All 10 Best Willa Fitzgerald Movies Ranked (Best to Worst)

JT Mollner’s six-chapter cat-and-mouse puzzle subverts grindhouse tropes through gorgeous 35mm cinematography and razor-edged nonlinear storytelling. What begins as a bruised motel encounter quickly morphs into a ferociously staged deconstruction of gendered violence and genre expectations, bolstered by Giovanni Ribisi’s tactile camerawork. Yet the entire engine hinges on Willa Fitzgerald's feral, shape-shifting turn as The Lady. Flitting between frantic terror and chilling calculation with mercurial grace, she delivers a fearless, career-defining performance that upends every standard final-girl archetype. It stands as her undisputed magnum opus, proving she possesses the explosive screen gravity of a premier modern genre icon.

David Mackenzie strips modern corporate malfeasance down to a lean, paranoid procedural that echoes seventies political thrillers. Centered on an anonymous fixer orchestrating illicit restitution payments, the film thrives on quiet logistics, analog trades, and escalating surveillance panic rather than cheap pyrotechnics. In this cold-blooded labyrinth, Fitzgerald arrives as an indispensable fulcrum, injecting anxious human vulnerability into an otherwise clinical cat-and-mouse game. She navigates the script’s tight corners with simmering intensity, matching Riz Ahmed beat for beat and anchoring the film’s moral conscience. Her work here cements her growing reputation as a heavyweight player in sophisticated adult thrillers.

John Crowley’s sprawling adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer-winning novel may shoulder an unwieldy narrative architecture, but its visual refinement is undeniable. Shot with luminous melancholy by Roger Deakins, the film paints a sorrowful portrait of grief, art forgery, and aristocratic New York facade. Amid the gilded furniture and stifled emotion, Fitzgerald offers an exquisite portrait of high-society self-preservation as Kitsey Barbour. Playing a woman bound by pedigree and mutual trauma, she conveys volumes through brittle posture, subtle vocal inflections, and guarded smiles. While the picture received a fractured critical reception, Fitzgerald’s calculated poise remains one of its sharpest, most emotionally resonant assets.

Ethan Hawke approaches the interior life of Flannery O'Connor not as a reverent biopic, but as an impressionistic collision between a writer’s spiritual torment and her grotesque fictional creations. Blending Catholic iconography with Southern Gothic vignettes, the film swings for bold aesthetic fences, alternating between rural domesticity and theatrical literary fever dreams. Fitzgerald slips effortlessly into this stylistic kaleidoscope, tackling dual roles that showcase her versatility across period decorum and biting O'Connor humor. Her natural stage training shines through every line delivery, demonstrating a sophisticated command of mid-century dialect and psychological nuance that proves she thrives when operating inside unconventional, auteur-driven cinema.

Nadine Crocker’s adaptation of Michael Farris Smith’s novel plunges headfirst into the rain-soaked asphalt and generational rot of rural Mississippi. Rather than coasting on standard Southern noir cliches, the production leans into quiet, bone-deep weariness, framing its hardscrabble survivors through an unflinching, empathetic lens. Fitzgerald holds the film’s emotional center as Maben, a destitute mother pushed to extreme survival instincts. Stripped of all glamour, she plays desperation with raw, visceral dignity, communicating a lifetime of hardship through bruised silences and fierce maternal fury. It remains one of her most intensely physical dramatic turns, grounding the thriller’s fatalistic machinations in authentic human tragedy.

Trudie Styler’s adaptation of James St. James’s YA novel revels in high-camp theatricality and unapologetic individuality. Framing a glitter-soaked teen outcast’s quixotic quest to become homecoming queen at an ultra-conservative high school, the narrative trades in vibrant pop aesthetics and broad satirical strokes. As the pious, venomous class rival Tiffany, Fitzgerald leans boldly into sharp comedic villainy. Rather than delivering a one-note caricature, she layers her character's sanctimonious hostility with subtle flickers of suburban insecurity and social anxiety. It marks a spirited display of her comedic timing, showcasing a playful, stylized side of her talent rarely tapped in her darker dramatic work.

Built around the messy aftermath of a fatal car accident that unearths a web of long-buried domestic lies, this adaptation explores the fractured bonds between mothers, daughters, and departed loved ones. While the film occasionally surrenders to the heightened sentimentality typical of its source material, it handles the daily rhythms of familial grief with earnest care. Fitzgerald brings grounded poise to the ensemble, sidestepping cheap melodrama in favor of quiet, observational grief. Her naturalistic screen presence adds substantial credibility to the narrative's tearjerker beats, demonstrating how her steady, empathetic dramatic instincts can elevate mainstream romantic drama into something genuinely affecting.

Randall Emmett’s gritty revenge potboiler navigates the bleak contours of the modern opioid epidemic, framed within the violent architecture of a small-town vigilante rampage. While the film often struggles beneath familiar genre formulas and heavy-handed pacing, its early domestic acts possess surprising tenderness. Fitzgerald portrays Ruby Red, whose tragic struggle with addiction forms the catalyst for the bloody retaliation that follows. She endows what could have been a purely sacrificial plot device with luminous warmth, fragile optimism, and agonizing vulnerability. Even within a predictable B-tier shoot-'em-up, her brief screen time lingers, supplying the story with its only honest pulse of emotional sorrow.

Lucky McKee’s stripped-down outdoor thriller mines tension from a classic moral fable: three estranged friends on a river rafting trip discover bags of embezzled cash, only to tear each other apart as greed sets in. Despite its lean, sun-drenched pacing, the script frequently stumbles through generic dialogue and contrived character choices. Fitzgerald takes charge as Lynn, the most fiercely pragmatic and ruthless member of the hiking trio. She completely subverts expectations of the traditional victim, playing her character’s spiraling avarice with sharp-eyed resolve. Her confrontational energy keeps the sluggish cat-and-mouse dynamic afloat, even when the plot slips into predictable wilderness skirmishes.

Michael Polish’s covert-ops thriller strands two rogue intelligence operatives in a secluded winter cabin, only to unleash an onslaught of rival mercenaries when an encrypted hard drive surfaces. Hobbled by murky digital aesthetics, uninspired shootouts, and an overabundance of spy-cliche jargon, the movie rarely escapes the gravity of generic streaming action fodder. Fitzgerald is tasked with navigating an underdeveloped supporting role, but she still attempts to bring crisp professionalism and steely edge to the chaotic skirmishes. While unable to salvage the film from its derivative structure and lethargic pacing, her committed physical performance stands as a rare professional bright spot amidst disposable popcorn wreckage.