Jessica Chastain Ranked

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 Jessica Chastain-whose latest project "Other Mommy" releases in theaters on Thursday. 

Jessica Chastain's Filmography Ranked:

22.The Tree of Life (F)

21.Interstellar (D+)

20.The Debt (C-)

19.Mother's Instinct (C-)

18.It: Chapter Two (C-)

17.Miss Sloane (C-)

16.The Zookeeper's Wife (C)

15.The Forgiven (B-)

14.Ava (B-)

13.The Eyes of Tammy Faye (B-)

12.Dark Phoenix (B)

11.The 355 (B)

10.The Good Nurse (B)

9.Armageddon Time (B)

8.Zero Dark Thirty (B)

7.The Help (B)

6.A Most Violent Year (B)

5.Lawless (B+)

4.The Martian (B+)

3.Crimson Peak (B+)

2.Take Shelter (B+)

1.Molly's Game (B+)

Top Dog: Molly's Game (2017)

Aaron Sorkin receives a lot of flak for the quality of his directorial output, and the volume of that discourse will surely get turned up again later this week when his latest feature The Social Reckoning inevitably fails to reach the heights of its spiritual predecessor The Social Network. While I would never argue his work as a director is on the level of his work as a writer, I do believe that he's good at the job and gets far more shit than he deserves. His debut behind the camera Molly's Game is an absorbing, energetic film that makes for a nice addition to his collection of strong legal dramas. Chastain is in top form as Molly Bloom-a former Olympic skier who made millions running high-stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York City until she got tied up in an FBI investigation that (flimsily) tied her to the Russian mob, the story does a really good job of painting Bloom as a woman who maintained her integrity in the face of tremendous pressure from powerful forces that were trying to intimidate her into accepting a fate that she didn't deserve without letting her off the hook for some of the bad decisions that put her in this precarious position  and the dialogue often crackles with the biting wit that you've come to expect from a Sorkin script.

Bottom Feeder: The Tree of Life (2011)

The Tree of Life will never be anything more than me a pretentious snoozefest masquerading as a profound meditation on life. Terrence Malick is great at capturing imagery that belongs on the pages of National Geographic, but when these beautiful nature images are paired with dry voiceovers from Sean Penn, random bursts of melodrama and a whole of lot scenes where characters are just staring into the abyss, these snapshots of Earth's beautiful landscapes suddenly become hideous monuments to one man's obnoxious love affair with his own artistry.

Most Underrated: Crimson Peak (2015)

At this stage of his career, Guillermo del Toro is no stranger to glowing praise. He's got a trophy case full of awards including 3 Oscars and damn near everything he's made over the past 25 years has been beloved. If there's anything that I personally feel he deserves more credit for, it's Crimson Peak. Sandwiched in between the commercially successful kaiju blockbuster Pacific Rim and Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, this gothic horror romance has managed to become a footnote in del Toro's filmography. While it's not quite as full of wonder or heart as his finest work, it's still a great movie filled with eerie haunted house atmospherics, lush visuals/production design and fun twists that add a dash of campy madness to an otherwise classical horror tale.

Most Overrated: Interstellar (2014)

Some asshole out there has to think that Interstellar sucks and that asshole is me. Christopher Nolan completely flounders in his attempt to make a sentimental ode to fatherhood with this laughably corny, overlong and dull sci-fi epic.