See Melissa McCarthy’s Best Roles

The Ghostbusters reboot, out July 15, is truly an ensemble affair. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon play off of one another’s wackiness as a quartet of malevolent-apparition hunters in a way that makes each actor indispensable to the crew. But if there’s one performer whose appearance in director Paul Feig’s summer comedy was a foregone conclusion, it’s McCarthy, who has developed a robust working relationship with Feig, from Bridesmaids to The Heat to Spy.

As a comedic lead McCarthy has proven both bankable and worthy of critical adulation—her turn in Bridesmaids was met with an Academy Award nomination, a rare feat for a performance that includes explosive bodily excretions—largely thanks to her blend of slapstick looniness and warmth. In anticipation of her turn as Abby Yates in Ghostbusters, here’s a look at McCarthy’s greatest roles, all the way back to Gilmore Girls‘ beloved Sookie St. James.