Summary

• Emily Blunt shines in A Quiet Place, delivering a standout performance in this compelling and original horror movie.
• Blunt's role in Sicario solidifies her place as an emotionally devastating action star in this murky and riveting thriller.
• While The Devil Wears Prada is known for Meryl Streep, Blunt crafts a memorable character that steals scenes and holds her own among top-notch actors.

Emily Blunt's best movies and TV shows span an array of genres that make ranking her various projects an example of her incredible talents. Over the course of her memorable career, she can truly claim to have done it all, whether that's comedy, drama, sci-fi, or something else. Blunt adapts to each of her roles with ease and routinely makes the most of her screen time to leave audiences with a good impression. Even in otherwise mediocre movies, she has the talent to single-handedly elevate the project. She can also take the smallest of parts and add depth to her characterization.

With a filmography that spans several decades and increasingly prominent roles, Pain Hustlers star Emily Blunt continues to see her gain attention for the powerful performances she delivers, even as it might seem like she is also flying under the radar to some degree. Not every movie or TV show she has been involved in has been a critical hit or well-received by general audiences, but that does not change the fact that Emily Blunt has delivered over a dozen truly memorable works. Her best movies and shows ranging from her breakthrough role in 2004 right up to the present exemplify that.

15 Your Sister's Sister (2011)

None of the characters in Your Sister's Sister make relatable decisions, but that doesn't stop the movie from producing a few big laughs. The main positive of Your Sister's Sister is a boldly unconventional script, as it chooses to center so much of its emotional heft around a storyline involving a condom with holes poked in it. Still, the movie prods and probes at its three stars – Emily Blunt, Mark Duplass, and Rosemarie DeWitt – in just the right way to throw up some memorable one-liners. Your Sister's Sister definitely works better as a comedy than as a drama, even if it tries to aim for both.

14 The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

The Adjustment Bureau promises a lot, but ultimately fails to deliver on its high-concept premise. Matt Damon finds out that a secret organization controls everyone's destiny, making sure that people's lives go according to their predetermined plans. Emily Blunt represents an obstacle to these carefully laid plans, and the movie becomes a romance about fighting for true love. Had it panned out differently, perhaps the movie could have begun to unbox the ramifications and lore behind the bureau. It still makes for a decent romantic thriller, but the sci-fi elements remain fuzzy. Ultimately, there are too many unanswered questions for the plot to become deeply engrossing.

13 Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Emily Blunt and Amy Adams play sisters who start a business cleaning up crime scenes in Sunshine Cleaning. The black comedy manages to keep the movie ticking along with admirable levity, considering the abundance of human remains. The plot suffers a little from predictability, especially when it comes to the rollercoaster of a relationship between the sisters, but there's a genuine heart that overrides any fears of formulaic storytelling. Blunt and Adams share great comedic chemistry, even if Blunt's American accent does falter at times. The pair do what they can with a script that doesn't always strike a balance between comedy and drama.

12 The Girl On The Train (2016)

Based on the best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins, The Girl On The Train provided Emily Blunt with one of her most memorable roles. Unfortunately, Blunt's excellent performance struggles to lift the movie out of mediocrity. Weighed down by a ponderous script that suddenly swings into melodrama, the movie fails to condense the source material into a story anywhere near as compelling. The mystery that hums beneath the bulk of the novel is wrapped up all too quickly before The Girl On The Train's ending, leaving the movie without enough suspense to carry the plot convincingly.

11 Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Stepping into the shoes of one of Britain's most beloved characters is not an easy task, but Emily Blunt manages to do so in Mary Poppins Returns with panache. The movie somehow retains the 1964 original's earnest sentimentality and whimsy, even if the songs don't live up to the high standards. Mary Poppins Returns works because it was made with the same honest attitude as the original, or any other Disney film of the era. Blunt's humorous vanity and warmth keep the movie traveling at a canter, aided by a similarly compelling Ben Whishaw. It's just a shame that it lives in the shadow of a superior ancestor.

10 The Young Victoria (2009)

The Young Victoria chooses to follow Queen Victoria's life as she ascends to the throne and seeks to tighten her grip. The movie drips with a lavish production style, but the drama never truly takes off to any serious heights. Blunt stars as the monarch, learning not only to navigate the conflicting desires of her family but also trying to forge her own path. Her performance is the highlight of the movie, as she portrays Victoria's composed aggression with all the danger of a coiled viper. It could be seen as an excellent character piece, but so much of the tension remains agonizingly below the surface.

9 A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

The sequel to 2018's A Quiet Place doesn't offer quite the same thrill as the original, but it was a tough act to follow. Cillian Murphy makes a fine addition to the cast, years before he would go on to star alongside Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer. His character, Emmett, is a cynical survivor who lost his children to the aliens. The sequel does a good job of expanding the world around the characters and delving deeper into the precise nature of their extraterrestrial attackers. While Emily Blunt's place in the future of the Quiet Place franchise is undetermined, her return as Evelyn Abbott is once again tremendous.

8 Looper (2013)

Time travel thrillers are infamous for plot holes and paradoxes, but Rian Johnson's Looper stands up to scrutiny. One of the most impressive feats that the movie pulls off is to draw very little attention to the intricately detailed machinations. Instead, the characters drive the plot naturally. Some of the effects look a little shaky and there is a slight tendency to avoid the biggest internal conflicts that might arise from such a warped relationship to the self, but Looper's brilliant ending assuages most of these issues. The movie focuses on the characters of Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but Emily Blunt plays a pivotal role as a protective mother.

7 My Summer Of Love (2004)

It may not be one of Emily Blunt's best-known movies, but My Summer Of Love provided her breakthrough role in British cinema. Blunt plays a manipulative young woman who meets a girl in the English countryside and takes an unusual interest in her. The plot soon drifts into a heady swirl of religion, sex, and violence. Blunt displays flashes of callous narcissism that suggest she could play more villainous roles than she usually does, should she choose to. The small-budget movie works well with what it has, but it stops short of the emotional gut punch it threatens to throw.

6 Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

From the outside, Edge Of Tomorrow looks like a rehash of Groundhog Day but with Tom Cruise running away from some explosions. The movie avoids such a dismissal, however, with a punchy script, gripping action, and two excellent performances from Cruise and Blunt. Despite the fact that Cruise can die and wake up again at the start of the day, the stakes remain high thanks to the unique designs of the alien combatants. The film's ending could be seen as somewhat anticlimactic given what came before, but a potential Edge Of Tomorrow sequel could rectify this and bring Blunt back to one of her most iconic roles.

5 Sicario (2015)

Sicario is among Emily Blunt's favorite movie roles, and it's easy to see why. Blunt's character Kate Macer acts as a sort of conduit for the audience, being dragged deeper into a conflict as she begins to understand the chaos surrounding her. The movie solidified Blunt's place as an emotionally devastating action star. Sicario is a nefariously murky thriller that explodes into propulsive action sequences. There are countless movies about American operatives imposing their will on foreign soil, but Blunt offers Sicario enough emotional weight to subvert this common trope. The result is an evasive and riveting plot that strays far from convention.

4 The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Although My Summer Of Love introduced Emily Blunt to a broader audience, it was The Devil Wears Prada two years later that brought her international fame. The cult classic is most widely remembered for a pitch-perfect Meryl Streep trading barbs with Anne Hathaway as a clueless fish out of water. It's a testament to Blunt's talent that she can even hold her own in such an environment, let alone craft a character capable of stealing scenes from some of the finest actors in the business.

3 The English (2022)

Although Emily Blunt is primarily known for her work in movies, one of her most captivating projects is an Amazon original TV series, The English. Blunt plays an English woman, Cornelia Locke, seeking revenge for her son's death in the Old West. She's an unconventional heroine, and her status as an outsider allows her to burst open people's preconceived notions about gender roles and justice. The violence of the show underlines Cornelia's blood-soaked righteous anger, which Blunt manages to couple with moments of heart and humor.

2 Oppenheimer (2023)

Oppenheimer overflows with fantastic performances, yet Emily Blunt stands out by offering something different. She plays Kitty Oppenheimer, the long-suffering wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy. She makes the most of her limited screen time, serving as a powerful reminder that while men were agonizing over their attempts to sway the balance of global power, women were still largely confined to domestic life. Blunt plays Kitty's testimony at the security hearing with expert deftness. Kitty sees the proceedings for what they are, and Blunt captures the feelings of injustice that simmer beneath her surface, threatening to erupt.

1 A Quiet Place (2018)

Emily Blunt had very little experience in horror before A Quiet Place, but that did not prevent it from becoming her best movie. She and her husband John Krasinski - who also directed the movie - swiftly silenced any doubts with one of the most compelling original horror movies of the 21st Century. Blunt and Krasinski's natural chemistry translates wonderfully onto the big screen as parents who must protect their children in a world teeming with danger. Emily Blunt shines throughout, but the scene where she must endure the pain of childbirth in excruciating silence cements her performance as a modern horror classic.