10 Best Florence Pugh Movies & TV Shows, Ranked

The modern era of Hollywood only has a handful of true movie stars. The definition of the role has changed fundamentally over the years as the studio system morphed and shifted, and as a result, the amount of undeniably bankable stars the studios actually want to invest in has dwindled. But in the small handful that still remains, Florence Pugh shines as one of the brightest and best movie stars we have today.

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She is absolutely fearless in front of the camera, and her taste in roles supports her obvious drive to find the most exciting and challenging ways to build her craft. Though her career has been, realistically, quite short so far, Pugh has already established herself as a risk-taker, and because of that, audiences are excited to show up when she makes the choice to lend her skills to a project. Honestly, she’s rarely in something that doesn’t deserve high praise. 

So without further ado, ere are Florence Pugh’s 10 best movies and TV shows, ranked.

Zach Braff’s fourth film, 2023’s “A Good Person,” was pretty divisive among critics, but most audiences seemed to actually really like the drama. In fact, the one thing most people, critics and moviegoers alike, could agree on is that Pugh nailed her role as an aspiring musician named Allison who accidentally kills her future sister-in-law and her husband in a car accident while driving home after her engagement party. As a result, she becomes addicted to Oxycontin and later, begins to write songs in recovery (an element Braff used from Pugh’s real life as inspiration, as she is also a singer and performs the songs herself in the movie). 

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Despite the few bumps in the road when it comes to the script and direction of this film, there’s no denying that Pugh absolutely steals the show with a powerhouse performance that is bound to make anyone with a soul crack and crumble under the weight of Allison’s reality. It feels truly unimaginable to endure circumstances that upending, but Pugh’s performance makes the horrors of it feel hauntingly real, and in turn, it elevates the film as a whole to a project worth seeing.

Pugh hasn’t done much television over the course of her career, but when she does, she brings her particular sense of naturalism with her. She very much did this on the 2018 BBC One series “The Little Drummer Girl,” an espionage drama about a young actress (Pugh) who is recruited to infiltrate a Palestinian group fighting for their rights through dissent in Europe in 1979. 

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It’s a little known fact, despite how obviously easily accessible this information is, that Park Chan-Wook directed all six episodes of this miniseries, so you know the filmmaking is going to be top notch just from that detail alone. After all, this is the man behind “Oldboy” and “The Handmaiden” we’re talking about. With his slick style on display and a skilled cast consisting of not just Pugh but also Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgård, Park Chan-Wook crafts a story just as compelling as any of his enticing films. But Pugh’s pitch perfect craftiness in the role really makes the show worth watching.

Stephen Merchant’s 2019 sports biopic “Fighting With My Family” is a ton of fun, but with Pugh at the center of it all, that’s be expected. The movie follows a young English woman named Saraya who, alongside her brother Zak, aspires to become a professional wrestler working in the WWE. Throughout this adaptation of the true story, Saraya’s career soars, but her brother’s flounders. 

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Merchant’s directing is particularly pleasing in this film, imbuing the project with a real sense of heart from both his treatment on the page and the generous and witty way he goes about telling this story. But Pugh’s performance is the real light in this project. She comes to this unconventional role — how many times does one get to play a pro wrestler? — with the kind of verve needed to make not just a fun time, but something truly emotionally charged and memorable out of this lighthearted feel-good movie. 

You already know how good Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is. You’ve read the reviews, and you’ve seen how it absolutely dominated the 2024 Oscars (seven wins, in fact). But it’s hard not to think about Pugh’s stirring performance in the film when you look back on its brilliance. The film follows J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his conflicted existence as the inventor of the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Pugh’s role as Oppenheimer’s headstrong mistress Jean Tatlock is crucial to the story, especially as it exists in direct opposition to what appears to be weakness from his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt). 

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Pugh’s skill at shaping a woman who is full of conviction and strength but ultimately is not strong enough to wrestle Oppenheimer’s demons is a major part of the foundation on which the lead character’s emotional core rests. It’s a crucial role that says a lot — without saying it in it the dialogue per se — about Oppeneheimer’s mental conflicts and his difficulties in overcoming them. Part of Pugh’s undeniable hard work in the film is her ability to seamlessly transition out of the story and hand over the relationship’s hardest work to Kitty, especially when it comes to one particularly tragic moment during Oppenheimer’s lengthy government trials that is going to be, frankly, forever memorable.

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Sebastián Leilo’s 2022 film “The Wonder” is, well, something of a wonder, particularly because of Pugh’s involvement. The movie follows an English nurse (Played by Pugh) who is sent to an Irish village after the Great Famine to observe a young girl who appears to be fasting indefinitely, though the girl herself claims she can survive without food. 

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It is very much a story of faith and surrender, and Pugh’s turn as a witness shackled by both logic and mystery anchors the story in a sense of true wonder and curiosity, which is crucial for things to play out as they do. Pugh finds power in the delicate balance of being an outside observer and an active questioning believer, and as a result, her character feels like one we believe can take on such an existential dilemma — whether or not she is, in reality, ready for it. She is the heart and soul of this film, and without her, it may not have worked quite as well as it did.

Pugh’s 2022 was not really marked by her performance in “The Wonder,” however. It was more defined by her role in Olivia Wilde’s sophomore feature “Don’t Worry Darling,” which premiered to a stir of drama in Venice that year. The funny thing about all that ruckus is that Pugh’s electric performance really surpasses all need for it. The film follows Pugh’s Alice, a 1960s housewife living the life with her perfect husband (Harry Styles) in an idyllic desert community in California. Quickly, she starts to realize that all is not as it seems there, and that sets her onto a tumultuous path of dark discovery. 

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Pugh is undoubtedly the core of this film, with the audience being able to suspend their disbelief for this story almost solely because of the strength of her performance. In fact, her most disturbing scene in the film (one that makes a big impression about halfway through the film) is a true testament to willingness to push herself in service of the work, no matter how terrifying that might be both for the character and herself as an actress. Her work is truly the glue that keeps this somewhat fantastical, somewhat heavy-handed parable from falling apart at the seams — which makes the strength of her capabilities that much more apparent. Plus, despite all its flaws, this movie is a ton of fun.

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Sure, Pugh really stands out in fun roles, but one could definitely argue she’s even better known for the roles that absolutely crush us. The heartbreaking 2024 romantic drama “We Live In Time” is definitely one of those, to the point where director John Crowley called her performance a “heat-seeking missile.” Pugh stars as Almut, a former figure skater turned chef who meets a man named Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and spends a decade in and out of love with him. 

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Using the conventions of a nonlinear narrative to their advantage, Crowley and writer Nick Payne craft a truly tragic tale of unconditional love that Pugh’s talents fit so beautifully into. This is the kind of role Pugh was born to play, though one could say that about so many of her wonderful parts. But she really does blossom on screen when she taps into her raw emotions and finds something beautiful in the tragedy. This film certainly isn’t the first time Pugh did just that, but it might just be the most effective.

Out of all the “Little Women” movie adaptations, Greta Gerwig’s 2019 retelling is perhaps the most universally beloved reimagination of the classic. There’s really no denying that, over five years on, there is still so much to love about this movie. In a film with wall-to-wall memorable performances that stick out beautifully in the pantheon of modern filmmaking, there is Pugh, doing some of her most memorable work as Amy March, the youngest and perhaps most heartbreaking of the March sisters — and definitely the one who has garnered the worst rep throughout history. 

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“Little Women” follows four sisters living in Massachusetts during the 19th century and how each of them follow a different path in their lives but remain tethered by their familial bond. Pugh’s command over Amy’s yearning to escape the shadow of her sisters is much of what drives the somewhat silent conflict between her and her second eldest sister Jo (Saoirse Ronan). Ronan contributes equally to the power of the push and pull between them, as does Timothée Chalamet as family friend Laurie, who becomes entangled with them both, but there’s something about Pugh’s imperfect innocence in this one that really makes the whole story feel so lived in and true. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role, and it’s really not hard to see why.

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Here’s one she should’ve been nominated for… you know, if the Oscars gave horror some respect more often than it has. Ari Aster’s 2019 sophomore feature “Midsommar” is perhaps Pugh’s most recognizable movie at this point. But there’s certainly a reason why horror fans love it, and, spoiler alert, that reason is her. Sure, the movie has killer production design, stunning cinematography, an excellent supporting cast, and a pretty diabolically wonderful script. But Pugh’s performance couldn’t be more engaging and relatable, and that’s the main reason why audiences are still coming back to this movie time and time again. 

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The film follows Pugh’s Dani, a young woman in emotional turmoil after both her parents and sister die. In an attempt to heal, she takes a trip to a seemingly benign cult compound in Sweden with her boyfriend and his college buddies, but many of the cracks in her life start to become too treacherous to ignore as a sinister plot underscores the decay. 

Simply put, Pugh sold the outlandish terrors the film offered in enticing technicolor and grounded them in real unbridled emotional terror, giving Aster the foundation he needed to make horror out of a not-so-scary real life festival. Her capacity for grief in this film is an utter masterclass for actors and she makes some of the most difficult things about performance — namely, her ability to pour her emotions out for all to see like she was simply opening the handle on a sink — look easy. This is the film that made her the star she is today and it makes sense that a film as good as her would put her on the map.

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Though a 2014 drama called “The Falling” is technically Pugh’s feature film debut, her lore, so to speak, deems the 2016 period thriller “Lady Macbeth” as her true first foray onto the scene. Maybe it’s because the film is truly excellent in all aspects, including story, script, production design, score, performance, and more. Or maybe it’s because the film feels worthy of her immense talents, and it’s somewhat cosmically prepared to show them off at full tilt so early in her career. This is a mammoth of a role for such a young performer — Pugh was around 19 years old at the time of filming — and she devours it with such confidence. 

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The movie follows a young woman named Katherine (Pugh), who feels so stifled in her loveless marriage to a much older man (Paul Hilton) that she runs into the arms of a stable boy (Cosmo Jarvis) and undergoes a dark transformation of the soul. Though it took a few more years for Pugh to fully become a name to watch in the mainstream, it’s clear just in this performance that she was on a path to generational recognition as an actress, something she very much has gone on to receive. “Lady Macbeth” is absolutely unmissable, both if you like excellent movies and if you like Florence Pugh. In fact, if there’s only one movie of her filmography you seek out, it should be this one. It’s that good. Solana Token Creator