Jennifer Lawrence has won three Golden Globes over her career – and is nominated again in 2022 for the fifth time. On January 9, she will learn whether she has won the award of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her work in Don't Look Up, the climate change satire in which she plays scientist Kate Diabasky.
After losing out to Natalie Portman in 2010, Lawrence won for her next three nominations – for Silver Linings Playbook in 2013, for American Hustle in 2016 and Joy in 2016.
If you rank her film according to how highly critics rated the films on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, however, only two of these three films make it into the top 10. In this list, they are joined by two of the roles that made Lawrence most famous – Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and Mystique in the X-Men films.
Here are the 10 highest-rated movies by Jennifer Lawrence per critic's scores. Read on to see if her latest movie Don't Look Up made the cut.
Top 10 Jennifer Lawrence movies
10. The Hunger Games: Mokingjay Part 2 (2015)
Combined Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score: 135/200
The final instalment of The Hunger Games franchise (for now) just inches ahead of its predecessor in critical approval, with Rotten Tomatoes saying it brings the movie to an "exciting, poignant, and overall satisfying conclusion."
9. Like Crazy (2011)
Score: 140
Lawrence's first film after getting an Oscar nomination for Winter's Bone, Like Crazy is a romantic drama about immigration starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones. Lawrence, meanwhile, plays the second girlfriend of Yelchin's character whose sole purpose seems to be to give the central couple an obstacle.
8. Mother! (2017)
Score: 143
Though it received a pretty negative response from audience (the movie got a fairly rare "F" CinemaScore), the bizarre and nerve-shredding psychological thriller about a dysfunctional married couple got a fairly strong response from critics.
7. X-Men: First Class (2011)
Score: 151
One of the interesting things about the second set of X-Men was watching Lawrence's part get smaller film-on-film as she became more and more famous (and, one assumes, more expensive). This was not a problem for the breezily fun First Class, the actor's last role before finding worldwide fame in The Hunger Games.
6. The Hunger Games (2012)
Score: 152
Over 30 actors auditioned for the role of Katniss, with big names like Hailee Steinfeld, Saoirse Rona and Shailene Woodley missing out on the role. On the FX podcast, director Gary Ross said of her: "She came in and read for me and just knocked me out; I'd never seen an audition like that before in my life. It was one of those things where you just glimpse your whole movie in front of you."
5. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Score: 165
The last good X-Men film was giving viewers nostalgic fan service years before Spider-Man: No Way Home when it brought together the two generations of X-Men casts into one satisfying whole. It says a lot about how famous Lawrence was by 2014 that she managed to be billed fourth in the film.
4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Score: 166
The second Hunger Games movie is considered the best of the bunch by critics. With a new director, new fan favorite characters like Finnick (Sam Claflin) and Johanna (Jena Malone) joining the cast and the film delving deeper into the lore (and the Peeta/Katniss romance), it's easy to see why.
3. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Score: 173
In 2012, Lawrence seemed unstoppable. Not only was she the face of one of the world's biggest new franchises, but she won an Oscar for her role as the mentally damaged love interest to David O. Russell's Bradley Cooper in this unconventional romcom.
2. American Hustle (2013)
Score: 182
It is Russell and Lawrence's second team-up, however, that critics have decided is the better film. Though the film lost in all 10 Oscar categories it was nominated in (Lawrence lost to Lupita Nyong'o), critics acclaimed the film, and it made the top 10 of dozens of critics' best of year lists. Lawrence also gets a scene-stealing role as Christian Bale's unstable wife.
1. Winter's Bone (2010)
Score: 184
Over a decade later, Lawrence's breakout role still feels like one of the all-time great breakout performances. In the Oscar-nominated film, she plays a young woman hunting down her missing father in the poverty-stricken Ozarks. Though she lost the Oscar (again to Natalie Portman), the movie undoubtedly launched Lawrence's career.
Uncommon Knowledge
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