Scarlett Johansson has been appearing in movies since she was 10 years old, and it sometimes seems like she has never not been a star. She’s the rare performer who made a smooth, quick transition from child actor to adult actor, and she’s remained prolific and acclaimed for the past 30-plus years.
Those three decades have included two Oscar nominations (for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit”), performances across multiple genres, and an ongoing presence as superhero Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In just a few months in 2025, she’s appeared in Wes Anderson’s typically offbeat “The Phoenician Scheme,” hosted “Saturday Night Live” (where she got to work with her husband, Colin Jost) and prepared to carry yet another blockbuster franchise as the star of “Jurassic World Rebirth,” opening in theaters July 2.
Here are my picks for the best of Johansson’s many excellent film performances.
‘Ghost World’
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After several years as a child actor, Johansson had her breakthrough role in this satisfyingly cynical adaptation of the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. Thora Birch stars as acerbic teenager Enid, with Johansson as her more sensible best friend Rebecca.
Although they begin the movie as partners in snark, hurling insults at classmates during their high school graduation, their paths diverge as Rebecca gets a job and sets out on a path to mainstream adulthood.
While Enid strikes up a disingenuous friendship with an oddball older record collector named Seymour (Steve Buscemi) and continues to reject societal expectations, Rebecca sees a life beyond Enid’s empty nihilism.
Johansson’s deadpan delivery gives Rebecca the right sense of ironic detachment, while also offering glimpses into the maturity that begins to set her apart from the entitled, condescending Enid.
Watch on Prime Video
‘Lost in Translation’
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Johansson received her first Golden Globe nomination for her adult debut, playing the disaffected wife of a rock photographer spending an aimless week in Tokyo. Johansson’s Charlotte has a chance meeting with movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a fellow American staying in her hotel, who’s in town to shoot a commercial for a Japanese whisky company.
The two of them form an unlikely bond as they wander the city, feeling disconnected from their surroundings and questioning their life choices. Johansson and Murray have sweet, understated chemistry that is almost entirely platonic, and writer-director Sofia Coppola captures the sense of isolation that can come from an unfamiliar environment.
Like the movie, Johansson’s performance is a mix of bitter melancholy and wry humor, hinting at deeper longings often left unsaid.
Rent/buy at Apple or Amazon
‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’
The third of Johansson’s three collaborations with writer-director Woody Allen is the strongest, both as a film and as a showcase for her talents.
Johansson and Rebecca Hall star as best friends spending a summer in Barcelona. Hall’s Vicky is a pragmatic grad student set to marry a dull businessman (Chris Messina), while Johansson’s Cristina is a more free-spirited seeker who fancies herself some kind of artist.
They’re both drawn to passionate Spanish painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), although it’s Cristina who ends up in a relationship with him — as well as with his volatile ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz).
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is one of Allen’s most sensual films, in both its intimate relationships and its depiction of Spain, and Johansson fits in perfectly as a woman who never quite knows what she wants, but isn’t afraid of going after it anyway.
Watch on Peacock
‘Under the Skin’
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Director Jonathan Glazer pares down the source novel for this eerie sci-fi movie to its bare minimum, and Johansson does the same in her performance, playing an alien who assumes human form to seduce and consume unsuspecting men. At least that’s what appears to be going on, although Glazer’s minimalist approach invites the audience to fill in numerous narrative gaps.
The unanswered questions only make “Under the Skin” more unsettling, as Johansson’s unnamed character travels across Scotland, chatting up men and bringing them back to a blank void, where they’re trapped and devoured by an unknown force.
Johansson uses her movie-star image as a sort of costume, allowing this creature to lay on the charm just as easily as she turns cold and detached — at least until her burgeoning connection with humanity becomes too much to bear.
Rent/buy at Apple or Amazon
‘Her’
![Her - Official Trailer 2 [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ne6p6MfLBxc/maxresdefault.jpg)
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It’s sort of astounding that Johansson never actually appears onscreen in Spike Jonze’s prescient sci-fi movie about a lonely man falling in love with an AI operating system. Johansson wasn’t even originally cast in the movie, and was only brought in during post-production to replace the original actress as the voice of Samantha, the AI assistant who makes a romantic connection with depressed writer Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix).
Johansson’s performance is so key to the movie’s success that it’s hard to imagine it without her. She makes Samantha sound alluring and relatable as Theodore gets to know her, and later conveys the AI’s expanding consciousness as Samantha rebels against the constraints of a single human connection.
“Her” has only become more relevant in the current age of AI, and it provides a bittersweet counterpoint to common dystopian perspectives.
Watch on Prime Video
‘Marriage Story’
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One of the best things about Noah Baumbach’s equally harrowing and humane drama about a couple’s acrimonious divorce is that it’s easy to argue that either party is in the right. That’s thanks to Baumbach’s deft writing and direction, as well as the brilliant lead performances from Johansson and Adam Driver.
Baumbach takes the time to let viewers understand why these people were in love and seemed ideally matched before he shows their relationship falling apart.
The villain here isn’t the husband or the wife, but the grueling divorce industry that turns an initially amicable split into a ferocious battle, culminating in a devastating central fight between the estranged spouses. Johansson and Driver are just as genuinely moving in that moment of intense anger as they are in the lighthearted scenes, portraying the full spectrum of emotion in such a life-changing process.
Watch on Netflix
‘Black Widow’
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Johansson appeared as former Russian spy Natasha Romanoff in nine Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but this is the only one that places her front and center, and it came after her character had already been killed off. That makes it somewhat underappreciated in the MCU, but Johansson demonstrates why Natasha became so popular with superhero fans, who advocated for years for her to get her own movie.
Set before and during the events of previous MCU movies, “Black Widow” introduces Natasha’s dysfunctional adopted family of fellow covert agents, played by David Harbour, Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh.
Their fractured dynamic is the best part of the movie, which delves into Natasha’s brutal upbringing in the sadistic training facility known as the Red Room, and finally gives her a chance to take her revenge.
Watch on Disney Plus
