Anya Taylor-Joy's 10 Best Roles Ranked, Including Furiosa
Ready, steady, go! But be warned, this article contains spoilers for "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga."
Long before 2015's "Mad Max: Fury Road" and its particular brand of vehicular mayhem peeled into theaters, promptly changing the action genre forever, director and mastermind George Miller had already mapped out an origin story for what would turn out to be the blockbuster's scene-stealing star: Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa. It only took the better part of a decade to finally see that vision realized on the big screen with this year's utterly epic "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," but the lengthy hiatus wasn't the biggest obstacle standing in Miller's way. Since the prequel was always meant to depict the earlier years of Furiosa's life, a new actor would have to face the daunting — if not impossible — challenge of stepping into Theron's shoes.
Who else among this current crop of performers could've proven themselves worthier of the task than Anya Taylor-Joy? Critics and audiences alike have heaped such high praise on her ever since her feature-film debut in 2015 and, in fact, those plaudits have only grown louder with each subsequent performance. Whether it be co-leading an M. Night Shyamalan thriller, starring in a buzzy Jane Austen adaptation, or heading into the wasteland as the darkest of angels, there's seemingly nothing the actor can't do.
It's in that spirit of celebration that we're looking back on Taylor-Joy's 10 biggest and best roles, "Furiosa" included, to rank them the only way we know how: logically, scientifically, and, above all else, objectively correct. Witness us!
10. Peaky Blinders
It's one thing to jump board a moving train as formidable as "Peaky Blinders" five seasons in, well after it became a runaway sensation and already established a cast of characters that viewers either love or love to hate. It's quite another to do so specifically as a Lady Macbeth-like figure practically designed to infuriate the fanbase, doing all she can to tear the central Shelby family apart — all while holding her own against the likes of the recent Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy. Taylor-Joy's Gina Gray steadily grew in prominence and narrative import throughout 11 total episodes over the final two seasons as the lover (and eventual ex-wife) of Tommy Shelby's cousin, Michael Gray (Finn Cole).
Generously described as rich, spoiled, and harboring grand ambitions of power at the expense of the Shelby clan, the shrewd and scheming character likely wouldn't win any popularity contests among devotees, but that only makes Taylor-Joy's performance all the more impressive. Not just anyone could make the absolute most of her screen time and deliver an unforgettable "Peaky Blinders" antagonist comparable to ones played by Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine, Sam Neill, Adrien Brody, and, ironically, fellow "Mad Max" alum Tom Hardy. Though perhaps fated to be considered more of a "minor" effort when it's all said and done (which is less a slight on her "Peaky Blinders" role as it is a compliment on her competitive body of work), her performance as Gina Gray is a more than worthy inclusion in this list. And while her schedule's filled up considerably, she may or may not return to reprise her role in the planned spin-off film.
8. The Northman
Different roles demand wildly different things from performers, and there's perhaps no more difficult character to play than one meant to represent a symbol, theme, or idea. Look no further than Anya Taylor-Joy in "The Northman."
Reuniting with director Robert Eggers after "The Witch" almost certainly brought a measure of comfort to both artists, but very little else about the experience could be considered a walk in the park for the actor. Exposed to the harsh environments of Northern Ireland throughout a punishing, miserable shoot, Taylor-Joy's Olga wears her pain and discomfort on her sleeve at every turn. Alternately kidnapped, enslaved, and abandoned, Olga's brutal life of being put through such an emotional wringer allowed Taylor-Joy to access a more broad and slightly arch style of acting than other movies or shows had afforded her. It's to her credit that this approach only adds greater depth to a character who, admittedly, feels a little flat otherwise.
As a foil to the vengeance-consumed warrior Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård), Olga embodies an alternate way of life for the Viking prince; an escape hatch from this life of violence and despair. This doesn't offer her much in the way of interiority, but Taylor-Joy brings it out of her through body language, fiery line deliveries, and a penetrating gaze — all with an ease that belies just how unconventional the role really is.
9. The Menu
It was the movie that united both Film Twitter (or "X," if you follow rules) aficionados and "normies" alike in late 2022, giving mainstream audiences a taste (see what I did there?) of something a little more unpredictable and ambiguous than they may otherwise have been accustomed to. Boosted by film festival hype and positive word of mouth, "The Menu" turned into a solid performer at the box office despite its off-putting, black-comedy vibes. While there are many reasons as to why that happened, a not-insignificant amount of that success can undoubtedly be chalked up to the top billing of Anya Taylor-Joy.
It should be obvious by now that one of the actor's most skilled talents derives from her immense range, and her role in "The Menu" offers up every possible flavor (heh) for a star to make a full meal out of. (Don't worry, I'm stopping now). Ostensibly a co-lead alongside Nicholas Hoult's buffoonish foodie Tyler, Taylor-Joy's Margot offers up a perfectly complementary presence as a much more worldly, cynical, and downright resourceful figure — one who's well prepared for the violence and madness that the unsuspecting visitors to Chef Slowik's (Ralph Fiennes) private island are about to experience. Initially bemused by Tyler's pathetic fanboying over the famous chef and by the galling extravagance on display, Margot's mood soon sours into something closer to disbelief and then outright shock by the time things turn truly unhinged. Once guests start dying, Taylor-Joy summons up every ounce of steeliness to convincingly portray someone whose survival instincts feel directly at odds with her own austere, almost aristocratic looks.
7. The Queen's Gambit
There's a certain irony in delivering a breakout, movie-star performance in ... a Netflix streaming series, of all things. For a career trajectory that has thus far defied conventionality — most lists of this ilk would inevitably include an actor's superhero movie gig, but let's just say there's a reason we're pretending "The New Mutants" never happened — that turn of events is somehow perfectly fitting for someone of Anya Taylor-Joy's caliber. Though certainly a known quantity from appearances in a host of great movies that will arrive further down in this article, most general audiences were introduced to the young talent through the record-setting performance of "The Queen's Gambit." Cast as troubled chess prodigy Beth Harmon, Taylor-Joy left quite an impression on millions of viewers.
In retrospect, the potential for "The Queen's Gambit" officially landing Taylor-Joy on the map for good is easy to see. Written as a brilliant individual with a host of character flaws and vices that plague her for much of the story, Emmy voters ought to have been frothing at the mouth to hand over the trophy for Outstanding Lead Actress. Still, the Emmy-nominated performance is more than compelling enough to transcend mere awards trappings. Consistently paired with eminently talented screen partners such as Moses Ingram, Marielle Heller, Harry Melling, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster, the miniseries oftentimes resembles a theater camp tournament with multiple actors vying for the crown of best scene-stealing performance. That real-life competition mirrors the show's own central focus, which only put Taylor-Joy's work in "The Queen's Gambit" on another level entirely.
6. Last Night in Soho
Few agents would ever advise their up-and-coming talent to take on complicated, unlikable, and antagonistic roles — and certainly not one that could be pegged in certain circles as problematic. At this point in her career ambitions, however, Anya Taylor-Joy has been entirely free to throw conventional wisdom out the window and pursue the most fascinating projects by the most visionary filmmakers around. That's exactly what she did with Edgar Wright's dark, giallo-inspired thriller "Last Night in Soho." Both a marked departure from Wright's usual storytelling mode and Taylor-Joy's carefully manicured image as a budding star, the character of Sandie represented a bold step into the unknown — and the results, while somewhat mixed, prove that this move absolutely worth the risk.
Taylor-Joy might not have been everyone's first pick for an aspiring singer and star living in 1960s Soho, despite the surface-level similarities to the actor carving her own unique path through Hollywood. The film takes a darker turn as the protagonist Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) becomes more and more infatuated with this dreamlike, nostalgic glimpse into the past. Ellie's wide-eyed idealism takes a disturbing hit as she watches Sandie's aspirations turn to dust. Objectified, dismissed, and taken advantage of by the predatory men surrounding her, Sandie's arc is ultimately a tragic one ... and that's before the late-act reveal that she's responsible for the murders of several men who raped her during her unwilling stint as a sex worker.
That's ... quite a lot of complexity and discomfort for a popular actor to throw at the average Joe, but Taylor-Joy handles herself without a trace of self-consciousness. This was a boundary-pushing performance in every sense of the phrase.
5. Emma.
You want to talk about guts? That's exactly what it takes to join a production of a famous Jane Austen story that counted no less an icon than Gwyneth Paltrow as the lead of the last well-received adaptation (not to mention Kate Beckinsale in a TV movie of the same name and even Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless"). You'd have to search high and low to find fans who didn't feel strongly about how "Emma." ought to be depicted on the big screen, but luckily director Autumn de Wilde, writer Eleanor Catton, and lead Anya Taylor-Joy turned out to be the ideal dream team to bring the classic novel to life all over again. Emma Woodhouse is a young, wealthy socialite who possesses an unfortunate penchant for meddling in the personal lives of everyone in her immediate orbit. She's the ultimate poster child for a privileged white woman in the idyllic setting of Regency-Era England, yet Austen's magic act lies in taking an unbearable personality and somehow managing to wring sympathy and understanding out of readers.
Much the same remains true in the 2020 film, where Taylor-Joy's Emma all but tortures poor Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) without ever truly understanding the consequences of her own actions. Manipulative, capricious, and utterly ruthless when it comes to getting what she wants, the young heroine required an utterly idiosyncratic performer to bring her to life with all her flaws, blind spots, and innate emotional truth intact. And, look, we're not above marveling at the fact that the actor somehow managed to make her nose bleed on command during a particularly heightened moment in the movie.
Literally bleeding for your art? That's a movie star, folks.
4. Thoroughbreds
In a movie where one co-lead is an emotionless loner with a mental illness and the other is a popular upper-class student who puts her friend in an ethical quagmire, it feels funny to focus on the much less flashy character of the two. Cory Finley's "Thoroughbreds" stars Olivia Cooke as the maladjusted sociopath Amanda and Anya Taylor-Joy as her friend Lily, a pair of former childhood friends who end up reconnecting years later. Forced to socialize together in an effort to help Amanda become a functional member of society, the two instead wind up scheming about murdering Lily's deadbeat stepfather who causes her no end of grief. Make no mistake, Cooke may never have been better than in this film, bringing all sorts of quiet menace and subdued energy to a total blank slate of a character. But it's Taylor-Joy who matches her co-star every step of the way and imbues Lily with the precisely-honed desperation that motivates her to embark on a dark path that ultimately ends in murder.
The 2017 film arrived early on in Taylor-Joy's ascent, making it all the more noteworthy that Finley saw that special "something" in the actor that convinced him she was the right one for the job. The result speaks for itself, giving us a performance that's slightly raw and unsettled ... but, above all, finely honed to meet the script right in the middle ground of its murky moral territory. By far the most underseen film on this list, fans owe it to themselves to fill in this gap and check out one of the most fascinating entries in Taylor-Joy's filmography.
3. Split
I'm starting to sense a trend here. Anya Taylor-Joy seems to gravitate towards movies with a more classic and old-school bend to them, from "The Northman" and its epic Hamlet-inspired story to "Last Night in Soho" as an homage to Italian psychodrama to M. Night Shyamalan's "Split," which functions as a send-up to the types of B-movie horror schlock that would run on late-night cable long after you were supposed to be in bed. Here, Taylor-Joy gets the opportunity to put her own spin on the time-honored final girl role. And in a movie filled to the brim with extreme close-ups, off-kilter tonal changes, and some seriously controversial subject matter, the actor makes use of every single one of her strengths to elevate the story.
In fact, she acquits herself as if she were an experienced veteran ten years her senior. Shyamalan didn't just have her play the character of Casey Cooke saddled with a horrific backstory of sexual abuse, a zoned-out state of depression and trauma, and designed a premise in which she intentionally has little to no agency at any given time. No, the biggest challenge in this movie was pulling all this off opposite the great James McAvoy putting on one of his greatest performances ever as the Disassociate Identity Disorder-suffering amalgamation of a dozen different character personalities. Audiences sometimes take it for granted when a performer manages to hold their own (and then some) against an all-time talent, but Taylor-Joy practically commands the screen in every one of her scenes.
In a movie that ultimately revealed itself to involve superheroes and supervillains, none stood taller than her.
2. The Witch
Call it a star is born. Few actors have enjoyed as universally celebrated a coming-out party as Anya Taylor-Joy in "The Witch," the Robert Eggers horror flick that served as her feature film debut. Initially positioned as a supporting character caught up in a larger ensemble piece, Taylor-Joy's Thomasin eventually takes the spotlight as the eldest daughter of a Puritan family unit that's barely held together by a thread. Movies mainly centered on religious dogma can sometimes veer into outright caricature, a fatal flaw that can cut actors off at the knees, but Eggers keeps his hands firmly on the wheel and guides his cast — made up of Taylor-Joy's Thomasin, Ralph Ineson's family patriarch William, Kate Dickie's longsuffering mother and wife Katherine, Harvey Scrimshaw's younger brother Caleb, and Ellie Grainger as Mercy and Lucas Dawson as Jonas — to performances ranging from understated to explosive.
As Thomasin, Taylor-Joy resides in the grey area caught between these two extremes, first bringing a sense of warmth to an emotionally chilly story set in the New England winter before switching gears entirely by the supernatural-heavy climax. Cast out of their close-knit, God-fearing community and forced to survive on their own, the family manages well enough ... until Thomasin loses her infant sibling and invites a malevolent presence onto their land. As the tightly-drawn story progresses, the lack of any real jump scares or in-your-face spectacle invites viewers to lean in and appreciate the little details all the more. Taylor-Joy's descent into frenzied mania as her own family turns on her in suspicion that she's the eponymous witch is nothing short of revelatory, announcing the arrival of a can't-miss, generational talent. It's to her lasting credit that Taylor-Joy has lived up to all her potential from this debut — and more.
1. Furiosa
What a lovely day! Call it recency bias or just the inevitable hype of the shiny (and chrome) new thing, but consider "The Witch" to be officially dethroned. Long counted by many as Anya Taylor-Joy's finest moment, her big break has finally met its match and there's perhaps nothing more fitting about the victor. Director George Miller's epic prequel "Furiosa" is earning rave reviews alongside a few guarded responses, but one thing everyone can agree on is that the title character has rarely been better. Stepping in for an actor as esteemed as Charlize Theron was always going to be an uphill battle, but Taylor-Joy does what all great recastings do and makes it entirely her own. Action fans remember every detail that "Fury Road" first established about the character back in 2015, and "Furiosa" takes this knowledge and weaponizes it — both to our benefit, and that of Taylor-Joy.
What's most impressive of all might be how well Taylor-Joy thrives in the scope and scale of this adventure. Unlike "Fury Road," which played out over the course of just a few short days in the wasteland and allowed Theron to play mostly one note (and played incredibly well, mind you), "Furiosa" takes a more sweeping and Odysseus-like approach to the famed Imperator's early years after being taken from the Green Place. Alternating between hopelessness, rage, and cool-headed ass-kicking, all spread out over the course of several years, the star doesn't miss a single beat in reimagining the unforgettable hero in a way that no other actor possibly could. At some point, viewers find that they've gone from watching Taylor-Joy as Furiosa to simply Furiosa herself. There's perhaps no greater compliment for a starring vehicle than that.