Ah, Sex and the City. A show where adult, female, four-way friendship looked aspirational instead of exhausting (sorry, friend group!); where a humble newspaper columnist could own a closetful of Manolos; and where new blood appeared regularly to spice up the cast. After many, many, many viewings of old Sex and the City episodes, we’re ready to rule on the show’s best side characters. Below, find a comprehensive (though by no means complete) list of all the best Sex and the City characters who aren’t Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha, or their romantic partners. Enjoy, and let it inspire you to fit in an entire SATC rewatch before the reboot drops in December.
25. Victoria (Jennifer Coolidge)
Everyone was a purse designer in the early aughts, including the foursome’s friend who, in a delicate post-breakup space, begins crafting truly heinous handbags. “The good news is, I’m off the Zoloft, I’ve lost 10 pounds, and after that asshole dumped me, I realized I have this amazing gift.” Victoria’s purse party ends in disaster, but it succeeds in bringing Samantha and Smith together.
24. Lynn Cameron (Margaret Cho)
This foul-mouthed fashion show producer is responsible for hauling Carrie onto the runway (where she famously turned into “fashion roadkill”), and man, can she put a show together. Carrie Bradshaw and Fran Lebowitz on the same runway? Magic.
23. Bunny MacDougal (Frances Sternhagen)
Charlotte’s tartan-clad first mother-in-law still watched Trey (Kyle McLachlan) bathe and applied VapoRub to his chest. A prime candidate for Motherboy, but also a racist for opposing Charlotte’s desire to adopt a baby from China.
22. Unnamed Hollywood executive (Sarah Michelle Gellar)
“You are such a loser! You are! A Loser!” I’ll never forget hearing Sarah Michelle Gellar, a.k.a. Buffy, speak these words in a cameo as a high-powered development executive in the two-parter where the ladies of Sex and the City take Los Angeles by storm. I love her in a tight, slicked-back ponytail!
21. Barbara (Noelle Beck)
One of Carrie’s more unhinged moves is tracking down Big’s first ex-wife, who works in publishing, and pitching a half-baked children’s book to her. Little Cathy and the Magic Cigarettes forever.
20. Jenny Brier (Kat Dennings)
One of the only people in SATC history to chasten Samantha Jones is this demanding 13-year-old brat-mitzvah girl who already reads Carrie’s sex column and trafficks in Dom Perignon.
19. Natasha (Bridget Moynihan)
Big’s outwardly perfect, thoroughly beige second wife inspired a wave of women to lean into being “Katie girls.”
18. Tate (unknown baby)
We meet Aidan’s baby (alias: Tater) but once, peering from a carrier affixed to his jean tuxedo-clad dad during a chance encounter on the street. But Tate plays the key symbolic role of showing Carrie the path not taken.
17. Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone)
Long before he wed Stanford in the second sequel film, Anthony was divine as “Char’s” cutthroat wedding planner-turned-bestie, ruling over the racks at Vera Wang with an iron fist. Like all treasured friends, he’s passionate about candles and talking shit about people on park walks, e.g.: “I’ll give you $100 if you say something bitchy about someone we know.”
16. Laney (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson)
The smug guest of honor at a baby shower in Connecticut represents Charlotte’s ultimate dream (until she steals her secret baby name!) and Samantha’s white-hot nightmare.
15. Marcus (Sean Gregory Palmer)
Whatever became of Marcus, Stanford’s cute, sweet, charming boyfriend (who just so happened to have been a sex worker, and got brutally shamed for it by just about everyone?). I hope he went on to live a happy and judgement-free life.
14. O (Alan Cumming)
Ah, the episode where Carrie models. Cumming is flawless as a sly and decisive fashion god who calls everyone “love.”
13. Heather Graham (Heather Graham)
The payoff for the meat of this Season 5 episode, in which Carrie irritatingly flounces around trying to get her ex’s ex to like her for no apparent reason, is getting to see Graham playing herself (and hunting down the “cute pretzel guys” at a farmer’s market).
12. The group of guys who give Miranda weed in the episode where Carrie gets broken up with on a Post-It.
National heroes, who I will be counting as one character for the purposes of this list.
11 and 10. Bitsy von Muffling (Julie Halston) and Bobby Fine (Nathan Lane)
Is the Mr. of this couple gay? Maybe, but as Carrie learns at their fancy Hamptons wedding, that’s really none of our business. I bet the von Muffling-Fines made extremely, ahem, fine (and musical theater-oriented) parents!
9. Brady Hobbes (Niall Cunningham)
The OG SATC baby, Brady goes from squishy red-headed tot in the series to actual grown-up tween in the films, and his cuteness does not diminish with age.
8. Lucy Liu (Lucy Liu)
A lesson to Samantha Jones, and to all would-be PR flacks looking to cultivate A-list new clients: Don’t steal Lucy Liu’s Birkin!
7. Magda (Lynn Cohen)
Miranda’s Polish cleaning lady and eventual nanny to Brady starts off overbearing and pushy, and…never really stops being overbearing and pushy, and we love her for that. It’s hard to imagine how much more tense Steve and Miranda’s co-parenting would have been without Magda’s stabilizing influence.
6. Amalita Amalfi (Carole Davis)
Garage writer Laia Garcia-Furtado named Amalita an “Accidental Style Icon” for a reason. She can pull off shocking pink, she’s always down to go shopping, and she’s way more relaxed about sex than Charlotte or Miranda (or maybe even Samantha). More of her in the reboot, please!
5. Lexi Featherston (Kristen Johnston)
Six words: “I’m so bored I could die.” And then…she did, tumbling out the window at a cocktail party and confirming every single New York woman’s fear about aging out of her party-girl identity.
4. Patty Aston (Jodi Long)
Power lesbian: check. Amazing art collection: check. House in Telluride: check. Filthy and memorable way of reminding Charlotte that she’s not a lesbian if she’s not actually attracted to women: check. She’s four for four.
3. Enid Frick (Candice Bergen)
I know it might be controversial to rank a woman who appears in a mere handful of Sex and the City episodes ahead of, say, Bunny MacDougal or Miranda’s son, Brady, but come on, am I not supposed to give a fictional Vogue editor top billing? “I want to see less Carrie Bradshaw and more ‘carry these shoes with that bag’”: Were more apt, frustrated words ever spoken by an editor paying her writer $4 a word?
2. Lily York-Goldenblatt (Alexandra Fong)
Charlotte and Harry’s daughter could not be cuter or more mischievous. Remember when she stole Carrie’s phone in the first movie and put it in a sequined Judith Leiber clutch? Icon behavior.
1. Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson)
Oh, Stanny. RIP to Willie Garson, forever the greatest and arguably most put-upon repeat character from Sex and the City.
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