Just over a decade ago, no one could have guessed that Emma Stone, the young Arizona-born starlet who had a reputation for playing quippy high schoolers, would become a Hollywood heavyweight and the first double Oscar winner of her generation, scoring her first statuette for her fleet-footed turn in La La Land and the second for the unrivalled powerhouse performance she delivers in Poor Things. But then again, revisit her earliest work now and you’ll see that all of her hallmarks – that jaunty physicality, the expert comic timing, the utter fearlessness – have been there since the very beginning.
As she celebrates her seventh Oscar nomination, for Yorgos Lanthimos’s wacky sci-fi thriller Bugonia, we look back at the actor’s most memorable films and TV shows to date.
Superbad (2007)
Stone burst onto the scene at the age of 18, as the razor-sharp, darkly funny Jules, Jonah Hill’s love interest – who proves to be more than a match for him – in Greg Mottola’s raunchy buddy comedy. In a role which could’ve been entirely forgettable, she sparkled – and established herself as one to watch.
Easy A (2010)
That strut down the school hallway, the “sex” scene, the sequence where she sings “Pocketful of Sunshine” for an entire weekend – Will Gluck’s playful romp, loosely inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is a comedy masterclass, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Stone in the part of the zany, awkward and ultimately triumphant Olive Penderghast. This is the film which, rightfully, made her a star.
Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
In the first of Stone’s collaborations with her now frequent co-star Ryan Gosling, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s heartwarming rom-com, the pair’s chemistry is electric as they play a law school graduate and a pick-up artist who collide with hilarious consequences. It’s worth watching for that nod to Dirty Dancing alone.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Opposite Andrew Garfield’s web-slinging Peter Parker, Stone’s take on his first love, the whip-smart, honey blonde Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb’s action epic revitalised the franchise thanks to her usual snarky charm. Two years later, she returned to reprise the role for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Birdman (2014)
For her virtuosic portrayal of Sam – the troubled daughter of Michael Keaton’s Riggan Thomson, a recovering addict who is trying to stay on the straight and narrow – in Alejandro G Iñárritu’s breathless, Broadway-set black comedy, Stone earned her first Oscar nomination. Her impassioned monologue about her father’s irrelevance – and particularly the silence which follows it, in which her face transforms from rage to regret in seconds – remains one of her most powerful pieces of acting.
La La Land (2016)
As the wide-eyed aspiring actor Mia in Damien Chazelle’s sweeping, starry-eyed musical, Stone was enchanting, mastering her tap dances and waltzes with Ryan Gosling while also slowly drawing out her character’s anguish as her career stagnates and her relationship threatens to fall apart. It’s subtle, layered and heartfelt – and won her a Best Actress Oscar.
Battle of the Sexes (2017)
With a dark choppy shag, fake tan and gold-rimmed glasses, Stone transformed into tennis legend Billie Jean King for Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton’s reimagining of her momentous 1973 match against chauvinist and former world number one Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), a game which shaped the future of women’s tennis. She’s as dynamic on the court as she is when taking him to task in the press conferences.
The Favourite (2018)
When she first arrives at the madcap court of Queen Anne (a childlike, badger-eyed Olivia Colman) in Yorgos Lanthimos’s gloriously twisted period drama, Stone’s Abigail Hill is a seemingly naive and penniless cousin of the sophisticated Lady Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). Witnessing her rise to the very top via endless scheming, poisonings and sexual favours performed for the monarch is a total thrill, and the actor – by turns perfectly angelic and then deliciously cruel – is excellent throughout, netting her third Oscar nod.
Cruella (2021)
The monochromatic hair, the blood-red lip, that terrifying glint in her eye – in Craig Gillespie’s supervillain origin story, Stone takes on the mantle from Glenn Close’s glamorous, cackling Cruella de Vil, revealing the scrappy, punk rock underdog who preceded her. An orphan who becomes a grifter out of necessity, she dreams of being a fashion designer, and when given the chance by a frosty couturier (Emma Thompson), discovers that she holds the key to her tragic past. Cue utter carnage, to which Stone commits wholeheartedly.
The Curse (2023)
In Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s hilarious, absurdist, stomach-churning satire, Stone is mesmerising as Whitney Siegel, a soulless property developer eager to distinguish herself from her slumlord parents by gentrifying her New Mexico town under the guise of lifting up the local community. As she and her husband (Fielder) begin filming a reality show about their endeavours, it’s a truly wild ride and Stone is a knockout – demonstrating that, as she nears the second decade of her career, her work is only becoming more complex, thorny and exciting.
Poor Things (2023)
The ultimate proof of that, however, comes in Yorgos Lanthimos’s surreal, joyous and challenging coming-of-age epic following a straight-laced Victorian woman, Bella Baxter (Stone), who is resurrected with the brain of a baby and proceeds to escape the clutches of her guardian (Willem Dafoe) and embark on a rambunctious grand tour with a foppish rake (Mark Ruffalo). Mind-bogglingly detailed, wonderfully physical and completely fearless, it is easily the performance of her career so far, not to mention one of the best I’ve seen across the board in recent memory. No wonder then, that it secured her her second Best Actress Oscar in just seven years.
Bugonia (2025)
In her latest Yorgos Lanthimos-helmed mind-bender, Stone steals the show once again as the buzzword-spouting girl boss Michelle Fuller, who is kidnapped by Jesse Plemons’s bedraggled conspiracy theorist. Cue her head being shaved and white cream slathered all over her body – but, far from being a helpless victim, she’s probably the scariest thing on screen. Tough as nails, coldly calculating and ultimately invincible, she runs circles around her foes. And Stone, on bracing form, sinks her teeth into the part with glee.