Angelina Jolie’s Top 15 Movie Roles Ranked

Angelina Jolie has one of the most fascinating careers in Hollywood. A mix of daring choices, commanding performances, and roles that defined entire generations of moviegoers. From action-packed blockbusters to deeply emotional dramas, she’s proven time and again that there’s more to her talent than star power alone. But not every role shines in the same way.

In this list, we’re ranking Angelina Jolie’s top 15 movie roles not by how successful or acclaimed the films were, but by how powerfully she embodied each character. It’s all about her performances, her range, and those unforgettable moments that remind us why she remains one of the most magnetic actors on screen.

15. By the Sea (2015)

There’s something mesmerizing about watching Angelina Jolie direct herself as a woman unraveling behind closed doors. By the Sea isn’t exactly a thrill ride it’s quiet, moody, and soaked in tension but Jolie’s Vanessa burns with suppressed anger and heartbreak. She doesn’t need big speeches; her silences do the heavy lifting. You can feel her pulling from somewhere personal, crafting a performance that’s painfully restrained yet hauntingly vulnerable. Even when the story drifts, Jolie’s control over tone and presence never does. It’s the kind of role that whispers instead of shouts, and somehow that makes it sting more.

14. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Every actor has that one role that turns them into a pop-culture icon, and for Jolie, Lara Croft was it. She leaps, punches, and quips her way through the chaos with a mix of athleticism and pure charisma that only she could pull off. The movie itself might be a glorious mess of early-2000s action tropes, but it doesn’t matter she’s magnetic from the first frame. You believe she’s having fun, even when the script isn’t helping. There’s a certain joy in watching her command every set piece like she’s been doing it her whole life. This wasn’t Oscar territory, but it was the birth of an action legend.

13. The Tourist (2010)

The Tourist feels like a postcard from a more glamorous era. Venice canals, tailored suits, and a mystery that only half makes sense. Jolie glides through it all like a modern-day Hitchcock heroine, all poise and secrets. Her Elise is deliberately unreadable, a woman who seems to know more than she ever lets on. Sure, the movie’s logic might wobble, but Jolie’s performance doesn’t. She moves through each frame with purpose, playing charm and calculation like two sides of a coin. It’s less about the twists and more about watching her turn stillness into power.

12. Original Sin (2001)

There’s no denying it Original Sin is over the top, drenched in melodrama and steamy tension, but Jolie dives into it like she was born for it. As Julia Russell, she’s unpredictable, a woman who shifts between innocence and danger with alarming ease. Every glance feels like a trap, every smile a warning. She knows exactly what kind of movie she’s in and plays it like a dark game of seduction. Even when the story spirals into madness, Jolie’s intensity keeps you hooked. It’s not subtle, but it’s pure, unfiltered movie star energy.

11. Gia (1998)

Before the Oscars, before the blockbusters, Gia was the performance that made everyone pay attention. Jolie doesn’t act the role she lives it, tracing the rise and fall of the real-life supermodel with ferocious honesty. Her portrayal is electric: beautiful, messy, and terrifyingly human. You can feel the weight of addiction and fame pressing down on her, and yet she never loses the spark that makes Gia impossible to look away from. It’s the kind of raw, fearless work that made Hollywood realize it wasn’t just beauty they were dealing with it was talent with teeth.

10. The Bone Collector (1999)

Early in her career, Jolie played Amelia Donaghy, a rookie policewoman with a nose for detail in The Bone Collector. She’s paired with a paralyzed detective, relying on her instincts, curiosity, and determination rather than just brute force. There’s vulnerability. Amelia is green, sometimes overwhelmed but you can see the raw enthusiasm and sense of responsibility defining her character. Jolie balances moments of fear and moral ambiguity well: when she rejects easy shortcuts, you believe she means it. The script around her is dark, moody, serial-killer fare, with some clichés, yet she gives the role more soul than typical thriller fodder. Though it’s not her strongest, this part shows her early ability to carry tension and empathy together.

9. Couture (2025)

Stepping into Couture, Jolie plays Maxine Walker, a filmmaker arriving in Paris during Fashion Week who receives a breast cancer diagnosis and the role feels especially personal. She isn't just another actor in designer clothes; there’s tension between the glamour of the runway and the private traumas she carries. Her performance leans into texture: guilt, fear, longing, creative frustration, and even small moments of grace among vulnerability. While the film is new and still forming its reputation, Jolie already seems to bring a mix of realism and faint wistfulness, as if she’s acknowledging the burdens that lurk beneath fame. It’s not showy in the action sense, but what she does here requires bravery: exposing cracks in yourself, and letting the camera see them.

8. Salt (2010)

Evelyn Salt is the kind of role that forces Jolie to sprint through moral ambiguity, high-stakes physical danger, and plot twists nobody quite saw coming. Charged with proving, or disproving, her loyalty, she uses every skill at her command intelligence, physical strength, cunning to survive. Jolie doesn’t just do the action; she layers it with moments of doubt, when the costume starts to feel heavy, the lies start to smell, and trust becomes a weapon. The film asks: how far will you go when everyone believes you’re the villain? She carries that weight. Even when the plot stretches believability, her performance anchors it, making you wonder if she truly believes or if she’s already playing the part of her own spy. This is action, but with introspection baked into the explosions.

7. Wanted (2008)

In Wanted, Jolie gets to be both lethal and magnetic, the kind of femme fatale who doesn’t just walk into danger she orchestrates it. As Fox, she mentors, manipulates, and unleashes chaos, all while looking cool as hell doing it. The movie is bombastic, fast-paced, often absurd, but that’s part of the fun and Jolie leans into the ridiculousness, never letting it undercut her character’s seriousness. You buy her as someone with secret skills, moral ambiguity, and emotional scars, even in the midst of flipping cars and secret societies. It might not be her deepest role, but one of the most entertaining in terms of sheer energy and style. A reminder: Jolie isn’t just good at being vulnerable she’s excellent at being unpredictable.

6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Here’s where amplitude meets charisma. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is often remembered for its chemistry, the flirting with danger, the domestic meets espionage tropes but Jolie’s turn as Jane Smith made that cocktail potent. She’s charming, deadly, wounded, mischievous: tricky combination, and Jolie pulls it off. There are moments in that film where the veneer of the glamorous spy life cracks when betrayal stings, or when personal connection fights against professional duty and she makes those moments count. She plays off Pitt’s John Smith with tension, wit, and undercurrents of competition and romance that escalate into real stakes. It’s not perfect, and the film leans a lot into spectacle, but Jolie shows here how much she can invest in dualities wife and assassin, love and violence.

5. A Mighty Heart (2007)

In A Mighty Heart, Jolie plays Mariane Pearl with a kind of fierce stillness like someone trying not to break, even when everything around her is shattering. She doesn’t need big outbursts; her pain is in the quiet decisions, the composed face, the moments where she masks fear with resolve. The film puts her in a brutal emotional spot, pressed by grief, media pressure, and political chaos, and she carries all that without letting it collapse into melodrama. It’s one of those roles that demands tethering yourself to something real, messy, and Jolie does just that. You feel her making choices how much to reveal, how much to fight, how much to endure and you believe every one. Even if the pacing sometimes slows, her performance is what holds the film together.

4. Changeling (2008)

Jolie’s Christine Collins in Changeling is someone who refuses to be ignored—a mother haunted and enraged by the loss of her child and the cold dismissal by those around her. She carries injustice in her bones, and Jolie lets that burn through her voice, her posture, her raw looks. There are moments when she is forced to endure humiliation, and those are the ones where her performance claws at you—it’s painful, but necessary. What makes it so strong is she never lets the character become a symbol; Christine is always flesh and blood, terrified, furious, stubborn. Even when the plot goes into melodramatic territory or when the official story strains credibility, Jolie’s commitment never lets the audience detach. It’s one of those roles where the success is not in comfort but in discomfort—and she makes that work.

3. Maria (2024)

Taking on Maria Callas is asking for trouble—how do you perform a legend without turning into a caricature? Jolie doesn’t avoid that; instead she leans into the contradictions: the diva’s pride, her shame, the voice she loses even as she clings to it. The training—months of vocal work, opera technique—shows up not just in the singing but in how she holds herself, how she lets her expressions undercut glamour with pain. There are scenes where she’s confronting her past, confronting her reflection, confronting silence—and Jolie carries those like weight. A film that dwells on decline, but she makes the decline profound, moving, occasionally unbearable. For many, this is her most daring performance yet.

2. Maleficent (2014)

In Maleficent, Jolie flips the fairy tale script and gives us a villain who’s not just evil for evil’s sake—she embodies betrayal, loss, motherhood, and rage under a mask of dark elegance. Her Maleficent is both commanding and wounded: the wings, the horns, the magic—they all draw you in, but her pain is always there beneath the surface. She has this way in the film of pulling focus not by shouting, but by being still and terrifyingly beautiful. Even when the story leans into fantasy, Jolie ensures Maleficent feels like she has weight, logic, emotional truth. It’s a role that could easily have been pure spectacle, but Jolie gives it complexity. That makes it feel like more than a villain’s origin story—it’s a portrait of someone shaped by loss and choice.

1. Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Lisa, in Girl, Interrupted, is the kind of character that might steal scenes—or the entire movie—if you allow it. Jolie doesn’t just act Lisa; she embodies her unpredictability, volatility, and magnetic danger. When she’s on screen, even quiet moments feel charged: a look, a laugh, a question that cuts deeper than the next character’s monologue. She balances charm and menace, attraction and repulsion, making Lisa someone you can both like and fear. It’s not a perfect film, and parts of the plot are uneven, but you don’t watch Girl, Interrupted for perfection—you watch it to see how Jolie ignites every scene she’s in. Her Oscar for this was well earned, not because everything around her was flawless, but because her role showed what she is capable of when she pushes every limit of a complex character.