Emma Stone's 4 Favorite Movies Of All Time
Emma Stone might be in a whole bunch of your favorite movies — but what are her favorites?
In January 2024, Stone spoke to Letterboxd — the social media site centered around movies — about her "four favorites," a regular interview the outlet does with major Hollywood celebrities. After appearing visibly stressed by the prospect of only picking four movies (which is pretty common in these interviews, to be honest), Stone responds that Charlie Chaplin's 1931 comedy "City Lights" is her all-time favorite movie. "I love 'Network,'" Stone continued, name-checking the 1976 dark comedy that won Best Picture at the 49th Academy Awards in 1977. "'Mikey and Nicky,' I just saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago," Stone raved, citing Elaine May's movie (also from 1976) about a mobster and his best friend (played by John Cassavetes and Peter Falk). "I love almost every Cassavetes movie — that one wasn't Cassavetes, he's just in it. It's obviously Elaine May, who's a genius," she clarified (in addition to acting, Cassavetes was also a famous director).
After joking that saying she loves "all the Cassavetes movies" technically breaks the game's rules (since she only has one film left), Stone closes out strong with "The Firemen's Ball," a 1967 satire made by Miloš Forman. Clearly, Stone has eclectic (and excellent) taste, which isn't surprising; throughout her career, she's chosen some pretty great projects of her own.
Emma Stone got her start in high school movies — and blew everyone away in the process
After starting her career in earnest in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's riotous high school comedy "Superbad" — alongside Jonah Hill and Michael Cera — Emma Stone's trajectory soared skyward almost immediately. In the years that followed, Stone chose her projects carefully and wisely, aiming for smart, well-made films that showed off her considerable comic chops. Two years after "Superbad," Stone appeared in the 2009 horror comedy "Zombieland," which let her take center stage (the movie only features four main actors) before she snagged her first lead role in "Easy A" in 2010. That movie — directed by Will Gluck and written by Bert V. Royal — cemented Stone as a major star on the rise, allowing her to win over audiences as an unpopular high school student named Olive Penderghast who suddenly develops a wild (and unearned) reputation as a sex-crazed maniac. Olive takes advantage of the situation — basically, she pretends she's slept with people and collects gift cards from said people — and Stone beautifully plays her rise and fall.
In 2011, Stone scored two big hits with the major adaptation "The Help" and the ensemble rom-com "Crazy, Stupid, Love" — the latter of which marked her first collaboration with Rya Gosling — and played Gwen Stacy in Andrew Garfield's "Spider-Man" movies. Commercial fare wasn't enough for Stone, though; soon, she started racking up Oscar nominations (and wins).
These days, Emma Stone is taking huge, bold roles — and proving she's one of the best performers in Hollywood
Emma Stone's delightful weird streak really started in 2014 with "Birdman," where she earned an Oscar nomination for playing Michael Keaton's wild-eyed daughter; she scored her first trophy in 2016 thanks to "La La Land," which is probably the most "normal" of her big prestige films and casts her as aspiring actress Mia, who meets a jazz pianist named Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and falls hard for him. Nowadays, though, Stone's frequent collaborations with Greek director and noted weird guy Yorgos Lanthimos have provided her with the best roles of her career.
In 2018, Stone worked with Lanthimos on the twisted history film "The Favourite," giving her the chance to play on-screen with Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz and netting her a nomination for best supporting actress at the Oscars. While Lanthimos and Stone worked on that movie, they came up with the idea for "Poor Things," an adaptation of Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel that lets Stone show off the unhinged, beautifully insane limits of her talent. As Bella, a woman with an adult body and the brain of an infant, Stone is fearless, free of vanity, and absolutely astounding; unsurprisingly, she won her second Academy Award in just a few years for the film. 2024 saw Stone and Lanthimos work together again on the anthology film "Kinds of Kindness," and while it doesn't give Stone as much room to play as "Poor Things," it's still proof that she and Lanthimos are a perfect pairing. (This is to say nothing of "The Curse," the Nathan Fielder show that let Stone prove she could play one of TV's most eminently unlikable characters.) Stone has an incredible career ahead of her still ... and if you really want to honor the two-time Oscar winner, check out one (or all) of her four favorite movies.