The 15 Best Jessica Chastain Movies, Ranked

Annabel (Jessica Chastain) never dreamed of being a mother, but she's thrust into an unexpected maternal role in Andy Muschietti's "Mama." Chastain's character, who dons a preposterous wig, is dating Jeffrey (Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau), whose nieces went missing five years prior. The kids are finally discovered in a remote cabin in deplorable conditions and are brought into the custody of Jeffrey and Annabel. While the couple tries to make life normal for the two young girls, their strange behavior includes constantly referring to a mysterious unseen entity they call Mama.

For fans of Muschiett's "It" films, you'll definitely find something to love in "Mama," which uses a lot of similar techniques that are found in that Stephen King duology. While there are some noticeable logical leaps when it comes to the mythology of the Mama entity, the film is dripping with atmosphere and provides a lot of scares. It's fun to see Chastain play something so different, and she pulls off the gothy rocker type with remarkable success.

"The Help" marked Jessica Chastain's first and most successful collaboration with director Tate Taylor (the second, "Ava," is an unfortunate dud). The film follows Skeeter (Emma Stone) in the 1960s who — upon returning to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi — decides to write a book about the experiences of African American maids. The twist? The story will be told from their own points of view. Chastain has a strong supporting role as Celia, a woman who masks her immense sadness with a happy-go-lucky attitude. Chastain sparkles, and the film landed her very first Oscar nomination.

It's not a badly made film, but it is a cloying one, and it makes the unfortunate decision of serving a white savior narrative. There's a fascinating story at the center of "The Help" that focuses on the lives of Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer), two of the maids living in Jackson. Instead, it filters their lives through the eyes (and pen) of Skeeter, a white woman who wants to make a difference. It's a tired and disappointing cliché to take the lives of people of color and filter them through a white lens, and that's something that "The Help" leans into heavily. Thanks to a stellar cast (there's a ton of Oscar-winning talent in the lineup), "The Help" manages to entertain and tell an interesting story but if the film took a greater interest in Aibileen and Minny's lives it could have been a great deal more impactful.

The film that landed Jessica Chastain a coveted Oscar (which allowed her to deliver a rather beautiful speech), "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" finds the actress undergoing a considerable transformation (thanks to some Oscar-winning hair and makeup). Chastain embodies Tammy Faye Bakker, who alongside her husband Jim (Andrew Garfield) became hugely successful televangelists, dominating airwaves with their preaching while building an enormous empire of lavish properties and outfits. When there's a meteoric rise, there's also a crushing fall, which is all detailed in the film.

There's no denying that Tammy Faye is important to a lot of LGBT+ people, as she preached acceptance and love to people with AIDS when those around her preached the exact opposite. Still, the film paints Tammy Faye as completely innocent and ignores the fact that she played a significant part in swindling her believers out of millions of dollars while she padded her own wallet. That's no fault of Chastain's performance, which is effective, committed, and all-around excellent, but the screenplay is muddled. It's a bit strange as to why this film was made at all, as it heavily borrows from the 2000 documentary of the same name. "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" feels like a film that is built as a showcase for a terrific actress (and in that regard it works), but it can't help but feel a bit hollow.

With the backdrop of the especially turbulent  1981 in New York City (hence the title), "A Most Violent Year" is an incisive exploration of an immigrant business owner. Abel (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) run an oil heating company, which brings them moderate success. In a brutally violent city, they find that their attempts to expand their business are met with considerable threats to their employees, and their drivers are regularly attacked while making deliveries or have their trucks hijacked. The ferocity of Abel and Anna's competitors force the couple to take extreme measures to protect their business and their family.

Chastain captures the searing rage of Anna, who ultimately proves to be a great deal more ruthless than Abel is capable of being. Unfortunately, one of the film's bigger drawbacks is that there's not much more to Anna, who feels like her sole purpose is to drive Abel further into darkness and egg him on. There's a lot of richness to Abel's character, which makes it all the more disappointing that the same care hasn't been put into Anna. That said, it's a striking film that's filled with chilly period detail thanks to the lens of Bradford Young, and it more than earns its shocking cynicism that permeates throughout.

Ridley Scott's stunning sci-fi film "The Martian" finds Matt Damon sciencing "the sh*t out of this" as he attempts to survive on Mars for years on his own. With his food supplies lasting a couple of months at most, he'll have to grow his own produce in a landscape where it is notoriously impossible to create any. Meanwhile, back on Earth, a group of leading scientists at NASA, including mission commander and geologist Melissa Lewis, struggle to figure out a way to bring the stranded astronaut back to Earth. 

While "The Martian" is a certified sci-fi standout, it doesn't really feel like a Jessica Chastain film, as Damon is far and away the most dominant presence. That makes perfect sense, as the film centers around the fact that Damon's character is literally stranded in space alone. You'd almost be forgiven for forgetting Chastain (or indeed anyone else) is in the film, even though the cast is uniformly strong throughout. If you have forgotten what a strong presence Chastain has in the film, it's definitely worth revisiting "The Martian," as she excels in a role she's come to perfect over the years: a fiercely driven, results-oriented woman.

It's the end of the world as we know it ... or is it? Curtis (Michael Shannon) is haunted time and time again by dreams of the world ending. He can't even be at peace in consciousness, as when he's awake he's barraged by frightening hallucinations. Though it all has a severe impact on his well-being, Curtis decides to keep it to himself in an effort to shield his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and their daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart). Curtis' personal demons get harder and harder to mask, so he begins to build a storm shelter in their backyard.

"Take Shelter" is a spellbinding slow burn about the perils of mental illness and masculinity. Curtis' complete obsession with building a shelter consumes his entire life, and it threatens to destroy the stable foundations he's worked so hard to develop. Shannon is revelatory in this quiet yet profound role as a man whose life is slowly unraveling ... or does he just see something that nobody else can? Chastain is a perfect counterpart to Shannon as a wife with a strong sense of values determined to keep her family together, even as it seems increasingly impossible to do so. Jeff Nichols' film casts a hypnotic spell, and the movie's outstanding ending will ensure "Take Shelter" stays with you for a long time.

With planet Earth becoming increasingly uninhabitable, mankind is getting desperate. There's a plan from NASA physicist Profesor Brand (Michael Caine) to transport the planet's population through a wormhole. This is a risky option for sure, but there isn't really any other choice. Before sending through the entire planet, they'll have to send a trial crew first, and that's where Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) comes in. Along with a team of astronauts and scientists, Cooper embarks on a quest through the wormhole to try and find a place that the people of earth can inhabit. The film spans an immense amount of space and time. Jessica Chastain plays Murph, Cooper's daughter, who herself becomes a NASA scientist who's determined to follow in the footsteps of her father and try to save humanity.

"Interstellar" is indebted to the great space exploration films, particularly "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris." Nolan's film would certainly benefit from a little less exposition and simply allow its audience to lean into the exemplary visual splendor. That said, Nolan's exquisite epic is able to stand on its own as a vital piece of science fiction filmmaking, and it's that special kind of film that makes you really consider the extraordinary thing that is being alive.

A master director meets a master actress in "Zero Dark Thirty." Kathryn Bigelow, best known for being the Oscar-winning director for "The Hurt Locker," followed up her triumph with "Zero Dark Thirty," teaming up again with screenwriter Mark Boal. The film follows Maya, who leads a multi-year mission to hunt down Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. The incredibly complicated hunt for the Al-Qaeda leader reaches its climax in a tour-de-force sequence that shows the storming of a compound, a breathless and faithful scene that takes over 30-minutes and stands as a concrete reminder that few have a handle on action like Bigelow.

Not only is "Zero Dark Thirty" Chastain's best film, but also set the tone for the kind of character she would come to embody. Maya is fiercely devoted to her work, to the extent that she has absolutely nothing else that matters to her, confirmed by the devastating ending. She's played similar variations in movies like "Miss Sloane," "Molly's Game," and "Ava." That's not to say she can't play other roles. In films like "Crimson Peak," "Mama" and "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby" she proves that she can excel in just about anything, but "Zero Dark Thirty" gives Chastain the opportunity to showcase an extraordinarily ferocious character who commands a room with her words and presence. Though thankfully Chastain has an Oscar now, if there's a film she deserved it for more that is certainly "Zero Dark Thirty."