In the past decade, Kristen Stewart has come a long way. While her career started early and with great promise – while she was still a teenager – the actress' participation in Twilight movies soured the world's perception of her talent. It's unfair but, as of the writing of this piece, it seems to be over. With Pablo Larraín's Spencer, even the biggest Stewart skeptics have quieted, and she's on her way to a likely Oscar nomination if prognosticators are to be believed. All that and she also just got engaged to girlfriend Dylan Meyer, making this a time of great personal fulfillment as well as professional and artistic. Still, when looking back at her own filmography, it seems that the actress herself isn't as enamored with it as some fans might be…
In an interview about Spencer for The Sunday Times, Stewart said:
I've probably made five really good films out of 45 or 50 films. Ones that I go, 'Wow, that person made a top-to-bottom beautiful piece of work!
Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder what cinematic quintet she holds dear to her heart...
One would assume Spencer is in the group, likely joined by Stewart's two collaborations with Olivier Assayas, Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper. Still, artists are seldom the best critics of their work. More interesting than pondering what Stewart's favorite movies from her curriculum are, is to reflect on what one considers to be her five best films. Or if, indeed, there are five good movies to be selected. While the actress is often great, she's sometimes the best thing in subpar projects, interesting endeavors whose end results don't always reach Stewart's excellence. Films like J.T. LeRoy and Seberg would do well to be more like their leading lady.
With this in mind, I decided to reflect on Kristen Stewart's filmography and highlight five which deserve all the love in the world, be they widely acclaimed or not at all. They are, in chronological order of release:
PANIC ROOM (2002), David Fincher
The pairing of Stewart and Foster is inspired, but David Fincher's camera wizardry is just as impressive. There's a beguiling tightness to Panic Room's first act, a formalistic playfulness that percolates during the later passages, fermenting into a bubbling mass of anxiety ready to consume the viewer. Intense and weirdly big for such a diminutive home invasion concept, Panic Room's a lot of fun, even if far from perfect, and the mother-daughter duo at its center is flawless.
ADVENTURELAND (2009), Greg Mottola
While the Fincher movie would have succeeded without Stewart, her presence is key to Adventureland's excellence. Indeed, while Mottola offers little surprise behind the cameras, his direction of actors is exquisite. We experience a crystallization of disillusionment through the performers, a vulnerable portrait of that terror that walks hand-in-hand with encroaching adulthood. Refusing to sand off the sharp edges of its emotional storytelling, the movie is a sad little gem, and Stewart's perfect in it.
THE RUNAWAYS (2010), Floria Sigismondi
Casting Stewart as a young Joan Jett was a stroke of genius that dramatically benefits the movie. The combination of star and role brings mysterious inchoate energies to her scenes, complicating what could have been a forgettable by-the-numbers music biopic. Along with Stewart, Dakota Fanning is a beguiling ruin as The Runaway's lead vocalist Cherrie Currie. Moreover, it's a beautifully designed film with great cinematography and a killer soundtrack.
CERTAIN WOMEN (2016), Kelly Reichardt
It's wonderful seeing actors respond to Reichardt's quiet cinema, especially when the thespians in question are as formidable as Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Lily Gladstone, and Kristen Stewart. Those last two star in the film's best tale, a sublimation of yearning for connection in a lonely world. Years after seeing it for the first time, Certain Women lingers, its melancholy wrapped around the viewer's heart in a vice grip that refuses to let go. Not for all audiences, but a patient viewer may find something truly beautiful hidden within the Montana tableaux.
PERSONAL SHOPPER (2016), Olivier Assayas
A horror movie? A ghost story? A fashion drama? An excoriation of identity? Yes, and no, all of the time. This multifaceted creature sometimes feels like Assayas doing Antonioni, especially when paths are revisited with emptiness where a person once was. Stewart's at the center of it, a shining revelation of tentative naturalism that embodies the movie's great mysteries while also feeling grounded, impossibly human, and even tender. Her last scene persists in the memory as maybe the actress' most outstanding work, Assayas depurating his cinematic expression to the careful observation of Stewart's face, her microscopic reactions, a presence as beguilingly uncategorizable as Personal Shopper itself.
Other favorite Kristen Stewart films include Camp X-Ray, Still Alice, and Speak. They're not masterpieces but deserve praise nonetheless. Please know I haven’t seen Spencer yet. Hopefully, it'll get a place in this quintet after I catch it in theaters. What about you, though? What are your five favorite Kristen Stewart films?