10 Best Jesse Eisenberg Performances, Ranked

Jesse Eisenberg can be seen as a meek and one-note performer to some, but he's actually a mighty asset in any appearance. The actor is, at this point in his career, a self-assured powerhouse who knows exactly how to make the parts he takes on not only work for him and his style but for the greater narrative at hand.

He's quirky, versatile, and deeply committed to the soul of each project he makes — and it's rare that dedication and skill isn't on full display in his work, even the films he's done over the years that overall aren't as great as others on his resume (yes, I'm saying he was even good in as Lex Luthor in "Batman vs. Superman," a role he previously said he would ham it up in again if given the chance). No matter the role or the film, he gives everything in service of his craft, and frankly, it's always a delight to watch him make each character he plays his own.

In fact, he goes a step further: Eisenberg truly embodies the characters he plays, taking his many performances from run-of-the-mill contributions to unforgettable and crucial vehicles for stories told well. To simplify it in sports terms, he's something of an MVP, and he's proven himself able to take on roles that the audience would never expect from him, which is definitely the mark of a truly transcendent actor.

With that in mind, here's the 10 best Jesse Eisenberg performances, ranked — and they're pretty damn good.

It's hard to be a supporting actor in a project. The task is difficult for a whole host of reasons, but mainly because you have to, well, support that leading performance in a way that showcases your own skills while also highlighting and bolstering the central character. It has and can go pretty wrong, or it can end up even worse: entirely forgettable. But for Eisenberg's turn as journalist David Lipsky in James Ponsoldt's 2015 David Foster Wallace biopic "End of the Tour," it was anything but wrong or forgettable. In fact, he nailed the essence of what it means to give an excellent supporting performance in this part.

As Lipsky, Eisenberg is perhaps the most humanistic he's ever been with another actor. His ability to connect with Jason Segel, who plays Wallace in an equally human way with a nearly awe-inspiring quiet force in his big dramatic debut, feels so genuine and true, like anyone might when they meet someone with whom they have an undeniable connection. 

This performance doesn't feel like acting. It just feels like living and experiencing life in all its perfection and imperfection. It feels like hanging onto every breath of someone's brilliance, something Lipsky so clearly did with Wallace that Eisenberg inhabits beautifully. Ultimately, it feels like watching the blossoming of a beautiful friendship, one that Eisenberg fosters with an innate generosity and grace. 

Eisenberg is so adept at helming dramas, but Lorcan Finnegan's bleak 2019 film "Vivarium" takes that to new heights. It's something of a science fiction story mixed with the trappings of horror and psychological thrillers, but ultimately, it's a crushing story that gives the actor all the room in the world to shine within the deep-seated darkness. The film follows a married couple who are forced to be parents to a mysterious child who shows up at their doorstep after moving into a neighborhood that more closely resembles an enclosed terrarium than a welcoming community — and the way Eisenberg takes on the stark dread of being a cog in a terrifying wheel is innately relatable. 

He disappears inside himself as the narrative presses on and the horrific realities of the situation, which he suffers through alongside costar Imogen Poots, for whom this is also a strong showing. In fact, this might just be one of the saddest performances in his roster, one that feels ripe for the label of "tragic hero" for all of his character's futile efforts to survive the maze-like hell he and his girlfriend were unfortunately destined to be trapped inside of.

The manosphere, as it's known to be called, is a terrifying new phenomenon worth exploring and interrogating until we as a society can snuff out the toxic hold it has on men in the modern era. Knowing the types of men who end up ensnared by its trappings, there might be a bunch of actors you'd be more likely to expect than Eisenberg to show up in a drama that follows a young and down-and-out man who ends up immersed in that world while trying to make ends meet for himself and his pregnant girlfriend. But this is a role where the actor proves he can play against type, quite brilliantly in fact.

Eisenberg pushes himself to what seems to an audience like exhausting emotional limits as Ralphie, a man fired from his job and resorting to whatever means necessary to stay afloat, in 2023's "Manodrome." It's not the kind of role he normally gets to play — especially when you look at the costume design for the character — and further still, he shows through his transcendent and powerful turn that it's not just "high value men" with ripped bodies, perfect smiles, and even more perfect lives who get tangled up in the nonsense this movement spews in an effort to blame women for men's struggles in life. 

There are several scenes in this film that will make you gasp with the weight of Eisenberg's performance, and it's hard not to see how his willingness to go all the way in his work is an asset to any story, no matter if he seems like the obvious choice or not.

This one's a doozy, and Eisenberg's performance here is just as dizzying as the film itself. Kelly Reichardt's 2013 criminally (no pun intended) underseen crime thriller "Night Moves" is a revolutionary film in the purest sense of the word: It intends to show its audience the realities of fighting for justice, whether that be for human beings or the environment they live in — and they aren't pretty. In fact, the weight of those realities seem to fall squarely on Eisenberg's shoulders as Josh, a man who teams up with two other radicals (played by Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard) to blow up a dam they believe is a threat to the ecosystem. 

You can feel the intensity and the pressure all over this film, the keen sense that everything might snap and break in an instant and all hell will break loose. Eisenberg's performance is the anchor in that feeling, which is intrinsic to the heart of this story and the story of all revolutionary and radical acts. And when it starts to do just that, snap and break and crumble in his hands, you feel helpless to watch what you know he must do in the aftermath. It's a haunting film cemented by his haunting lead performance that lays bare the complexities of human convictions.

Eisenberg, for all of the strength in his connections to invoking the naturalistic spirit of being human, is just so good at character acting. It's fun watching him take on something with a theatrical flare in his film projects (and he's great at actual stage work, too). Richard Ayoade's 2013 black comedy "The Double" is a great example of a film where Eisenberg gets to flex that wacky muscle in a way that feels in line with his strengths playing wacky, quirky men who have a hard time standing up for themselves or coming into their own — and where he really gets to be his own worst enemy in every sense of the word. 

The story is a film adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novella of the same name, which follows a man driven to madness by the unexpected presence of his doppelganger, and the mischievous nature of the source material is ripe within the film. The project, with Ayoade's sleek and smart directorial eye and Avi Korine's bitingly funny script, gave Eisenberg the perfect platform to play, allowing him to inhabit both a part that he seemed tailor made for (Simon James, the film's leading man) and one audience might not see him as easily in (James Simon, the confident and suave doppelganger). Yes, by this point in his career he was already well-versed in playing a—holes, but this might just be the first time audiences saw the striking charisma he could bring to those types of roles.

Eisenberg has a real talent for emotional resonance, both overt and subtle. He's great at playing his character's cards close to the chest, but letting it all burst out of the dam that is his heart and soul at the precise right moment. That impulse is on full display in the 2010 crime drama "Holy Rollers," which sees the actor as a young and impressionable Hasidic Jewish man who ends up entangled in the international drug trade as a smuggler. 

He's tender and gentle but absolutely haunted by the pressure his family and community have put on him — and that's certainly a ripe environment for the pot to boil over. And boil over it does, as the consequences of his actions become increasingly more clear to him despite his attempts to keep it all from crumbling. Personally, this might be one of my favorite Eisenberg performances, simply because you can feel how hard he's trying, and that he connects deeply with that aspect of his character. That's something an audience can really empathize with and see themselves in, no matter their religious background.

We're getting to the real meat of the list here. Noah Baumbach's divorce drama "The Squid and The Whale" is one of Eisenberg's first features, and it's probably the one that shows the most promise from his early days — and when I say the most promise, I mean a lot of it. He plays the elder son of Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels' imperfect and complicated characters, trying to make sense of how the world he and his younger brother (played hilariously by a very young Owen Kline) have grown to know is changing. The divorce of their parents affects both brothers in different ways, but the thing they have in common is the desire to act out and find themselves. 

Eisenberg found the beginnings of his skill in playing dismissive jerks here as he stumbles through trying to stay close to and impress his father, fumbles a burgeoning relationship with a girl he's interested in, and lies his way through a school talent show in which he takes credit for a very well known Pink Floyd song he plays and impresses the crowd with. It's a nuanced and subtle performance in the moments that really matter, and the film's final moments grip tight on your heart specifically because of the fractured evolution of the lost teen Eisenberg beautifully inhabits. The film is easily one of the best coming of age movies of modern times, and his turn is a major reason for that. 

Here lies perhaps the biggest feat of Eisenberg's career — yes, even more so than the final two entries left to go. In 2024's silent masterpiece "Sasquatch Sunset," writer-directors the Zellner Brothers ask a lot of Eisenberg and the rest of the cast (Riley Keough, Christophe Zajac-Denek, and Nathan Zellner, one of the directors) as they must all fully become a sasquatch, in every real sense of the word. Considering the actor's penchant for play, it's no surprise he absolutely nailed the request. 

The four actors who play the family of sasquatches all had to embody the mystical creatures in full suits and intense practical makeup, completely cease communicating as human beings would, and rely on primal noises and their physicality — as well as the soulful nature of communicating with the eyes — to shape a story of a year in the life of seemingly the last creatures of their kind. Ultimately, it becomes a delightfully profane and profound look at creatures that never existed. 

Eisenberg particularly shines here, taking the quiet and contemplative persona he inhabits so well and bringing it into the body of a gentle beta member of the sasquatch family. There's one scene in particular — that I specifically won't spoil because of its importance to the plot, as well as the impact of Eisenberg's performance — that he plays with such strength, grace, and sadness that it's impossible not to shed a tear, or several. Eisenberg's work doesn't need words to be deeply effective, and this wonderful heartbreaking film proves that.

For his sophomore feature as a writer and director, Eisenberg stepped into a role that fulfills the same important credo of being a supporting actor that his work in "End of the Tour" did, but even better. In his 2024 film "A Real Pain," he plays David, a neurotic yet put-together New York City man who reunites with his estranged eccentric cousin (played with gusto, charm, and excellence by Kieran Culkin) to go on a Holocaust tour in their native Poland, where long-neglected tensions resurface as they explore the dark history of their heritage. It's Culkin's show, no doubt, but it wouldn't be worth much of anything without Eisenberg's turn right beside him. He's truly supporting Culkin here, giving him the framework and the foundation (yes, as a writer but nearly more so as an actor) for his character to explore his personal struggles and crumble as they mount.

Eisenberg's character crumbles too — the scene where the tour group attends a candlelit dinner together and he reveals some truths about Culkin's Benji (a role that, funnily enough, Eric Andre turned down) is a tour de force of emotion — and his work in this project really highlights his emotional depth and humanity he can access not only on his own but when working with an actor who meets him where he's at.

The pièce de résistance of Eisenberg's work, 2010's "The Social Network," is something of a relic of its time. The discourse about director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin's film these days is all over the mark, and considering how much the world — let alone Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself — has changed, it makes sense to reassess the film with new eyes to meet the cultural moment. But one thing no one within the discourse is denying is Eisenberg's utterly masterful lead performance. (And thankfully, he isn't going to taint it — he turned down reprising his role in "The Social Network 2", which will be released in October 2026.)

He juggles Zuckerberg's tender insecurity and cocky conceited nature with precise and equal measure, keeping the audience on the razor's edge of the character's ever-changing whims and impulses. Yet, he stands firm in the root of Zuckerberg's emotional core: the notion that if he can do something great, he will finally be shown the love and respect he's always wanted. It's a flawed outlook, for sure, but it's one that builds a compelling narrative propulsion that Eisenberg is squarely responsible for. By the time the final scene hits, it's hard not to feel for him despite all of the hurt he's caused — and that's all on Eisenberg and his ability to show the character's humanity in all of his imperfections.