Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Natalie Portman whose latest project "Thor: Love and Thunder" is in theaters now.
Natalie Portman's Filmography Ranked:
20.Garden State (D+)
19.Brothers (C)
18.Your Highness (C+)
17.Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones (C+)
16.Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace (C+)
15.Thor: The Dark World (B)
14.Jane Got a Gun (B)
13.No Strings Attached (B)
12.Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith (B)
11.Hesher (B)
10.Mars Attacks! (B)
9.Thor (B)
8.Heat (B)
7.The Darjeeling Limited (B)
6.Thor: Love and Thunder (B+)
5.Annihilation (B+)
4.V for Vendetta (A-)
3.Jackie (A-)
2.Leon: The Professional (A-)
1.Black Swan (A)
Top Dog: Black Swan (2010)
Saying that Darren Aronofsky has gone through a "slump" recently is an overstatement, but Black Swan is definitely the last instance of him making a truly incredible film. This borderline perfect psychological thriller is an unsettling tale of obsession, delusion and lust in the name of art that is anchored by a career-best performance from Portman that is easily among the most astonishingly transformational pieces of acting I've ever seen.
Bottom Feeder: Garden State (2004)
Sundance has done so much good for the world of cinema by simply giving independent filmmakers a big stage to showcase their works on. In the past decade alone, the world might've never known the names Damien Chazelle, Ryan Coogler or Robert Eggers if their work wasn't shown in the hallowed mountains of Park City, Utah. On occasion, something like Garden State shows up on its lineup and I briefly discard just how cool and important this festival is and wish that it never happened again. Zach Braff's insufferable yawnfest launched a blueprint for shitty indie dramedies (inorganic quirk, smug characters that speak like they're being fed lines from an AI program whose only pop culture references are The Catcher in the Rye and Neutral Milk Hotel's discography, a level of melodramatic sentimentality that makes The Notebook looks restrained) that continues the haunt the community today and for this sin alone, I'll always get queasy when Braff's name is mentioned.
Most Underrated: Jackie (2016)
2016 was a very strong year for awards contenders with the likes of Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Hell or High Water, Hacksaw Ridge and Arrival having a heavy presence on Oscar night. While Portman was rightfully nominated for her exceptional turn as Jackie Kennedy, Jackie deserved to be recognized across the board like the aforementioned films were. Pablo Larrian made a powerful, riveting character study that focuses on Kennedy's life in the immediate aftermath of her husband's assassination as she has to navigate honoring his legacy in public while fighting her own grief, guilt and unresolved frustrations with him in private. Despite being not completely rooted in facts, it's an intimate look at the psyche and emotions of one of the 20th century's most endearing public figures and this approach has made Larrian the most interesting cinematic biographer working today.
Most Overrated: Heat (1995)
I considered Garden State here as well, but there's not very many people that view that as a true classic, so I chose to go with Heat. If Heat was just heist sequences, the diner scene between Robert de Niro and Al Pacino and moments where the devastating human cost of committing/fighting crime are fully on display (namely the final scene with Danny Trejo and de Niro and the hotel scene with Portman's character), it would be a raw, electric crime film that ranks among the greatest ever made. But since Michael Mann doesn't know when to rein it in, it's a needlessly drawn-out affair with questionable pacing, a contrived romantic subplot and an ending-which admittedly does feature a great final scene-that comes to pass because of a decision that directly violates de Niro's character's well-documented code to being a successful thief.
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