Florence Pugh 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 Florence Pugh-whose latest project "Thunderbolts*" releases today. 

Florence Pugh's Filmography Ranked:

12.Don't Worry Darling (C+)

11.Black Widow (B-)

10.The Wonder (B-)

9.Fighting with My Family (B)

8.The Commuter (B)

7.Oppenheimer (B)

6.Outlaw King (B)

5.We Live in Time (B)

4.Dune: Part Two (B)

3.Little Women (B)

2.Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (B+)

1.Midsommar (B+)

Top Dog: Midsommar (2019)

When we look back on the 2010's/2020's, it would be a shock if Midsommar didn't end up being regarded as one of the most influential horror movies of the period. Ari Aster is firing on all cylinders as he creates this unnerving exploration of cults, grief and the horrors of finally reckoning with a romantic relationship that has long eroded to the point of no return that slowly escalates in intensity until it finally explodes in the powerhouse finale and Pugh turns in an unreal performance by fully surrendering herself to the transformative, visceral nightmare of a journey her character goes on over the course of the film.      

Bottom Feeder: Don't Worry Darling (2022)

Don't Worry Darling isn't an awful movie, but it is a really aggravating one. All of the good shit (beautiful cinematography/production design, excellent performances from Pugh, Chris Pine and Olivia Wilde, a really eerie atmosphere) that keeps it at least somewhat engaging for most of its runtime is undone by a messy script from Katie Silberman that has a really hard time turning the sprawling mindfuck of a plot into something cohesive, an idiotic final act plot twist that bares a stunning resemblance to a similarly shitty one from an early M Night Shyamalan film and worst of all, electing to cast Harry Styles in a pivotal role that required a blend of charisma, desperation and menace that he simply does not possess as an actor at this point in time kills the film's ability to convincingly sell its central themes/relationship. At least we'll always have that hilarious soap opera of a press tour.         

Most Underrated: Outlaw King (2018)

Historical inaccurate aside, Outlaw King is a solid historical epic anchored by a strong lead performance from Chris Pine and some of the better grand-scale battle sequences put to screen in the last decade. It's currently buried in the bowels of the Netflix library if you're looking to seek it out.  

Most Overrated: Oppenheimer (2023)

It's gotten to the point where I've just accepted the fact that I just don't really care all that much about Christopher Nolan's work post-Inception/Dark Knight trilogy. While he's great at delivering spectacle, beautiful images and booming sound that tests the limits of every theater's speaker system, he's frankly not all that great of a storyteller. In the case of Oppenheimer specifically, the cuteness of the time-jumping nonlinear narrative structure lessens the impact of the film's primary purpose to serve as a decades-spanning character study about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, excellent as always) being forced to reckon with the fallout of his lethal creation and creates several prolonged stretches-particularly during the congressional hearing sequences-where the film just completely stalls out. On top of that, his writing of Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) leads me to believe that he is fortunate enough to have never been around an alcoholic for a prolonged period of time because I have never seen a more laughable portrayal of the disease in my entire life. Maybe The Odyssey will get me to change my mind, but my confidence level in that happening remains very low.