Every Jennifer Lawrence Movie, Ranked
Updated June 22, 2023
Jennifer Lawrence got her Hollywood start on television, but she became one of the biggest movie stars in the world when she broke out in Winter's Bone 2010, earning her first-ever Oscar nomination, and immediately followed that up with a string of blockbusters, critical darlings, and awards favorites, from X-Men: First Class to The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook. (The latter earned Lawrence her first Oscar win.)
Although the X-Men and Hunger Games franchises kept her very busy for the better part of a decade, she still found the time to slip into complicated roles in Mother!, American Hustle, Joy, and Don't Look Up, to name a few, picking up two more Oscar noms (for American Hustle and Joy), in addition to other accolades, including a BAFTA Award.
Admittedly, along the way, not every movie has been a hit with critics or audiences, as you can see from their Metascore and user score, but regardless, Lawrence has proved she is force with which to be reckoned as she has dominated the screen whether she was saving the entire civilization of Panem, or sharing scenes with such long-time Hollywood heavyweights as Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.
As The Hunger Games hits its 20th anniversary, up next for Lawrence is the veteran drama Red, White and Water and Bad Blood, in which she portrays real-life convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes. To celebrate how far Lawrence has come in her career, here, Metacritic ranks all of her movies (so far) — from worst to best — according to Metascore.
Additional content by Danielle Turchiano and Jason Dietz. Photo courtesy Netflix.
Raunchy, R-rated comedy was not a genre found in Lawrence's filmography until this 2023 feature from writer-director Gene Stupnitsky (best known for his work on TV shows including The Office and Jury Duty). Lawrence plays a down-on-her-luck 30-something facing bankruptcy and desperate for work when she accepts a job from a wealthy couple as an escort for their shy teenage son (Andrew Barth Feldman). Critics felt that Lawrence was not only game for a role involving plenty of physical comedy, but also superb at it. But they also felt that the film around her was disappointingly tame and not quite funny enough.
“Jennifer Lawrence proves, once again, that she can carry a film by the sheer force of her on-screen magnetism and performance agility.” —Murtada Elfadl, A.V. Club