10 Best Hayley Atwell Movies And TV Shows, Ranked

After over five years of work, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt can finally be laid to rest (for now) with the release of "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning." As long as the path to producing and releasing this unbelievable two-part finale was for Cruise and the franchise's longtime writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, it was, in some ways, an even longer journey for co-star Hayley Atwell.

Atwell has had a more subtle career compared to other blockbuster action stars of her kind, who also owe much of their mainstream success to the boom of the superhero genre and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in particular. She's come a long way from being one of Steve Rogers' support-players at SHIELD in "Captain America: The First Avenger.

In "The Final Reckoning," she plays the mysterious Grace, an enigmatic thief who challenges Ethan more than any of his other allies, and she will also play a key role in the upcoming "Avengers: Doomsday" back at Marvel Studios. While readers are surely familiar with her work in various franchise projects, they're only one part of a body of work that contains several compelling performances you may not be aware of.

Here are the best Hayley Atwell movies and TV shows to seek out. 

If there's one thing we can say to the credit of Walt Disney Studios' "Christopher Robin," it's that the 2018 film is certainly one of the more creative live-action appropriations of Disney's animated classics. At its best, it's a compelling re-contextualization of the "Winnie-the-Pooh" stories and characters in a more mature and complex environment (straining against the limits of maturity and complexity that the House of Mouse will allow, of course). At its worst, "Christopher Robin" is a surface-level glance at nostalgia that tries to bottle and sell it rather than wrestle with its broader implications on adulthood.

Ewan McGregor stars as an adult Christopher Robin, now a "serious businessman™" who has no time for his family — including his wife Evelyn, played by Hayley Atwell. Sadly, Atwell's role is given the bare minimum to be considered three-dimensional in the script — a job, vague personal ambitions, etc. — but her performance does most of the heavy lifting. Even as the story twists her to best support the simple arc of her husband (a sort-of proto-Ebenezer Scrooge who needs the magic of his old pals to remember some things are more important than money), Atwell walks Evelyn on solid ground, reinforcing that she has found an equilibrium between work and life that Christopher must as well.

For how important her character seemed in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning," Hayley Atwell doesn't really have much to do in its climactic sequel, "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning." The second half of the two-part "Mission: Impossible" finale, the film brings Atwell's Grace back as a core member of Ethan Hunt's (Tom Cruise) rogue team of IMF agents, who are now fighting against the clock to catch criminal mastermind Gabriel (Esai Morales), take down the omniscient artificial intelligence known as the Entity, and avert global nuclear destruction by the hands of paranoid, AI-manipulated world leaders. The stakes have never been higher for Ethan. Foror Grace, she's... also there, and she's definitely invested in saving the world, for reasons we'll surely — oh, never mind, Tom Cruise unbuckled that guy from the plane, the movie's over.

Grace's proximity to Ethan and his team turns out to be the character's greatest narrative weakness, as the script forgets what to do with her beyond having her take orders and, occasionally, gently challenge Ethan's assumption that the Entity should be destroyed. The fact that she's a supporting player isn't a bad thing in and of itself. After all, she serves a similar role to Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and the rest of the supporting ensemble in a film that is mostly a monument to Cruise (and his admittedly impressive achievement of carrying this franchise for nearly three decades through sheer force of will alone).

The issue is that she's not just a supporting member of the team but Ethan's new fixation, an asexual romantic platonic love interest who's maybe just a friend he really respects, so much so that the film places too much weight on their flimsy and confusing relationship. "The Final Reckoning" is an exhilarating mess from top to bottom, and Atwell valiantly tries to make Grace an emotionally tangible human being in the sequel — but she can only do so much with a script that's so deliberately vague about what her deeper motivations are.

Like many of Netflix's animated TV efforts, Guillermo del Toro's "Tales of Arcadia" is hard to sell, despite how solidly it achieves its ambitious narrative goals. On the one hand, the world created by del Toro and his collaborators is vast, well-reasoned, and engaging, and the stories they tell within this world are surprisingly complex for the child audience they're meant for. On the other hand, run-of-the-mill 3D animation often fails to do any of its best qualities justice, nor does it provide anything visually to connect with fans of the medium.

"3Below" is unfortunately part of this trend — a great story brought down by poor rendering. This series follows a trio of royal aliens who escape to the town of Arcadia Oaks, California after a coup upsets their homeworld. "She-Hulk" lead Tatiana Maslany and "Andor" star Diego Luna play Aja and Krel, the former princess and prince of Akiridion-5, now in hiding on Earth under the protection of their royal bodyguard (Nick Offerman). Hayley Atwell has a major supporting role as Zadra, a loyalist to Aja and Krel's family who follows them to Earth and joins their mission. Her performance is exactly what the show requires, committed, grounded, taking the material seriously regardless of the target audience, similar to her work on the Marvel Studios series "What If...?" Sadly, "3Below" only ran for 2 seasons, reaching a satisfying but uneven conclusion in 2019. Atwell did not return for the "Tales of Arcadia" crossover film "Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans."

Predictably, a few of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe made the cut for this list. Since 2011, Hayley Atwell has regularly appeared in numerous MCU films and television shows as Peggy Carter, one of the founding members of SHIELD who helped Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) become Captain America back in World War II. Marvel Studios has pulled every trick in the book to justify bringing Atwell back as Peggy since, one the strangest — but admittedly coolest — being the invention of Captain Carter.

Originally developed for "What If...?," Captain Carter is a version of Peggy who was injected with the super soldier serum instead of Steve, turning her into a superwoman out of time. Atwell, having voiced this character for the Disney+ series, played a live-action version of this variant in the serviceably entertaining "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." Though audiences and Atwell herself may be frustrated by how little she has to do before she's cut in half by her own shield (the film is quietly Marvel's most gruesome flick), her superhero debut is no less memorable. It helps that Atwell gave this version of Peggy a little extra edge, further distinguishing her from her Earth-616 counterpart.

Even in what appears to be a golden age of video game adaptations on television (thanks in large part to "The Last of Us," "Arcane," and "Fallout"), we still had to hold our breath when Netflix announced they were unearthing "Tomb Raider" for their next video game project. Lara Croft hasn't exactly had the best history outside of a console or computer, and not even the reveal that Hayley Atwell would be voicing her was enough to fully settle our nerves. But when we saw footage of the then-upcoming series "Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft" at Netflix's animation presentation in 2024, we were absolutely blown away.

Creator-showrunner Tasha Huo and Powerhouse Animation Studios used the freedom of the medium to render the world of "Tomb Raider" in a more striking way than we've ever seen in live action. The story also smartly falls in line with what appears to be working best for video game adaptations right now: Rather than trying to recreate a story from the games or tell a standalone story that merely pulls in whatever aesthetic elements the studio approves of, the story of "The Legend of Lara Croft" actually takes place within the game's fictional universe (set between the events of the 2013 "Tomb Raider" prequel-reboot game and the original 1996 game). This allows the series to feel more impactful and immersive for gamers specifically, who have come to desire more than simple on-screen transposition. As for Atwell's role in the series, her work as Lara is expectedly excellent, and it's her best voice performance to date (albeit by a small margin).

When "Agent Carter" was first announced, it was a bit of a head-scratcher. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's efforts on television had yielded decent-enough results thus far, but the key selling-point of their series — like Marvel's "Agents of SHIELD" — was that they would directly tie into the events of the MCU in real time. What could "Agent Carter" — a series following a character from the 1940s who died at 90-something in "The Winter Soldier" — be but a parade of easter eggs referencing future events in the MCU? Enter soon-to-be franchise-defining writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writers responsible for the scripts to the entire "Captain America" trilogy, as well as "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame."

What they do so well as the developers of "Agent Carter" is what they proved themselves superior at within Marvel Studios: taking the outlandish world and characters of this franchise seriously. More than any other Marvel writers, they are able to find a balance between the expected sense of humor of these stories with the sincere drama they demand. Thus, "Agent Carter" looks its inherent premise square in the eye rather than hand-waving it away with a joke. 

What would it be like for a woman to assume a powerful position within the ranks of America's most elite, secret military force? They smartly portray the constraints and conflicts Hayley Atwell's Carter experiences both through the sexism she fights in society and at work and through a more literally conflicting parallel plotline which sees her acting as a rogue agent to save Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper). "Agent Carter" was cancelled after only two seasons, though Atwell has stated in the past that she'd like to return for more.

If you're a fan of Hayley Atwell and-or British period dramas, you simply have to seek out "Howard's End." Adapted by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan from the early 20th-century E. M. Forster novel (which was famously already adapted into one of the best British films of the last 25 years), this 2017 miniseries stars Atwell as Margaret Schlegel, an idealistic middle-class woman who is defined by her openness and kindness to others. This earns her the friendship of Ruth Wilcox (Julia Ormond), the wealthy steward of an estate known as Howard's End — though it also earns her the suspicion of the rest of the Wilcox family, most especially Ruth's husband Henry ("Succession" and "Pride and Prejudice" star Matthew MacFadyen).

When Ruth passes away unexpectedly, the fallout leads to intense drama between Margaret, Henry, and their respective families, as heightened emotions bring about sudden alliances, romances, and betrayals. "Stranger Things" alum and future "Fantastic Four" star Joseph Quinn also features in the series (Atwell and Quinn will notably both appear in "Avengers: Doomsday), as does Jonah Hauer-King (the live-action "The Little Mermaid") and Rosalind Eleazar ("Slow Horses"). In this stacked ensemble, Atwell holds focus and carries a significant portion of the story on her shoulders, playign Margaret as a character who is as kind as the script compels her to be without making her seem one-dimensional or naive. She further contributes to the vibrancy this cast brings to what could easily be a passable but muted British drama, which elevates "Howard's End" above its peers.

"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning" is essentially Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" with its head screwed on just a bit tighter, the narrative brain more fluidly capable of controlling the various parts that make the "Mission: Impossible" franchise at large so great. The only drawback it has relative to its successor is that it's clearly a "Part One" type of film (despite the studio's tireless campaign to make people forget it literally had to drop the "Part One" part of its title in the immediate aftermath of its underwhelming performance at the worldwide box office). But even though it ends on a major cliffhanger figuratively and literally — as in, the final action sequence of the film has a train actually hanging from a cliff — it's satisfying enough that "Dead Reckoning" feels more like a movie on its own than you'd expect.

In terms of Hayley Atwell's role in the film, Grace is also better utilized in "Dead Reckoning." Her debut in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise comes about when Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) hires her to steal the cruciform key, leading to her eventual handcuffing to Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt in a spectacular car chase. Rising as close as possible to Cruise's own insane standards for his death-defying performances in the series, Atwell did all of her own stunts in "Dead Reckoning."

The sequel is a wonderful opportunity to see her play a role entirely opposite to Peggy Carter — one more overtly selfish and occasionally, slightly villainous — in a movie that is thrilling, daring, and surprising overall. It's somewhat disappointing that she can't help but feel like a swap-in for Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust (who is murdered unceremoniously early in the story and forgotten thereafter), but we won't hold that against Atwell's otherwise razor-sharp turn.

"Black Mirror" (Charlie Brooker's dystopian tech-anthology series, which has released seven seasons on Netflix) often explores how smart phones, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies impact our most intimate relationships. But rarely if ever has its explorations been as expansive or as focused on the human parts of those relationships than in the season 2 premiere episode "Be Right Back." 

Hayley Atwell stars as Martha, a young artist who drives herself and her boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) to their new home on a cross country road trip, only for Ash to die the following day in a car accident. In the direct aftermath, Martha is gifted an AI that ostensibly has the personality, memory, and, eventually, body of Ash, which she then uses to resume their relationship as if his death never happened.

It's a deeply tragic episode which, as many commentators have talked about already, explores not just how technology can make relationships feel more distant, but how important imperfections are in any relationship independent of technology's impact. However, there's a darker, but no less fascinating read of the episode that commonly gets overlooked — its exploration of our need to see people as perfect after they've gone from our lives. 

When Atwell's Martha is presented with a copy of Ash devoid of flaws (of which there were plenty, most notably that he's become so absorbed in his phone he basically doesn't live in the real world — an oblivious state that very likely cost him his life), she's ultimately so repulsed that she locks the android away and only allows "him" to return to "life" on weekends so that their daughter can "meet" her "father." It's almost as though Ash's return has forced her to symbolically, posthumously divorce him, an act that, though she would likely never imagine or admit to imagining in grief, is one she may have taken had he survived longer. This level of complexity and nuance is what makes "Be Right Back" one of the best episodes of "Black Mirror" overall.

For our number one pick, there could really be no choice but "Captain America: The First Avenger." Marvel Cinematic Universe films have a tricky legacy now, in the wake of the middling Phases 4, 5, and 6, but this only clouds just how spectacular Cap's debut was, especially back in 2011. It also shot Atwell's star into a constellation of franchises almost instantly, eventually leading her career to where it is today.

Before the Marvel origin story movies had worn out their welcome at the cinemas, "The First Avenger" tweaked the formula established by Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" just enough to produce something truly unique. The story is a blend of now-classic superhero tropes — the use of super-science and advanced tech/gadgets, iconic costumes, and a scrawny kid with a big heart who turns into a hulking superman overnight — and those of a World War II movie. The result is a grounded-enough sci-fi action-adventure film that doesn't sacrifice the fantastical elements of Captain America's comic book origin story. 

Atwell debuts in the film as Peggy Carter, playing opposite Chris Evans' Steve Rogers. From the start, any audience member who understands even subconsciously the conventions of the superhero genre knows that Rogers will "get the girl" in the end. But Atwell plays Peggy with so much independent motivation and determination that it never feels predetermined within the story. She's not following Steve around because she likes him, and if he were to refuse to join the effort against Hydra and the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), she would go on without him without a second thought. She is the most engaging of Marvel's love interests, which is likely why she's been revived and reimagined so many times over the years. Both for its quality and how it showcases her talent, "Captain America: The First Avenger" is the best Hayley Atwell movie yet.