Just over a decade ago, no one could have guessed that Emma Stone, the young, Arizona-born starlet who had a reputation for playing quippy high schoolers, would become a Hollywood heavyweight. The first double Oscar winner of her generation, she scored her first statuette for her fleet-footed turn in La La Land and her second for the unrivaled powerhouse performance she delivers in Poor Things.
But then again, revisit her earliest work now and you’ll see that all of her hallmarks—that jaunty physicality, the expert comic timing, the utter fearlessness—have been there since the very beginning. Ahead of the premiere of her latest release, Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’s audacious Bugonia, at this year’s Venice Film Festival—and in honor of Stone’s September 2025 Vogue cover—we look back at the 36-year-old’s most memorable films and TV shows to date.
Superbad (2007)
Stone burst onto the scene at the age of 18 as the razor-sharp, darkly funny Jules, Jonah Hill’s love interest—who proves to be more than a match for him—in Greg Mottola’s raunchy buddy comedy. In a role which could’ve been entirely forgettable, she sparkled—and established herself as one to watch.
Easy A (2010)
That strut down the school hallway, the “sex” scene, the sequence in which she sings “Pocketful of Sunshine” for an entire weekend—Will Gluck’s playful romp, loosely inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is a comedy masterclass, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Stone in the part of the zany, awkward, and ultimately triumphant Olive Penderghast. This is the film which, rightfully, made her a star.
Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
In Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s heartwarming rom-com, the first of Stone’s collaborations with her now frequent co-star Ryan Gosling, the pair’s chemistry is electric as they play a law school graduate and a pick-up artist who collide with hilarious consequences. It’s worth watching for that nod to Dirty Dancing alone.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Opposite Andrew Garfield’s web-slinging Peter Parker, Stone’s take on his first love, the whip-smart, honey blonde Gwen Stacy, in Marc Webb’s action epic revitalized the franchise thanks to her usual snarky charm. Two years later, she returned to reprise the role for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Birdman (2014)
For her virtuosic portrayal of Sam—he troubled daughter of Michael Keaton’s Riggan Thomson, a recovering addict who is trying to stay on the straight and narrow—in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s breathless, Broadway-set black comedy, Stone earned her first Oscar nomination. Her impassioned monologue about her father’s irrelevance—and particularly the silence that follows it, in which her face transforms from rage to regret in seconds—remains one of her most powerful pieces of acting.
La La Land (2016)
As the wide-eyed aspiring actor Mia in Damien Chazelle’s sweeping, starry-eyed musical, Stone was enchanting, mastering her tap dances and waltzes with Ryan Gosling while also slowly drawing out her character’s anguish as her career stagnates and her relationship threatens to fall apart. It’s subtle, layered, and heartfelt—and won her a best-actress Oscar.
Battle of the Sexes (2017)
With a dark, choppy shag, fake tan, and gold-rimmed glasses, Stone transformed into tennis legend Billie Jean King for Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton’s reimagining of her momentous 1973 match against Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), a game which shaped the future of women’s tennis. She’s as dynamic on the court as she is when taking Riggs to task in the press conferences.
The Favourite (2018)
When she first arrives at the madcap court of Queen Anne (a childlike, badger-eyed Olivia Colman) in Yorgos Lanthimos’s gloriously twisted period drama, Stone’s Abigail Hill is a seemingly naive and penniless cousin of the sophisticated Lady Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). Witnessing her rise to the very top via endless scheming, poisonings, and sexual favors performed for the monarch is a total thrill, and the actor—by turns perfectly angelic and deliciously cruel—is excellent throughout, netting her third Oscar nomination.
Cruella (2021)
The hair, the blood-red lip, that terrifying glint in her eye—in Craig Gillespie’s supervillain origin story, Stone takes up the mantle from Glenn Close’s glamorous, cackling Cruella de Vil, revealing the scrappy, punk rock underdog who preceded her. An orphan who becomes a grifter out of necessity, she dreams of being a fashion designer, and when given the chance by a frosty couturier (Emma Thompson), discovers that she holds the key to her tragic past. Cue utter carnage, to which Stone commits wholeheartedly.
The Curse (2023)
In Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s hilarious, absurdist, stomach-churning satire, Stone is mesmerizing as Whitney Siegel, a soulless property developer eager to distinguish herself from her slumlord parents by gentrifying her New Mexico town under the guise of lifting up the local community. As she and her husband (Fielder) begin filming a reality show about their endeavors, it’s a truly wild ride and Stone is a knockout—demonstrating that, as she nears the second decade of her career, her work is only becoming more complex, thorny,s and exciting.
Poor Things (2023)
The ultimate proof of that, however, comes in Yorgos Lanthimos’s surreal, joyous, and challenging coming-of-age epic following a straight-laced Victorian woman, Bella Baxter (Stone), who is resurrected with the brain of a baby and proceeds to escape the clutches of her guardian (Willem Dafoe) and embark on a rambunctious grand tour with a foppish rake (Mark Ruffalo). Mind-bogglingly detailed, wonderfully physical, and completely fearless, it is easily the performance of her career so far, not to mention one of the best I’ve seen across the board in recent memory. No wonder, then, that it secured her her second best-actress Oscar in just seven years.
