa.

Garten developed this recipe, a spin on her Parmesan smashed potatoes, for The New York Times in 2022 after declaring that she was burned out from cooking.

“Mashed potatoes are an essential Thanksgiving side dish but can be time-consuming,” she wrote. “Instead of starting with raw potatoes, then peeling, cutting, and boiling them, start with these prepared potatoes, and no one will know you didn’t make the dish from scratch.”

Garten’s recipe features a pack of refrigerated mashed potatoes, plus butter, sour cream, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. All you have to do is heat the refrigerated potatoes over a pan of simmering water and then throw in the extra ingredients.

Garten’s elevated mashed potatoes were super creamy, with the Parmesan cheese infusing each bite with a lovely richness. I made these for my parents when I was home for Thanksgiving and they couldn’t tell the mashed potatoes were store-bought.

What’s really great about the recipe is how quick it is. You could easily whip up these mashed potatoes in less than 20 minutes and have a side dish that everyone will love.

Get the full recipe for Ina Garten’s elevated store-bought mashed potatoes here.

Garten uses diced instead of shredded potatoes for her hash browns, and her husband, Jeffrey, is a huge fan.

“When my husband tasted them, he wanted to know if he could have them for dinner!” Garten writes. “Hey, why not? What makes him happy is just fine with me.”

Garten’s hash browns feature boiled potatoes, chopped yellow onions, butter, scallions, and fresh flat-leaf parsley.

Garten’s hash browns were a huge hit when I whipped them up for a brunch with my fiancé and our friends.

The potatoes have a deliciously crispy exterior that gives way to the soft and creamy middle, and the parsley and scallions add so much extra flavor. One friend loved these so much they declared they could’ve eaten the whole pot.

I served the hash browns with Garten’s delicious sweet banana pancakes, but I think they’d also pair well with chicken, turkey, or any other holiday centerpiece.

Get the full recipe for Garten’s hash browns here.

Emily Blunt’s English roasted potatoes were such a hit that the “Barefoot Contessa” website temporarily crashed when Garten shared the recipe in May 2020.

Blunt taught Garten how to make her family’s special recipe for roasted potatoes on a 2018 episode of “Barefoot Contessa.” The simple dish only requires two main ingredients — Yukon Gold potatoes and parsley — and features some helpful cooking tips.

After parboiling the potatoes, Blunt shakes them in the pot to help roughen up the edges.

“If you rough up the edges, once you roast them, it just gives a really nice, sort of crispy, crunch,” Blunt explained to Garten during the episode.

Blunt also lets the potatoes dry for 15 minutes before baking them, which she said creates “such a fantastic crust on the outside.”

I will always love my dad’s recipe for Greek roasted potatoes the most, but these English roasted potatoes are a close second.

Blunt’s two quick tricks really pay off in terms of texture. There’s such a satisfying crunch on the crust of the potatoes, which are deliciously soft and creamy in the middle.

These potatoes go great with just about everything, but you’ll definitely have a lot of happy guests if you make them for the holidays.

Get the full recipe for Emily Blunt’s English roasted potatoes here.

Garten’s potato-fennel gratin is the first dish I ever cooked for my family’s holiday menu. The recipe, which appears in “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,” features russet potatoes, fennel, yellow onion, heavy cream, and Gruyère cheese.

“I love to make potato gratin and fennel gratin, so I decided to combine the two,” Garten writes in the recipe’s description. “If you make this in an old French gratin dish, it looks wonderful and can go from the oven to the table with style.”

Garten’s potato-fennel gratin is just so creamy, comforting, and delicious. The potatoes always come out perfectly cooked, the combination of heavy cream and cheese is a dream, and the sautéed fennel cuts through with some lovely sweetness.

The dish couldn’t be easier to assemble, especially if you want to hand off a holiday cooking task to a younger chef in the family (or that cousin whose most-used app is DoorDash).

I make Garten’s potato-fennel gratin every holiday season, and it’s always one of my favorite dishes at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Get the full recipe for Ina Garten’s potato-fennel gratin here.

Jacqueline Emerson played Foxface, one of the tributes from District 5.

Foxface had a larger role in the novel than in the film, but Emerson still made an impression with her character’s death by accidental poisoning at the end.

After “Hunger Games,” Emerson appeared in a dystopian film of her own, “The Last Survivors,” in 2014. The film garnered positive reviews, but it didn’t make much of a financial or cultural impact.

Since then, she’s been in a few short films that she also produced and directed, a few episodes of “Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye” on YouTube in 2020, and an episode of “FBI” in 2021. She also has a music career, with a few singles under her belt, per YouTube.

Emerson, 31, currently has 52,200 followers on Instagram.

Willow Shields played Katniss’ sister, Prim, in all four films.

Prim, short for Primrose, is actually the catalyst for the whole series — she gets chosen for the games, prompting older sister Katniss to volunteer in her place. Prim grows from a shy, sweet pre-teen to a confident teenager training to be a war medic.

Unfortunately, she meets a tragic end in “Mockingjay Part 2.”

The same year the franchise ended, she appeared on “Dancing With the Stars.” She was partnered with Mark Ballas and made it to week seven. At 14, she was the youngest person to compete.

After that, Shields hasn’t been in much. She starred in the only (to date) season of “The Unsettling” and the Netflix series “Spinning Out,” which was canceled after one season.

Shields, 25, has 858,000 followers on Instagram and 202,400 followers on X.

Dayo Okeniyi played District 11 tribute Thresh, who goes out a hero.

Thresh was the co-tribute of District 11 with Rue, who saved Katniss because of her friendship with Rue. He was eventually taken out by genetically modified dogs called mutts.

After the first film, Okeniyi appeared in a few romance films like “The Spectacular Now” and “Endless Love.” He also popped up in another giant dystopian franchise in the 2015 film “Terminator Genisys,” and had a small role in the 2022 horror film “Fresh.“

He’s made the rounds on TV, starring in NBC police procedural “Shades of Blue” from 2016 to 2018, an episode of Apple TV+’s “See” in 2019, and in a voice role in the Demi Moore podcast “Dirty Diana.”

In 2024, he began starring in another Apple TV+ series, “Dark Matter,” which was renewed for a season two.

Okeniyi, 37, has 48,200 followers on Instagram and 48,900 followers on X. While Okeniyi isn’t a household name yet, we expect big things from him soon.

Leven Rambin played District 1 tribute Glimmer, who meets a gruesome end.

Glimmer was known as a “Career,” a tribute from a district that essentially trains their kids from birth to be in the games. She’s eventually indirectly killed by Katniss, who sets a hive of genetically altered wasps (known as tracker jackers) on her.

Before “Hunger Games,” Rambin was known in some circles for her role on “All My Children” from 2004 to 2010, her recurring role on “Grey’s Anatomy” as Mark Sloan’s adult daughter, and for a small role in three episodes of “One Tree Hill.”

After the film, she was cast in “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters,” which ended up being the last in the would-be saga (there were only two films made). She then went on to appear in “Two Night Stand” and the Oscar-winning film “Mank.” In 2021, she appeared in the fifth and final “Purge” movie, “The Forever Purge.”

On the TV front, she appeared in “The Tomorrow People,” “True Detective,” “The Path,” “Gone,” and most recently, the CBS series “Fire Country,” which is in its fourth season.

In 2024, she published her memoir “Glimmer’s Game,” which is described as an “intimate look at her rise from the dreams of a young girl in Houston to the bright lights of Hollywood and ‘The Hunger Games.'”

Rambin, 35, has 179,000 followers on Instagram and 19,500 followers on X.

Isabelle Fuhrman played Clove, the tribute from District 2.

Clove was also a Career, but she was taken out by Thresh in retaliation for the death of Rue, among other things. She was cruel and taunted Katniss about her friend’s death.

Fuhrman was one of the more well-known members of the cast — she had played the iconic role of Esther in the 2009 horror film “Orphan.”

Post-“Hunger Games,” she’s made a name for herself as a scream queen. She’s been in “Don’t Let Me Go,” “Cell,” and “Down a Dark Hall.” She also had a recurring role in “Masters of Sex.”

As the years have gone by, she’s continued her horror career. She’s appeared in “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,” “The Last Thing Mary Saw,” and — most importantly — she reprised her role as Esther in “Orphan: First Kill.” A third film in the franchise, “Orphans,” is on the way.

This year, she appeared in Julia Stiles’ directorial debut “Wish You Were Here,” and (hopefully) will reprise her role as Diamond Kittredge in Kevin Costner’s Western epic film series “Horizon” soon.

Fuhrman, 28, has 668,000 followers on Instagram and 157,000 followers on X.

Alexander Ludwig played Cato, the film’s biggest villain and tribute from District 3.

Cato was the only other tribute to volunteer. He made it all the way to the final three, attempting to take Katniss and Peeta out before getting devoured by the mutts — Katniss shot him with an arrow to spare him.

Ludwig was semi-known for his role in “Race to Witch Mountain” in 2009, but “Hunger Games” was one of his first big roles.

Since then, he’s appeared in many films: comedies like “Grown Ups 2,” “The Final Girls,” “Bad Boys for Life,” and its 2024 sequel, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die“; action films like “Lone Survivor,” “Midway,” and “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant“; and even in the Netflix holiday rom-com “Operation Christmas Drop” in 2020.

Ludwig was also very busy with the History Channel series “Vikings,” in which he starred from 2014 to 2020, the wrestling series “Heels” alongside Stephen Amell from 2021 to 2023, and the MGM+ series “Earth Abides,” which premiered in 2024. He has three films that are awaiting release, including “Shiver” and “Night Comes.”

He’s doing all that, plus he released a country EP in 2022.

Ludwig, 33, has 3.2 million followers on Instagram, and 414,100 followers on X.

Liam Hemsworth was the third prong in the love triangle as Katniss’ best friend and would-be revolutionary Gale.

While Katniss was in the games, he became involved in the resistance movement — and while that connected him to Katniss, it led to some disastrous consequences in the final film, leading her to choose Peeta.

Before the film, Hemsworth had already been a romantic lead due to his role in 2010’s Nicholas Sparks drama “The Last Song,” and he was a tabloid mainstay due to his relationship with costar Miley Cyrus.

The same year “Hunger Games” was released, Hemsworth appeared in another action franchise: “The Expendables 2.” While he wasn’t brought back for the sequel, he got another chance at a franchise with “Independence Day: Resurgence,” which didn’t make much of a splash.

He’s also appeared in some flops, like “Love and Honor,” “Killerman,” and “Arkansas” — he found more success on streaming. He starred on Quibi series “Most Dangerous Game” and was nominated for an Emmy.

Things are going to pick up for him soon, though. After starring in the 2024 Netflix rom-com “Lonely Planet” with Laura Dern, he took over for Henry Cavill in season four of “The Witcher.”

Hemsworth’s fame, though, can probably be mostly attributed to his famous family (he’s the brother of Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, and “Westworld” star Luke) and his relationship with ex-wife Cyrus.

Hemsworth, 35, has 11.8 million followers on Instagram and 1.4 million followers on X.

Amandla Stenberg played Rue, the female tribute from District 11 and one of Katniss’ closest friends in the games.

Rue was just a kid when she was chosen for the games, and as such, she followed Katniss and Peeta around during training — she then saved Katniss from the Careers and showed her the tracker jackers that saved her life.

In the saddest moment in the film, Rue is killed by Marvel in front of Katniss. She asks Katniss to sing for her, and when she dies, Katniss raises the three-finger salute that becomes synonymous with rebellion.

Stenberg was one of the breakout stars of the film and she used the momentum to secure starring roles, which is why she’s so high on this list.

After a voice role in “Rio 2,” Stenberg starred in a 2017 adaptation of the YA novel “Everything, Everything,” which, despite lukewarm reviews, was a box-office hit.

She then played the lead in “The Darkest Minds,” another dystopian YA film. By 2018, she had secured yet another leading role in “The Hate U Give,” for which she was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award and won an NAACP Image Award.

That year, she also starred in “Where Hands Touch,” a controversial film about a love story between two teens in Nazi Germany, though her performance specifically was praised by outlets like Variety.

Since then, she’s also had starring roles in “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” In 2024, she joined the “Star Wars” franchise when she starred in the Disney+ series “The Acolyte.” It was canceled after one season.

Up next, she’ll star in the highly anticipated film adaptation of the fantasy novel “Children of Blood and Bone” in 2027.

In addition to her acting career, she’s also a well-known figure among Gen Z as an activist.

Stenberg, 27, doesn’t have social media.

Josh Hutcherson played Peeta Mellark, one of Katniss’ love interests and co-District 12 tribute, in all four films. Despite not knowing Katniss very well, reveals he has feelings for her, which spirals into a storyline for the pair.

Their “love” story, which is played up for the games, results in them surviving the games in the first film. The two grow closer and, even through torture, memory loss, and a second games, end up together in “Mockingjay Part 2.”

Hutcherson was a well-known child star before getting cast in “The Hunger Games.” To name a few, he was in “Kicking and Screaming,” “Little Manhattan,” “Zathura,” “Bridge to Terabithia,” and “The Kids Are All Right.”

He also had a mini-franchise under his belt, with “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”

While he was a co-lead of the franchise, its success took years to translate into success for Hutcherson’s box-office career post-“Hunger Games.”

He’s been in more than a few flops, like “The Forger,” “Red Dawn,” “Escobar: Paradise Lost,” “Elliot the Littlest Reindeer,” and “Burn.” He’s also been in a few solid films, like “Epic,” “The Disaster Artist,” and “Tragedy Girls.”

For a few years, he found more success in streaming. He starred in and executive-produced all three seasons of Hulu’s “Future Man,” and he voiced Ultraman in the English dub of the anime series “Ultraman” from 2019 to 2023.

But recently, things have been turning around for Hutcherson. Besides the iconic “Whistle” meme that took over TikTok, he’s now the star of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise. The first installment was a surprise box-office hit in 2023, grossing almost $300 million. A sequel is set for December 5, 2025, just a month after Hutcherson made his return to TV on HBO’s “I Love LA.”

He also had a solid role in the Jason Statham action film “The Beekeeper” in 2024, which was also successful.

Hutcherson, 33, has 2 million followers on Instagram and 2 million followers on X.

Jack Quaid had a small part as Marvel, a tribute from District 1. He was a Career tribute, and he made it far into the games before making a mistake: killing Rue. Katniss killed Marvel in revenge.

“The Hunger Games” was Quaid’s — the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan — film debut. Afterward, it took a few years for Quaid to find his footing, including a part in the short-lived HBO series “Vinyl.”

But since then, he’s appeared in critically successful films like “Logan Lucky,” “Tragedy Girls,” and “Plus One,” and some box-office successes like “Rampage,” “Smallfoot,” “Scream,” and the 2024 best picture winner “Oppenheimer.“

In 2025 alone, he also top-lined the black comedy/horror film “Companion” and the action film “Novocaine,” and had supporting roles in “Heads of State” and “Neighborhood Watch.”

But the reason for his high placement has to do with his TV career. Most famously, he plays Hughie on the Prime Video superhero series “The Boys,” which is set to conclude its five-season run in 2026.

He also wrapped up his role in the animated Paramount+ series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” as Boimler (for which he was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award). But you don’t have to go without a charming Quaid voiceover performance — he also voices Superman on the Adult Swim animated series “My Adventures with Superman.”

Quaid, 33, has 2 million followers on Instagram and 386,800 followers on X.

Of course, the top spot goes to the Girl on Fire herself, Jennifer Lawrence, who played Katniss.

Katniss is the protagonist of the entire saga — in the novels, we’re in her head the whole time, and the film focuses on her journey from archery enthusiast to reluctant symbol to soldier to a parent with a quiet life.

Lawrence’s break-out role was in 2010’s “Winter’s Bone,” for which she received an Oscar nomination. In 2011, the year before “The Hunger Games,” she made her debut in another franchise, “X-Men,” as a younger version of Mystique. She played that role through 2019’s “Dark Phoenix.”

To go through Lawrence’s filmography would be a lot, but we can go through some of her accolades. She’s since been nominated for three more Oscars, winning in 2013 for “Silver Linings Playbook.” She has one BAFTA win from two nominations, three Golden Globes from six nominations, four Critics’ Choice Awards from 13 nominations, two SAG Awards from five nominations, and seven MTV Movie Awards from 22 nominations.

Lawrence, 35, is one of the last few A-listers who have not deigned to join social media (much like other franchise stars like Daniel Radcliffe, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart).

In recent years, she took a bit of a break, but returned to the spotlight with films like “No Hard Feelings,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Causeway,” and her most recent film, “Die, My Love,” which also stars Pattinson and LaKeith Stanfield.

Also, she just announced she’s co-producing a Miss Piggy movie, written by Cole Escola, alongside Emma Stone — no one else is doing it like J-Law.