While she became a household name after her integral role on AMC’s hit drama Mad Men and subsequent turn on The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss has been acting for quite a long time. She deserved plenty of praise for her performance on both series, earning herself all kinds of awards—this ultimately led to her scoring plenty of more roles, as well. Moss has a very specific, very unique acting style and character type that she often plays—a quiet type, a serious type, a complex type that proves to be both incredibly dynamic and enigmatic.
Queen of Earth
A beautiful, neurotic vacation movie, Queen of Earth shows off Moss’s true knack for playing characters with a complex inner battle going on. Starring alongside Katherine Waterston, the two paint a thrilling and confounding portrait of the way friendships change over time.
Purchase now on Amazon for $3.99.
Listen Up Philip
From the same filmmaker as Queen of Earth — Alex Ross Perry — comes Listen Up Philip. Moss leads the film alongside Jason Schwartzman, and the two play a dysfunctional couple believable enough to be real. The two characters are toxic in their own unique ways, but Moss makes the film all the better for being in it.
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The Square
Moss is no stranger to awards season, but she tends to stick to the Emmys and Golden Globes—at least until 2017’s The Square, which earned itself an Oscar nomination and two prizes at Cannes Film Festival. She stars as Anne, an important part in a great big existential crisis of a movie.
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The One I Love
What starts out initially as a simple-seeming drama turns into something much, much bigger — The One I Love is the perfect mind-bender, almost like it was tailored specifically for the type of role Moss plays best. It’s surreal and exceptional for that reason. Moss practically makes the movie.
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High-Rise
Ben Wheatley’s take on the classic novel by J.G. Ballard is made all the better by Moss’s inclusion. She plays Helen Wilder, the wife of the crazy and ravenous Wilder, and does so with a level of reservation and subtlety that would’ve been missing with any other actress.
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Chuck
No, not the television series — Elisabeth Moss’s Chuck is a movie about heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner and his fight against Muhammad Ali for the world title in 1975. Moss plays Wepner’s second wife, and she brings a level of nuance to this gripping story.
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Meadowland
Meadowland follows the descent into despair that a married couple goes down after unspeakable tragedy. This film is not a light or breezy one, but that isn’t a problem for Moss. She handles her incredibly heavy role with skill and precision.
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Truth
While it might’ve fallen by the wayside up against the hit drama Spotlight, Truth tells an equally important story about journalists exposing the truth against all odds — in this case, the truth about President George W. Bush’s military service. Moss stars as the real-life Lucy Scott.
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Get Him to the Greek
This might be Moss’s most light-hearted role — she plays the girlfriend of Jonah Hill in this Forgetting Sarah Marshall spinoff, mostly showing up on the other end of a phone call as Hill and Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow make their way to Los Angeles. She’s funny in this, which is refreshing compared to her other (far more) serious roles.
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Girl, Interrupted
Moss might’ve been only seventeen at the time, but her performance in Girl, Interrupted showcased her real potential as an actress that would be cultivated for years going forward. She plays Polly, a supporting character to Winona Ryder’s Susanna and Angelina Jolie’s Lisa, but that doesn’t make her part any less important to the story.
Purchase now on Amazon for $9.99.
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