All 10 Best Josh O'Connor Movies Ranked (Best to Worst)

Mud, isolation, and unyielding northern gales form the physical texture of Francis Lee's stunning rural drama. Against the desolate backdrop of a hardscrabble Yorkshire farm, the story charts an abrasive young man's transformation upon hiring a gentle Romanian migrant worker. Lee avoids sentimentality, capturing manual labor with tactile documentary precision while building a tender, unhurried romance out of sheer survival instinct. O'Connor delivers a career-defining tour de force as Johnny Saxby. Wearing emotional numbness like armor, he uses hunched shoulders and clenched jaws to chart a wounded man learning tenderness. It remains the essential performance against which all his subsequent screen work is measured.

Alice Rohrwacher crafts a magical realist reverie set against the hazy Etruscan hills of 1980s Tuscany. The narrative wanders alongside a disheveled Englishman blessed with a mystical intuition for locating ancient subterranean tombs, fell by memory and grief for a lost love. Blending folklore, shifting aspect ratios, and social commentary on the commodification of sacred history, the film pulses with ethereal grace. O'Connor fits into Rohrwacher's universe with astonishing naturalism, donning a wrinkled linen suit and a haunted glaze. Speaking effortless phonetics with rugged charm, he turns Arthur into a mournful phantom caught between subterranean antiquity and modern drift.

High-octane sexual friction and ruthless sporting ambition collide across Luca Guadagnino's kinetic tennis triangle. Driven by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's propulsive techno score and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's dynamic camera work, the film treats challenger-circuit tennis like an operatic bloodsport of ego, codependency, and thwarted desire. O'Connor nearly steals the entire picture as the scruffy, unapologetic Patrick Zweig. Radiating cocky swagger, feral charisma, and biting comedic timing, he balances raw physical sensuality with an undercurrent of desperate loyalty. It solidified his ability to command glossy, large-scale cinematic entertainment without sacrificing the textured grit that defines his art-house pedigree.

Autumn de Wilde's high-stylized adaptation of Jane Austen treats regency society with candy-coated aesthetic precision and biting physical choreography. Every tailored waistcoat, pastel drawing room, and hyper-mannered social slight lands with theatrical crispness, delivering a fresh visual pulse to well-worn territory while maintaining Austen's underlying class critiques. Amidst an impeccable ensemble, O'Connor emerges as an absolute scene-stealer playing the insufferably pious Mr. Elton. Leaning completely into haughty, ridiculous posturing, his carriage-ride proposal remains a masterclass in comedic mortification. The role proved that his heavy, brooding screen presence could pivot effortlessly into sparkling satirical farce.

Harry Wootliff's intimate two-hander strips away romantic clichés to trace the agonizing emotional fracture caused by infertility. Set on Glasgow's rainy streets, the film observes an age-gap couple whose initial passionate spark gradually curdles under medical charts, repeated failures, and quiet domestic resentment. The direction favors tight, unadorned framing that never lets the audience escape the mounting claustrophobia of grief. Playing opposite Laia Costa, O'Connor gives an achingly empathetic, grounded performance as Jake. Balancing youthful optimism with crushing powerlessness, his intuitive handling of conversational pauses and domestic unraveling anchors the film's bittersweet, deeply honest core.

Rian Johnson's third Benoit Blanc outing trades sun-drenched European yachts for the moody, rain-soaked gloom of a gothic parish mystery. The narrative tightens screws around religious devotion, hidden inheritance, and ecclesiastical corruption, maintaining the franchise's playful structural twists while adopting a palpably darker, existential register. Positioned within an eclectic, star-studded roster of suspects, O'Connor plays Father Jud Duplenticy with an arresting blend of earnest piety and twitchy nervous energy. His chemistry within the theological pressure cooker grounds the theatrical whodunit mechanics in genuine spiritual conflict, standing out cleanly against Johnson's baroque narrative puzzle pieces.

Spanning the early decades of the twentieth century, Oliver Hermanus orchestrates an elliptical exploration of companionship, folk preservation, and war-era heartache. The film tracks two young Boston musicians journeying into the American wilderness to record forgotten indigenous songs before geopolitical violence fractures their fragile bond. Hermanus emphasizes textured audio landscapes and sweeping, quiet horizons that match the material's literary roots. O'Connor captures deep, unspoken yearning with measured dignity, harmonizing seamlessly alongside Paul Mescal. While the pacing occasionally turns overly precious, his quiet restraint lends an otherwise languid period exercise genuine emotional gravity.

William Nicholson's chamber piece examines the quiet devastation of late-in-life divorce across the chalk cliffs of southern England. When a father announces his departure after three decades of marriage, the ensuing shock waves batter both his deeply religious wife and their grown son. The film leans heavily on theatrical dialogue, leaning on its scenic coastal location to supply visual metaphor for emotional isolation. O'Connor tackles the unenviable role of the triangulated adult child. Navigating maternal outrage and paternal retreat, he injects warmth and wounded maturity into a family drama that frequently verges on rigid sentimentality.

Paranoia, corporate espionage, and extraterrestrial secrets collide in this mid-budget sci-fi thriller about institutional whistleblowing. The plot hurtles through shadowy data facilities and remote desert tracking outposts as a disillusioned specialist attempts to decrypt evidence before militarized private contractors silence him. While the production values are sleek, the screenplay frequently falls back on predictable genre mechanics and frantic expository sprints. O'Connor works admirably against the film's structural shortcomings, bringing genuine exhaustion and moral conviction to the chase. His performance elevates the material above standard formula, even if the surrounding narrative lacks narrative depth.

Set against the sleepy autumnal chill of 1970s Massachusetts, this low-key crime yarn details the fumbling exploits of an unemployed family man attempting an amateur art museum heist. The film aims for deadpan period irony, capturing the mundane realities of suburban desperation with a muted color palette and deliberate pacing. Unfortunately, the narrative slackness frequently slides into monotony, draining the caper of requisite suspense. O'Connor adopts a convincing working-class posture and hangs onto his character's dignity, but the lethargic storytelling offers him very little dramatic traction to display his formidable talents.