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Jessica Chastain · Filmography Ranked

Best Jessica Chastain Films, Ranked by IQ Score

A decade of one of contemporary cinema's most-disciplined leading actresses. Every Chastain film, ranked.

Jessica Chastain's filmography since 2011 is among the most-disciplined leading-actress catalogs of the 2010s. Best Actress Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), plus prior nominations for Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and The Help (2011). Across her catalog she's worked with Malick, Bigelow, Nichols, McCarthy, Sorkin, Aronofsky.

Anchor picks: Zero Dark Thirty (2012). The Tree of Life (2011). The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021).

7 titles · ranked by IQ Score

  1. 1
    Interstellar poster — IQ Score 189/200 — Masterclass tier

    Interstellar

    Masterclass sci-fi, drama

    A former pilot leads a desperate mission through a wormhole to find a habitable planet as Earth becomes uninhabitable. Educational elements about physics, climate change, and relativity. Cognitive engagement from the tim…

    189/200
  2. 2
    The Tree of Life poster — IQ Score 179/200 — Masterclass tier

    The Tree of Life

    Masterclass drama, experimental

    2011 Palme d'Or winner. Terrence Malick's cosmic meditation interweaving a 1950s Texas childhood with the origins of the universe. Among the most cognitively demanding films ever made — requires surrender to a non-narrat…

    179/200
  3. 3
    Zero Dark Thirty poster — IQ Score 166/200 — Masterclass tier

    Zero Dark Thirty

    Masterclass drama, thriller

    Kathryn Bigelow's 2012 Mark Boal screenplay about the decade-long CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden — Jessica Chastain anchors (Oscar-nominated) as Maya, the intelligence analyst who eventually identified the courier-network…

    166/200
  4. 4
    Miss Sloane poster — IQ Score 164/200 — Masterclass tier

    Miss Sloane

    Masterclass drama, political

    John Madden's 2016 political thriller about a Washington lobbyist anchored by Jessica Chastain. The structural commitment to letting hyperverbal lobbying-procedural cognitive material be the actual subject — at register…

    164/200
  5. 5
    Take Shelter poster — IQ Score 163/200 — Masterclass tier

    Take Shelter

    Masterclass drama, psychological

    Jeff Nichols's 2011 film anchored by Michael Shannon as a working-class Ohio father suffering apocalyptic visions — Jessica Chastain anchors as his wife. The structural commitment to letting mental-illness-vs-actual-apoc…

    163/200
  6. 6
    The Eyes of Tammy Faye poster — IQ Score 160/200 — Masterclass tier

    The Eyes of Tammy Faye

    Masterclass drama, biographical

    Michael Showalter's 2021 biographical film anchored by Jessica Chastain's Best Actress Oscar-winning performance as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. The structural commitment to letting late-20th-century evangelical-tele…

    160/200
  7. 7
    The Help poster — IQ Score 140/200 — Stimulating tier

    The Help

    Stimulating drama, historical

    2011 Best Picture nominee and Best Actress nominee. Black domestic workers in 1960s Mississippi tell their stories to a white journalist. Moderate cognitive demands. Educational value from the civil rights era setting, t…

    140/200

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