Jesse Plemons has had an interesting and eclectic career. He started to get noticed by audiences as the sarcastic best friend in Friday Night Lights. After that, he became one of Jesse Pinkman’s worst nightmares in Breaking Bad, and started appearing in supporting roles in movies by great directors, like Paul Thomas Anderson, before stealing the spotlight in every movie he was in, and making everything better. He’s now an Academy Award-nominated actor and one of the leads in the next Scorsese movie, confirming we’re living in the Jesse Plemons era. Here are his 10 best movies, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
10 I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - 82%
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a Charlie Kaufman film through and through, as the filmmaker is able to show real human emotions in the weirdest, most original ways possible. This is the story of Young Woman (Jessie Buckley), who is going to meet her boyfriend’s (Plemons) parents on a farm. From there, things start getting weirder and weirder for her.
The film tackles mental health in a unique way and is a great opportunity for both Plemons and, especially, Buckely, to show their acting talents. She’s the star here, but Plemons is able to say a lot, with not very much dialogue, and use his body, gestures, and looks to explain who he is, and showing much more than what he’s saying, making for a very different kind of great performance than we’re used to from him.
About shooting the film, Plemons told GQ: “Which were like 11 pages a day (of shooting), uninterrupted takes. We rehearsed a bit, but because it reads and feels more like a play, it would have been a totally different experience had we had that time.”
9 The Master (2012) - 85%
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master has two incredible performances at its center, as this is the story of Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Freddie falls under the spell of Dodd and becomes part of his cult, named The Cause. Plemons plays Val, Lancaster’s son, the one member of his family who doesn’t really believe in what The Cause is preaching, and saying his father is inventing things along the way.
Although it’s a small, supporting role, Plemons is able to spar with titanic actors, Phoenix and Seymour Hoffman, proving his talents along the way. This was a way of showing, already in 2012, that he was going to be an actor to watch. One that many have said is having a career in the Philip Seymour Hoffman mold, making the fact that he was cast as his son here even more interesting.
8 Other People (2016) - 85%
Other People is a great dramedy about David (Plemons), a gay New York comedy writer who goes back home to help his mom (Molly Shannon) when she’s diagnosed with cancer. This movie proves the actor is great with both comedy and drama, as he’s able to sell the awkward comedy guy, trying to make jokes, while also showing how dark, and sad things can become when you’re taking care of a sick loved one, while having an existential crisis of your own. The actor creates a 360-degree character, that makes perfect sense, with his own insecurities and quirks, and makes him the center of this story that is as funny and sad as life itself.
7 Game Night (2018) - 85%
Game Night has a crazy premise; what if you and your group of friends are playing what you think is a role-playing game, when, in reality, you’re being chased by real mobsters because your brother has stolen something from them? That’s what happens to the leads of this film, Max (Jason Bateman), Annie (Rachel McAdams), and their group of friends.
Plemons plays sad-sack, depressed, and recently divorced Gary, a neighboring cop, who the gang is avoiding spending time with. The actor steals the film from under the leads, as Gary is pathetic, creepy, and yet sweet and a great friend. His deadpan delivery of every line, and the character’s internal logic make for a unique character, which proves how funny he can be. What’s even more surprising is the fact that he plays an active part in the movie’s great ending.
6 American Made (2017) - 85%
American Made is inspired by the real-life story of pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), who became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s, getting extremely rich in the process. But as with most adventures with a big rise, things started to get bad when he had to become a DEA informant to avoid jail. During his smuggling days, Seal and his wife relocated to a small town in Arkansas called Mena, where they helped the town become wealthy as they were unknowingly cleaning money from cocaine trafficking.
Plemons plays Sheriff Downing, the town lawman, who becomes another complication for Seal, as he arrests Seal’s brother-in-law, JB (Caleb Landry Jones), after finding him with a suitcase full of laundered money. Although it’s a small role, the actor fits perfectly in this world of exuberance mixed with middle America, as his Sheriff Downing is unaware of everything that’s happening under his roof, but that’s okay with him, as his town is getting richer and better.
5 The Post (2017) - 88%
The Post is a Steven Spielberg-directed film that tells the real-life story of The Washington Post trying to publish the Pentagon Papers, which proved the cover-up of many bad decisions made by U.S. presidents in Vietnam and French Indochina. With Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, both leads are extraordinary in showing the resilience their characters are having in trying to inform the American public of what the state has done, so they can keep it from doing something similar again.
Plemons has a small role as Roger Clark, a lawyer who counsels the newspaper, so they can make sure what they’re investigating doesn't have any legal ramifications that could get them in trouble. This was the second collaboration between Plemons and Spielberg, as he had already appeared in a small role in Bridge of Spies.
4 The Power of the Dog (2021) - 94%
The Power of the Dog is a unique story, a psychological drama where a widowed woman named Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and her teenage son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), go to live with brothers George (Plemons) and Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) when Rose and George fall in love. Phil hates her and shows it every chance he gets, creating problems for everyone. The Friday Night Lights' actor plays understated, and timid with a great interior life better than anyone else, and here he uses it to great effect, becoming the heart of the movie. So much so, that he got his first Academy Award nomination for the role.
About the film, Plemons told Variety: “I read the script before I read the book. That was pretty early on in the process. I was absolutely blown away by the script. It was probably the best script I’d read in quite a few years. With any good script, you feel like you’re transported into a world that you want to stay in, and she had done just that.”
3 The Irishman (2019) - 95%
The Irishman is a Martin Scorsese epic, telling the story of New York organized crime, through the lives of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), and Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), while also talking about getting older, and the mistakes following you until the end. The three-hour masterpiece was remembered for the de-aging technology that made the actors look younger at the start of the film, but it’s still a great Scorsese movie, and one of Netflix’s best.
Plemons has a small role as Chuckie O’Brien, Jimmy Hoffa’s foster son, and the actor is able to hold his own against Pacino (in what might be his best performance of the last decade), and even steal a comedic scene here and there, while still feeling completely believable in the role and era.
2 Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) - 97%
Only the most fortunate critics have seen Killers of the Flower Moon, as it has only been shown to those in attendance at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, and yet the film has already been lauded as one of Scorsese’s best. This is the story of murder, as members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma get killed in weird circumstances, and there’s a BOI investigation by former Texas Ranger Tom White (Plemons), an old school lawman who thinks William Hale (Robert De Niro) is involved.
Being one of the leads of a Scorsese film, and working alongside DiCaprio and De Niro, proves that Plemons has finally become a star. Critics are saying the performances by all three actors are great, and while we wait for the film to reach cinemas, here are some similar films to see.
1 Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) - 97%
Judas and the Black Messiah is the story of petty thief Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), who gets recruited by the FBI to be a mole in the Black Panthers and tell them everything their charismatic leader, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), is doing and planning. Plemons plays FBI Special Agent Roy Mitchell, who recruits O’Neal, and keeps pressing him to give him a credible excuse for the FBI to arrest, or do something even worse to Hampton.
Plemons has never been scared to look bad in a role, and his character here is one of the worst, as he doesn’t even hide the disdain and racism he and the rest of his colleagues have for the Black Panthers' movement. This time, the actor is the villain of the film, and yet he’s still able to show that there’s a real person behind all the hate and racism, one that will do anything to get the results the FBI wants.