Unlock Emma Stone’s Most Electrifying Performances: The Top 10 Films That Will Change How You See Her Forever!

But first, an honorary mention. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is one of the few romcoms in the late 2000s that was able to recapture some of the magic of the Golden Age of Romcoms—thanks in no small part to the performances of our romantic leads, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. Stone has a small role as Allison, the ghost of an ex-girlfriend whose mission is to rehabilitate McConaughey’s character, a womanizing photographer who must learn from his past relationship failures in order to finally be with the one he’s meant to be with.

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Whatever your feelings are about this particular reboot on the comic book superhero Spider-Man, I think we can all agree that Stone’s Gwen Stacy is the beating heartbeat of these two films. In spite of a script that occasionally left audiences feeling uninspired, her electric chemistry with Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker buoyed the movie (it probably helped that the two were dating in real life at the time).

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Stone landed her first starring role with Easy A—a charming comedic performance that landed her first-ever Golden Globe nomination. Easy A is a high school riff on The Scarlet Letter, centering around Olive (Stone), a teen who lies about losing her virginity to a college boy. Olive ends up using her newfound promiscuous reputation to make deals with down-on-their-luck high school boys: she’ll let them claim that they slept with her to increase their popularity so long as they pay up.

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Stone continues her charm streak in Crazy, Stupid, Love, a romcom about a recently divorced middle-aged man (Steve Carell) who seeks dating lessons from local playboy Jacob (Ryan Gosling). While Jacob may think he has his womanizing skills down to a tee, his approach to dating gets disrupted by Hannah (Stone), a law school graduate who just dumped her noncommittal boyfriend.

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This adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel of the same name stars Stone as Skeeter, a young white woman and aspiring writer living in the South during the 1960s. Stone’s understated role shares the screen with moving performances from Viola Davis, who plays domestic worker Aibileen, Jessica Chastain, who plays ostracized housewife Celia, and Octavia Spencer, who plays Aibileen’s friend Minny. The film ultimately earned four Academy Award nominations, with Spencer winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

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Kinds of Kindness, which marked Stone’s third collaboration with Lanthimos, takes the form of a cinematic triptych by following three separate stories, in each of which Stone and the rest of the cast (including Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Willem Dafoe, and Jessse Plemons) play different characters. The unique format allowed Stone to stretch her acting muscles as she takes turns playing an employee whose life is controlled by her boss, a woman lost at sea, and a cult member seeking a mysterious woman.

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Stone and Lanthimos’s most recent collaboration is a black comedy remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!. Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company who gets kidnapped by Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a conspiracy theorist who believes Michelle is a member of an invasive alien race controlling the human population. What ensues is two hours worth of nail-biting storytelling.

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Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s black comedy centers around Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), a once-famous actor most known for playing a superhero called Birdman. As Riggan attempts to make a career comeback by putting on a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, he must also deal with Sam (Stone), his daughter who is recovering from drug addiction. The movie not only earned Stone’s first-ever Oscar nomination, but also ended up triumphing in the Academy Awards’s coveted Best Picture and Best Director categories.

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Stone officially became an Oscar winner with her irresistible performance as aspiring actress Mia in La La Land. While making her way through Hollywood, Mia meets and falls in love with Sebastian (played by the equally irresistible Ryan Gosling), a pianist with dreams of one day opening his own jazz club. In total, the film received 14 Oscar nominations and 6 Oscar wins—including Stone’s victory in the Best Actress category.

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The Favourite was the first movie Stone completed with Lanthimos, marking the start of what would be a fruitful working relationship. In this 18th-century English period drama, Stone plays Abigail, an ambitious young woman looking to rise the ranks in Queen Anne’s (Olivia Colman) court. To do so, she must supplant Sarah (Rachel Weisz), her older cousin who serves as Anne’s advisor, confidante, and secret lover.

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Lanthimos’s second film with Stone took an experimental turn with Poor Things. Set in Victorian-era London, the genre-defying story begins with scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) reviving the corpse of a pregnant woman who died by suicide by replacing her brain with that of her fetus. Now named Bella Baxter, the woman embraces an unorthodox lifestyle, freed from societal convention and expectations. Poor Things earned Stone her second Best Actress Oscar, making her a two-time Oscar winner.

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