Ariana Greenblatt is funniest when she looks unconvinced by the adults around her. We rate her quick reactions and comic timing; the films that ask her to shout or deliver a speech make poorer use of both.
Fi1m perspective
In 65 (2023), Ariana Greenblatt looks at Adam Driver as though he is the one who needs help understanding the situation. Her Koa cannot speak his pilot’s language, so a glance has to do much of the work. We laughed at the way she looks at Driver, because she makes his solemn pilot seem faintly ridiculous. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods get closest to something worth watching when the pair try to communicate through drawings in the dirt. That scene is a better reason to notice Greenblatt than the dinosaurs.
Her early work moved from Daphne Diaz in Stuck in the Middle (2016–2018) to young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Wider attention came with 65 and Barbie (2023), two films with sharply different demands on her delivery. As Sasha in Greta Gerwig’s film, she is given a denunciation of Barbie that sounds too much like a prepared article. It is a good comedy, but this is writing that leaves little space for her timing.
Borderlands (2024) makes a less forgivable mistake: it treats volume as comedy. Greenblatt gives Tiny Tina energy, but Eli Roth’s film keeps asking loudness to supply the laugh. The effort is visible, and the jokes seldom land. Nor does her commitment make this underwritten group feel like people who have much to do with one another.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) gives her more useful company as June, one of three young magicians who grew up watching the Horsemen. Alongside Dominic Sessa and Justice Smith, she finds a comfortable give-and-take that Ruben Fleischer’s busy film could have used more often. She is quick with the older performers and rarely seems impressed by them. The film remains too eager to explain its tricks, but the recruits working a room together are enjoyable enough without an explanation afterwards.
Of these films, Barbie is the one we would recommend most readily, though it does not give the clearest account of what Greenblatt can do. Her work opposite Driver and with Sessa and Smith is more revealing. She can make a scene funny by noticing what is odd about the person beside her, without announcing that she has noticed. Give her a part that trusts her to do that for longer.
Biography
Ariana Greenblatt is an American actress. Born in New York City on 27 August 2007, she began acting as a child and had her first starring role in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle (2016–2018). Early film credits include A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), in which she played young Gamora.
She gained wider recognition for roles in Love and Monsters (2020), In the Heights (2021), 65 (2023) as Koa, and Barbie (2023) as Sasha. For the latter she received nominations at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Subsequent work includes Ahsoka (2023) as young Ahsoka Tano, Borderlands (2024) as Tiny Tina, and Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025) as June.
