Demi Moore

In the pottery scene in Ghost (1990), Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze make being close look easy. Adam Greenberg's photography keeps our attention on their contact, and the clay gives them something pleasantly untidy to share. That ease matters when Moore's Molly Jensen has to carry the pain of separation, and Jerry Zucker's supernatural romance gets much of its force from how directly she plays grief. We believe in the couple well before the film starts testing our patience with its afterlife explanations.

Ghost was her breakthrough after St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and About Last Night... (1986), and a decade of prominent leading roles followed. A Few Good Men (1992) cast her as Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway, while G.I. Jane (1997) made physical commitment central to the job. She has frequently played determined professional women dealing with a crisis or negotiating authority. Yet we value the vulnerability in Molly as much as that determination; the willingness to look hurt gives the performance something that forcefulness alone could not supply.

After periods of reduced output and supporting parts in the 2000s and 2010s, The Substance (2024) brought her back to prominence. In Coralie Fargeat's horror, she plays Elisabeth, a television aerobics star discarded on her fiftieth birthday. We were moved by Moore's hands and breathing at the mirror, where the effort to make herself presentable becomes unbearable. With Raffertie's score absent and Kračun holding the shot still, nothing tells us how to respond. Moore needs no dialogue to show how cruelly Elisabeth is looking at herself.

Fargeat also repeats the film's point until we have had ample opportunity to agree, and Moore cannot make all 141 minutes necessary. Ghost has its own habit of delaying the story with rules that require fresh indulgence. Neither weakness belongs to Moore, though both films depend on her to keep us interested when the writing grows insistent. Start with Ghost for the warmth; choose The Substance if stomach and patience permit.