Angelina Jolie movies

Helen: This Ranking is dedicated to one of the most fiercely talented stars of the modern era, Angelina Jolie.

Ian: I’m actually wearing khaki shorts and boots in tribute.

Helen: I’ve always said thigh holsters would really suit you. So, when was your first encounter with Angelina? Amon: I think it was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

Beth: The angsty young woman in me saw Girl, Interrupted in 1999, so I was probably far too young to watch it.

Ian: Because I’m really old, I remember her first in Hackers.

Helen: Me too.

Ian: Which is a great film if you like dated tech films. But I just remember saying, “Who the fuck was that?”

Helen: It was 1995. “Who the hell is this? Where did she come from?” It’s a nonsense vision of how hacking works, but it’s super-cool. There was no-one coming out of that film who didn’t think for at least five minutes that rollerblading was the coolest way to get around.

Ian: And then I remember low-key things like Playing By Heart and Pushing Tin, and The Bone Collector. Denzel Washington is Lincoln Rhyme, a detective in a wheelchair, and it’s all about her, that film. The emotion of the story of that film is carried through her eyes, and I always remember that.

Amon: Anyone who can go toe-to-toe with the GOAT has my respect.

Ian: That leads us to Girl, Interrupted, which is my number one. It’s the best thing she’s ever done.

Helen: I think so. What we have here is a star who struggles to find films that actually use her properly. So many films struggled to find somewhere to place a woman with as much charisma and cool as Angelina Jolie has. I don’t think many women in film are allowed to be cool. They’re allowed to be hot, but they’re not allowed to be cool. And she’s incredibly cool. Beth: She’s never portrayed as a wholesome kind of girl next door. She’s always a leader in her field, or she’s a little bit villainous, or she’s seductive. The coolest thing is Tomb Raider, where she gets to do some astonishing stunts. But a lot of the time, quite frustratingly, she is sexualised or she’s portrayed as damaged, or has a damaged past.

Ian: Doesn’t that edgy quality play into her private life as well? When she broke through there was a lot about her relationship with Billy Bob Thornton — they wore matching blood necklaces. She took a long while to get rid of that image.

Helen: That ties into something like Gia or Hackers. Just look at the kind of roles available after she won the Oscar for Girl, Interrupted. It’s a real struggle to get any kind of decent role. The next genuinely decent film is probably Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Ian: I think she’s got film-star variety. In the early part of her career she was in gossip columns. Now she’s a United Nations ambassador. That’s how you do being a movie star.

Amon: There’s a versatility there. Not many women can do action and drama and the Oscar-winning stuff and also be a movie star of the calibre of Angelina Jolie.

Ian: She’s never really been given a chance to do comedy.

Helen: There are little touches maybe in Maleficent, or in her animated work.

Beth: With Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a large part of the joke is having these two obscenely attractive Hollywood stars sitting at the dinner table talking about keys and cushion upholstery. That’s as close to humour as she comes. She gets to be a little bit wicked in Maleficent.

Helen: Is that a function of the way she looks? There aren’t that many spectacularly beautiful people who do comedy really well, or get to. Maybe that’s part of it. Also not all of her films have been huge box-office successes, but the ones that did well were very heavily sold on her presence.

Amon: I think her presence is a big reason why Tomb Raider was a hit. Back in those days, we weren’t seeing big action movies led by women. That put her over the top into moviestar blockbuster status.

Ian: That film is a perfect melding of actor, character and persona. It’s a brilliant piece of casting.

Helen: I don’t think they’re great films, but they’re good casting. They’re quite important in the Angelina Jolie career book.

Amon: The first one is a very silly film, but she gets the tone and knows how to nail that. I think she’s made at least three action films that are better than Lara Croft. Like Salt. There’s a lot where she doesn’t have much dialogue but is so compelling to watch. I would watch a second film, called ‘Pepper’, in a heartbeat.

Helen: Push it real good.

Ian: Apart from that and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the other actioner is Wanted, isn’t it? Tons of fun.

Beth: She had to play the straight arrow in a very silly film. And again, unnecessarily, the damaged past and daddy issues come through. I would have liked to have seen her be silly with it.

Helen: I think what she’s doing here is the Clint Eastwood role. The incredibly cool older mentor who basically never says a word they don’t have to. I had never ever seen that from a woman before.

Amon: In a sense, Wanted is the same movie as Kung Fu Panda. In both films she recruits a guy with no talents whatsoever, draws him into a group and brings out the best in him. By the way, Kung Fu Panda ranks very high on my list. And she’s really good in it. There are some really great actors who are not very good at voice acting. She does not have that problem.

Ian: My favourite work in her nonsense period is Sky Captain And the World Of Tomorrow, where she’s a pilot with an eye patch and a hidden agenda. She’s not in it a lot but she lifts it.

Amon: It’s incredible she’s been doing top-level action for almost 30 years. How many women can you say that of?

Helen: Or men!

Ian: To be honest, I struggled with this list. I think alongside the strong stuff there’s a lot of dreck, but the failures are quite interesting. By The Sea is a weird portrait of a relationship, and with Brad Pitt it feels quasi-autobiographical. Helen: What about Gia? That’s often credited as her breakthrough role.

Ian: That’s a TV movie and we didn’t really get it on the big screen here. Again, it plays into her persona. She plays the first supermodel and is a woman living from thrill to thrill.

Amon: I thought she was absolutely spectacular in Gia. The nuance she brings to the role is incredible.

Helen: Let’s finish with

Girl, Interrupted. It was still rare at that point to see a film about young women.

Beth: It felt like the first time there was a realisation as to what she was capable of as a dramatic performer.

Ian: She’s got such an energy and charisma in that film.

Helen: Charisma is absolutely the word. And on that, enough squabbling, let’s vote!