Emma Stone makes a character's thinking visible in her posture and the speed of her replies. We rate her physical precision and comic nerve, even when the films keep explaining what she has already made clear.
Fi1m perspective
In Bugonia (2025), Emma Stone's kidnapped chief executive Michelle starts negotiating before she has had time to absorb the shock. Opposite Jesse Plemons's patient captor, she searches for a workable deal with brisk professional composure. We winced at how quickly she turned being chained in a cellar into company business. Stone gets the laugh without making Michelle harmless; her speed tells us how thoroughly the job has trained her. It is a sharp performance in a film that keeps explaining what the actors have already made clear.
She was already making underwritten characters worth watching in Superbad (2007), her film debut, where Jules receives less care from the script than the boys. Stone gives her enough presence to make us wish the writers had given her more to do. The lead in Easy A (2010) established her as a star, with mainstream success continuing through the musical La La Land (2016). The Favourite (2018) began her partnership with director Yorgos Lanthimos. Those later films give her more room, though not always better material.
Poor Things (2023) is the clearest reason to value that partnership, even when the film outstays its ideas. As Bella Baxter, Stone begins with stiff legs and an open mouth, then gradually changes her posture and lengthens her sentences. Each stage feels like someone worth watching in her own right, rather than preparation for the finished adult. Costume designer Holly Waddington's enormous sleeves and unlaced clothes give that awkward body room, while cinematographer Robbie Ryan bends the house around her with a fisheye lens. The comedy starts in the way she stands.
In Kinds of Kindness (2024), Stone makes Liz's fear of losing her husband painful to watch, but cannot rescue three stories that repeat the same lesson about obedience. Ari Aster gets something quieter from her in Eddington (2025). Louise barely leaves her room and speaks so little that we have to guess at her history, helping make the household scenes some of an uneven film's strongest. We would welcome more parts that ask for so little fuss. Start with Poor Things for the physical comedy, with fair warning that the film runs out of things to say before Stone does.
Biography
Emma Stone is an American actress and film producer. She has collaborated extensively with director Yorgos Lanthimos, appearing as Bella Baxter in Poor Things (2023), for which she also served as a producer, and in multiple roles in Kinds of Kindness (2024). She played Michelle in Bugonia (2025) and Louise Cross in Eddington (2025), and produced A Real Pain (2024).
Stone began her career in comedy films including Superbad (2007) and Zombieland (2009). She later starred as Gwen Stacy in the Amazing Spider-Man films (2012–2014) and as Mia in La La Land (2016). Her work has earned two Academy Awards for Best Actress, two BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup.
