Every Jennifer Lawrence Performance, Ranked
With her ability to oscillate between several big-budget franchise films and indie offerings, never loosing her charm or compelling magnetism, it’s no wonder Jennifer Lawrence became the darling of Hollywood in the 2010s. Lawrence’s willingness to bring 110% to a role and then disarm reporters and interviewers with a relatable personality and absurd humor won her as many fans as it did detractors. By the halfway point of the last decade, much of the public had begun to rally against the JLaw cultural saturation. And too bad for them, because that’s exactly when Lawrence began to put out her best films to date.
After taking a break from the industry for a few years to relax (and maybe to let us all recognize just how much we need her), Jennifer Lawrence will return to film later this year in the highly-anticipated and even more highly-under-wraps Don’t Look Up, the new film from Adam McKay about two astronomers who go on a media tour to warn the people of Earth that a giant meteor is headed toward us. But before Lawrence joins Don’t Look Up’s all-star cast, we decided to watch and rank every Jennifer Lawrence film to date — taking into consideration both her performance and the films overall quality — to see which ones should be revisited before Lawrence makes her grand return.
23. The Devil You Know (2013)
I hope Jennifer Lawrence was paid somewhat handsomely for her 15 seconds of screentime in this film that was shot in 2005 and shelved until after Lawrence won her Oscar in 2012. Rosamund Pike’s career is certainly beyond storied. Oh, the tales she could tell…
22. Garden Party (2008)
Set your stopwatch and get ready to clock it: Jennifer Lawrence is only in Garden Party for a cool 90 seconds. In that time, she asks two questions and does some very poor cigarette acting. But we’ve all got to start somewhere! Unfortunately, this watered-down indie “drama” (if you can call a movie where nothing remotely interesting happens a “drama”) about the perils of youth in Los Angeles isn’t even worth revisiting for the novelty of seeing Lawrence’s first actual role.
21. X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
X-Men: Dark Phoenix closes the chapter on a consistently good, always watchable iteration of the X-Men franchise with horribly disappointing finality. Everybody was phoning it in here, including Lawrence. It feels criminal that this is how the saga had to end but doesn’t it always happen this way? What long-running comic book franchise ever goes out on a high note?
20. The Burning Plain (2008)
What a coincidence that until about halfway through this film, I thought the title was “The Burning Pain,” since that’s what it felt like watching it. The film’s nonlinear plotline isn’t necessarily hard to follow, but god is it beyond dull! If your film stars both Jennifer Lawrence and Charlize Theron and it’s this monotonous, you should have to reimburse every person that paid to watch it $100, a dollar for each minute wasted.
19. Serena (2014)
Serena is proof that chemistry is as much reliant on those behind the camera as it is on the actors in front of it. Though Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper had a near inextinguishable flame in Silver Linings Playbook, the spark dwindled to nothing but a flicker in Serena, the tale of a woman who sets out to murder the mistress of her adulterous husband. With a horribly drab, laughable screenplay and a pair of highly-disappointing performances from two extremely talented leads, Serena is a train wreck of pure confusion. It’s not entirely worthless, there’s some gorgeous period costuming and the occasional frame of captivating cinematography, but ultimately, you’re better off spending a couple hours with another Serena: Blake Lively’s character in Gossip Girl, a role Lively beat out Jennifer Lawrence for back in 2007.
18. The Poker House (2008)
Jennifer Lawrence’s first starring role is a semi-autobiographical dramatization of director Lori Petty’s teenage years in rural Iowa taking care of her sisters while dealing with a whole host of problems due to her absent father and addict mother. Simply put, it’s a melodrama always veering on Lifetime network status — never quite dipping into the laughable but certainly never carrying enough weight to make it remotely memorable (though a few scenes could prove very triggering to some viewers). In spite of all the murky themes and poor writing, Lawrence’s superstar quality is still unmistakable. She’s remarkably magnetic, delivering a performance that actually has some teeth and is enough to keep the film from falling apart entirely. Even through thematic histrionics and a schmaltzy epilogue, The Poker House makes it clear that Lawrence was destined to be the next big thing.
17. House at the End of the Street (2012)
Campaign to bring back the mid-budget, horribly-written horror! We need more of these pieces of flaming trash! Jennifer Lawrence stars as Elissa, a girl moving into a house that is not at the end of the street, so already we know that continuity and sense are not going to be this film’s strong point. When Elissa meets a neighbor boy whose parents were murdered a few years prior by the boy’s sister, Elissa befriends him and starts to fall for him, feeling sorry for him as he’s now hated by the whole town — something that makes a ton of sense, as whole entire towns often rally against vulnerable young people whose parents were murdered. But as horrific events begin to unfold, Elissa will learn that the only thing that’s certain on this street? Is that everyone wears tank tops. The costume supervisor for this film threw an extra 0 onto an Amazon order of 10 tank tops and suddenly everyone had to be in a tank top. There was a Great American Tank Top Shortage after this film was made!
16. The Beaver (2011)
I don’t feel I owe it to anyone to spend too much time on The Beaver, a film where Mel Gibson plays a man whose marriage is falling apart and becomes so depressed that he begins trying to scrape together what’s left of his life by only talking through a beaver puppet. I don’t owe Mel Gibson or this movie that much! What I will say is that this film is competently made, adequately acted, and satisfactorily directed by Jodie Foster. However, you can literally spend your time doing anything else and watching any other movie that doesn’t star a truly horrible person. And I definitely don’t mean Jennifer Lawrence here!
15. Passengers (2016)
Passengers bungles what could be a fascinating concept on out of touch ideas about love, attraction, and consent for no other reason than to put two superstar white people at the height of their popularity together in outer space (and to swindle thousands of unassuming holiday weekend moviegoers out of millions of dollars). If that seems harsh, well, Passengers deserves it. Casting two charismatic leads does not make a compelling film, and just because a film has terrific set design doesn’t mean that it’s particularly fun to watch either. This film is a colossal misfire on all accounts — so tiresome that when the characters aboard a spacecraft realize they must decide whether to live or die with dignity, you’ll find yourself just wishing they’d get clobbered by a meteor to shave a few minutes off the runtime.
14. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
It’s hard to shake the feeling that X-Men: Apocalypse is considerably less fun and imaginative than the two installments of X-Men franchise reboots that preceded it. By the third film in a series of comic book movies, the cast has got to start convincing the audience that they really want to be there, and not that they showed up simply because of a contractual obligation. That sense of excitement is only mildly present, weighed down by a clunkier screenplay and effects that don’t dazzle as much as they used to. While Lawrence is as fun and watchable as ever as Mystique/Raven, you can almost see the exhaustion in her eyes from filming two completely different franchise films at the same time — a sensation that dimmed the shine from the final two Hunger Games films as well.
13. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 (2015)
Why the hell did they make Katniss Everdeen wear eyeliner to battle? Hollywood, give me one good reason! The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 suffers from its studio’s decision to put money over story. Mockingjay didn’t necessarily need to be split into two films. An extended, singular third part would have sufficed nicely, but the Harry Potters and Twilights of the industry unfortunately had already set the standard. While Part 2 provides a satisfying (if bitter) conclusion to Katniss’ story, it never hits all of the emotional marks it could’ve as the franchise’s big closer. Lawrence is giving Katniss her all, but anyone can tell that the entire cast wishes they could’ve been somewhere else. Because that’s the thing: money is nice, but a satisfying conclusion to a beloved series that has rewatch value for years to come? That’s what’s priceless. And unfortunately, unlike its heroine, Mockingjay — Part 2 just never hits its mark.
12. Joy (2015)
Lawrence’s third film with David O. Russell can never quite match either the charm of Silver Linings Playbook or the stylish excitement of American Hustle, and in fact, it’s ironically devoid of much joy at all. Though it’s buoyed by an (almost) always-fantastic performance from Jennifer Lawrence, Russell weaves the narrative at the center of Joy so poorly that, at times, it’s hard to remember exactly who or what this film is about. Joy tells the story of Joy Mangano, an entrepreneurial powerhouse who created the self-wringing Miracle Mop. With such a captivating character at the heart of the film, it’s disappointing when you can feel Russell relying on his star to tell the story for him, an unfortunate mistake that too many writer/directors make when writing biopics. I walked out of Joy in 2015 unsure of exactly what I’d just seen or how it was supposed to make me feel, and I felt that way again watching it now. This film has no idea what it wants to be or do — it’s all show and no tell, a cardinal sin in both Shopping Network programming and cinema.
11. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 (2014)
A step apart from the traditional structure of the first two books and films, Mockingjay — Part 1 finds Katniss stepping into her new role as the face of a massive underground rebellion, with Lawrence bringing an effectively haunted, hardened energy to her character. While that certainly makes for an effective story, Mockingjay — Part 1 still feels like it’s missing some of the charm and fire of the franchise’s previous two installments. The film’s saving grace is the new characters and battles with so much more at stake that they amplify the third installment of The Hunger Games films beyond the standard sequel-of-a-sequel fare.
10. Like Crazy (2011)
Honestly? They don’t make ’em like this anymore! Like Crazy is the kind of extremely tender modern love story that yes, may feel a little overwrought with sappy, straight people romantic dynamics, but it always manages to bound beyond the indie film conventions it plays with into truly special, resonant territory. Jennifer Lawrence only has a small role among a wonderful cast, but it’s an important one nonetheless in the film’s saga of a relationship between two people, separated by an ocean, who can’t seem to stay apart even when their love can’t survive the distance. Like Crazy exceeds the expectations of the indie romance to become a truly memorable, lovely little film filled to the brim with true emotion.
9. The Hunger Games (2012)
The Hunger Games hit at the exact perfect time. 2012 was the height of digital fandom culture, and there was no film more anticipated post-Twilight saga than the first film adapted from Suzanne Collins’ beloved trilogy of dystopian YA novels. The first novel and film is about a girl who volunteers for an annual fight to the death competition that supposedly keeps the peace among post-apocalyptic North America, divided into 12 districts. A good portion of the first Hunger Games film is heavily dedicated to exposition, filling in viewers who hadn’t read the books on the series’ mythology. While those details are necessary, they make the rest of the film’s plot feel cursory. Before we know it, the cast is whisked away to the Games. The film does feel equally as tense as the books, but Jennifer Lawrence’s performance — as well as those of her castmates — feels a bit hollow and phoned in, even if that energy does reflect Katniss Everdeen’s state of mind during the whirlwind of this heavily traumatic process. The Hunger Games provides stable footing for the rest of the series to build on, but removed from the moment it had upon its release, it ultimately feels far less exciting than other first installments of major page-to-screen adaptations. Still, it is responsible for catapulting Jennifer Lawrence into the household name echelon, so there’s merit to be found between the frames.
8. Winter’s Bone (2010)
Both critics, general audiences, and JLaw fans seem to love Winter’s Bone. It is, after all, the film that garnered Jennifer Lawrence her first Oscar nomination. But I’m truly sorry to say the appeal has always been somewhat lost on me. I love a slow-burning, mysterious family drama as much as the next person, but the two times I tried to watch this over a decade ago, I fell asleep — this time I came close, though I managed to dig my claws into my leg hard enough to stay awake. There’s certainly a lot to appreciate here: Winter’s Bone is a masterclass in both atmosphere and acting. The bone-deep chill of a winter spent in the woods floats through the screen with sharpness and Lawrence’s performance is just as effectively cold. As Ree Dolly, a girl who sets out to find her absent father to convince him to appear in court and save their family’s home, Lawrence plays another teenage daughter who must take care of her whole family, this time with far less cringe-worthy melodrama than that of The Poker House. But in the end, it just feels like it doesn’t add up to much. With so much that does work — and works so well — Winter’s Bone ultimately just feels too unexplored, and too meaningless. I want more from these characters, but all they offer up are facades as hardened as the cold winter earth.
7. X-Men: First Class (2011)
For someone that knows next to nothing about the X-Men franchise, I wholeheartedly still enjoyed my introduction into JLaw’s part of this universe with X-Men: First Class. This is an insanely fun film with a stacked cast that flies by with the simplicity of any expertly-made, stylish comic book film. Leave it to Jennifer Lawrence to turn Mystique from a male-gazey, early 2000s cerulean fetish object into a well-rounded, nuanced mutant that audiences can root for from the film’s first few moments. X-Men: First Class is the ideal first step for anyone looking to jump into the franchise, especially any JLaw fan who would have zero inclination to start without her.
6. American Hustle (2013)
By 2013’s standards, American Hustle felt like a bit of an exciting revelation: a uniquely stylish take on the hedonism of the 70s that felt very much like a glimpse back in time, gold lamé and tight curls abound. Today, it wears its age with a little less of the hazy Soul Train filter that makes everything look more impressive than it truly is. Still, American Hustle is as deliciously fun as collapsing in your sunken-in living room after a night at Studio 54. Led by an all-star cast of Lawrence, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, and Bradley Cooper, the film balances its heavy-hitters with a light script filled with silly mafia tropes and Jersey-isms. Lawrence’s performance is particularly memorable, especially her “Live and Let Die” scene—American Hustle is a film that allows Jennifer Lawrence to let her hair down and have some fun, even though her blonde bouffant stays coiffed at all times.
5. The Hunter Games: Catching Fire (2013)
The second installment in the Hunger Games film quadrilogy builds on its predecessor thanks to The Two Lawrences: Francis and Jennifer (no relation). The former provides deft direction and remarkable transitions and the latter gives a far more lived-in performance as Katniss Everdeen, thrust into a new set of Games while still battling with PTSD from the first round and the ensuing acts of rebellion that got her out alive. After Katniss unknowingly sets into motion a windfall of underground political rebellion, she becomes the poster child for civil unrest, making her an enemy of the state and a hero to the downtrodden of Panem. Unburdened by too much world-building, Catching Fire is free to explore its fascinating themes and let Jennifer Lawrence have space within her character without having to prove herself to fans. It’s the best and most effective of all four Hunger Games films.
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
It has all the fun, fast-paced excitement and energy of X-Men: First Class plus an added bonus: time travel! With mutants reprising their roles and old friends of the franchise back to find their footing in this new series of installments, Days of Future Past proves that with the right ingredients, a good X-Men film has the all the potential to beat out any other comic book franchise.
3. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Similarly to American Hustle, Jennifer Lawrence’s first film with David. O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook, wears its age with a bit more cringe. Its depictions of bipolar disorder are controversial among critics and experts, and its place in history as the Tumblr-favorite film of Holiday 2012 would be enough to make anyone with discerning taste feel a little off-put. However, there’s still a great movie and an effective screenplay at the heart of Silver Linings Playbook. There are things that are deeply wrong with this film: Bradley Cooper’s character being the central focus doesn’t allow for exploration of Lawrence’s, thereby letting her arc feel woefully underwritten and almost cruelly unexplored, especially for a film that seems to think so highly of itself for being willing to discuss mental illness. Lawrence’s character’s disorder also goes entirely unnamed, neither character seeks any kind of therapeutic assistance that they clearly need, and both characters repeatedly manipulate and gaslight each other in unhealthy ways. Not exactly an accurate portrayal of what it’s really like to live with mental illness! Still, with so much whip-smart writing and so many truly remarkably rich decisions from Lawrence that won her an Oscar for the role, Silver Linings Playbook is hard to ignore, especially when its climactic sequence is so damned impossible not to love. Maybe if it were made today, this would be a film that could stand the test of time, but Silver Linings Playbook isn’t too bad for a rainy day slice of 2012 nostalgia.
2. Red Sparrow (2018)
Come for a sleek, relatively-taught but still slightly overlong Russian spy thriller, stay for Jennifer Lawrence saying, “You sent me to whore school” in a thick Russian accent. Red Sparrow is a sexy, suspenseful action movie led by a transcendent performance from Jennifer Lawrence, who, at this stage in her filmography, feels like she regained the lightness she had when she rose to fame. Red Sparrow may not be perfect, but it feels as sleek and cold-blooded as the ruthless killers at its heart, just as any good spy movie should.
1. mother! (2017)
When I saw mother! in theaters in 2017, I was one of five people in the theater. By the time the credits rolled, I was one of two — the other being the friend I came with. It seems hard to believe that prior to its release, mother! was one of the most anticipated films of the fall. It was poised to be Darren Aronofsky’s return to his signature directorial insanity, and in many ways, it was: mother! is a claustrophobic, anxious, high-tension, despicably evil film that left me short of breath and with a distinct crawl in my skin. But those extremities are not exactly crowdpleasers. The film was received lukewarmly by critics and panned by audiences, receiving the not-so-coveted but always surprising “F” rating on Cinemascore. So why, oh why does it rank at the top of this list? Because of Jennifer Lawrence. If The Academy had any gumption, they’d recognize that mother! is quite simply Lawrence’s finest work to date. As the pregnant wife of a beloved poet, Lawrence’s character (nameless in the film but simply billed as “mother”) is filled with the joy of having attained her dream life, dream home, and dream husband. That is, until two mysterious strangers knock on their door and slowly begin to unleash a hellish bedlam upon the couple. What unfolds is nothing short of jaw-dropping — and I don’t just mean thematically. Jennifer Lawrence chews through each and every scene with a vibrating, rageful fervor. You can sense each and every single emotion as they ripple through her. Lawrence is in every scene of this film, there’s nary a moment she’s out of frame for more than a second. mother! may be graphic, overly allegorical, and often a little narcissistic for its own good, but my god is it a knockout, gut-punch, nausea-inducing film — one that has only grown more appropriate for our times as the years drag on. To witness mother! is to willingly ask to have an entire unforgettably tense, full-body experience at the movies. I don’t know what else you could ask for.
