Florence Pugh is that rare thing in Hollywood: a 20-something who’s gone from rising star to powerhouse in less than a decade, and has, miraculously, rarely put a foot wrong on her journey to the top. Yes, she’s known for lacing herself into corsets to play plucky young period drama heroines, but she’s equally at home in pacy spy thrillers, blood-curdling horror movies, heartwarming comedies, and superhero blockbusters—not to mention tear-jerking romances, like her latest sweeping drama, We Live in Time . Ahead of the film’s release, we revisit her eight best films and TV shows to date.
Lady Macbeth (2016) The actor broke out at the age of 18 in her feature debut, Carol Morley’s unsettling mystery The Falling , opposite Maisie Williams, but it was William Oldroyd’s icy, atmospheric, and unbearably tense costume drama—the tale of a young woman in a loveless marriage who embarks on a torrid affair with deadly consequences—that left critics and audiences stunned. Quietly watchful, startlingly vulnerable, and then utterly terrifying, she is extraordinary, conveying a whole world of emotions with just her eyes, the pursing of her lips, and Alice Birch’s deliciously sparse dialogue. The Little Drummer Girl (2018) Even when the spotlight isn’t fully on Pugh, she’s often still the standout.
A case in point? This gripping, ’70s-set, Park Chan-wook-directed John le Carré adaptation, in which she embodies a glamorous, charismatic actor recruited for a perilou.