Superstars are a magnet for success, and among the big names of the US booming film industry, Hollywood Scarlett Johansson is indeed one of the most popular American actress. Johansson is considered the highest grossing box office star, who achieved her worldwide stardom through her endless supply of energy and talent, constantly carrying out diverse roles and bringing each character to life with her unique skills.
Her dedication to her craft entitled her to get featured in Forbes Celebrity 100 list multiple times. The actress also earned a title of being among the most influential personalities in the world by Time Magazine in 2021.
After appearing in a play, at the age of 9, Johansson launched her acting debut in 1994’s fantasy comedy drama North. However, she received fame, media attention, and recognition with her title role as an 11-year-old child who is the little sister of a pregnant teenager (Aleksa Palladino) in the film Manny and Lo 1996, for which she also received a nomination for best female lead Independent Spirit Award.
Johansson was chosen for a breakthrough role as Black Widow in the 2010s MCU superhero flick Iron Man 2. Later, she reprised her role in many other notable projects of MCU films, including The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow which led her to gain global fandom.
It’s time to satisfy your inner movie buff as this blog lists the best flicks of all time by your favorite, Scarlett Johansson.
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- IMDb Rating 7.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 90%
From the pages of comic books to the silver screen, Captain America remains the true icon featured in MCU films. The superhero sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, is the second part of the Avengers franchise directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.
After being frozen in the ice for 50 years, Steves Roger, a.k.a Captain America (Chris Evan), awakens in contemporary society, where performing his role as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent can be more challenging than ever before. But unstoppable and unrelenting Captain America always remembers his values and fights for what’s right.
As the new threat against S.H.I.E.L.D Bucky Barnes a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, a brainwashed assassin arises, Nick spills the beans about the secret project from S.H.I.E.L.D called “Operation Insight,” which aims to catapult three aircraft carriers into space connected to a satellite to protect the world.
Steve immediately joins forces with his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and his new ally, Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon, and launches the investigation to discover the origins of this new threat, The Winter Soldier.
As their investigation made a great breakthrough about the deadly secret conspired by the HYDRA, the agents are now on their mission to solve this deadly enigma.
9. Black Widow (2021)
- IMDb Rating 6.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 79%
The Top Tier Spy Thriller Black Widow is an action-packed film and is the last sequel to Captain America: Civil War and Prequal to Avengers: Infinity War. Kate Shortland directs the film and gives us the backstory of Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
The movie begins with a flashback of The America and the Cold War. The visual references continue throughout the movie. Before joining the Avengers team, Natasha reunites with her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh), and the two begin looking for their faux parents, Alexei (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz), whom they haven’t seen in years. Formerly all her family members worked for the Red Room, but now the girls are together in their quest to take down Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the man behind their espionage training program Red Room.
Their mission to kill Dreykov gets more challenging when Natasha discovers that he has installed the pheromone lock in every Widow to control them all around the world. Both sisters try to develop leads that could stop Red Room from constraining the other trainee Widows.
8. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- IMDb Rating 7.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 90%
The masterpiece filmed by the Russo brothers, Captain America: Civil War, is an espionage classic and is the threequel of Captain America’s franchise, the 13th movie in MCU films.
After finding the involvement of Avengers in another incident that causes collateral damage, the government decides to install a system of check and balances that intends to keep the Avengers accountable for their actions. The government’s pressure causes a rift between the Avengers and splits Avengers into two groups, Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Steve, a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evan), believes in the freedom of superheroes from government interference. At the same time, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey), supports this Act of government as he thinks that heroes must be answerable to the government for their actions to save the cities from further vandalization, which ultimately leads other fellow Avengers to choose their sides.
Meanwhile, the bomb explosion at the UN gathering causes multiple casualties, including the King of Wakanda, T’Chaka (John Kani). The investigation reveals the involvement of the Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), in a bomb blast. While everyone is after Barnes, Steve reaches out to Barnes, as he is his old friend he made during the war, and comes to know that he is clean and someone else is behind this. Suddenly, the security forces catch up with a man in black who reveals that he is the son of King Wakanda, T’Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman).
Tony is told to find and bring Steve, as he helped out Bucky Barnes, so he is also now wanted. Tony strengthens his team by including Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Vision (Paul Bettany) and asks Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) to join his team, while Black Widow offers Black Panther to join them. On the other hand, Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Ant Man (Paul Rudd) and Bucky Barnes team up with Captain America to fight this feud.
7. The Avengers (2012)
- IMDb Rating 8.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 91%
The film Marvel’s The Avengers follows the awesome action sequences and features the planet’s mightiest squad of superheroes, who get recruited by the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. When the exiled professor Loki (Tom Hiddleston) joins the Chitauri Army and uses the power of Tesseract to get mysteriously teleported to the earth again with his devilish plans to rule over the planet and become the king.
Nick Furry plans to form a virtual team of superheroes. He recruits Dr. Bruce Banner, a.k.a. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), a green rage machine, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey), the armored superhero with high-flying abilities, Steve, a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evan), America’s first super-soldier, Loki’s brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the protector of earth and his home planet Asgard, the finest assassin Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the super spy Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
The Avengers are all set to fight against a common threat Loki to rescue the humans and their planet from Loki and the invasion of aliens.
6. Ghost World (2001)
- IMDb Rating 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 93%
Terry Zwigoff’s dark comedy indie flick, Ghost World, is an ethereal contrast of two different characters and their adventures. The movie follows a pair of unusual devious allies, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), who are free-spirited and struggling with the social behaviors of people.
The duo seeks direction in life after graduating from high school. They respond to an ad, ‘I saw you there’ in a personal section of the newspaper, written by a 40+ anti-social loner Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a record collector, who is looking for a woman he met earlier. The girls decide to prank him, but when Enid realizes they both have much in common, she eventually develops strong feelings for him. As time passes, their relationships go through some sort of trials and exempt tribulations. Soon the girls begin to learn the harsh realities of the world, and the truth sometimes stings with terrifying effects.
5. Her (2013)
- IMDb Rating 8.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 94%
The unusual love story between a human and a computer system, Her, by Spike Jonze, centers around a middle-aged loner, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), who is a writer and going through the final stages of his divorce. He spends his downtime playing video games and hanging out with friends.
Theodore sees an ad for the first artificially intelligent operating system, which draws his attention, and he quickly plans to buy this AI system to help him do his work. After installing the system, Theodore usually converses with a female named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), having a seductive voice, which is actually the OS and doesn’t have a physical existence.
As time passes, Theodore finds himself attracted to Samantha and develops an unexpectedly rich connection with her as she caters to him for what he needs, whether helping him in his secretarial work or lending him emotional support. Samantha is specially programmed to meet his expectations and provide whatever he needs, and her ability to assimilate humanity twitch soon has the OS feeling emotions. But things get even more complicated with Theodore’s rapidly intensifying emotions and Samantha’s incapability to fulfill his physical pleasures.
4. The Jungle Book (2016)
- IMDb Rating 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 94%
2016’s American fantasy tale is a captivating musical adventure by Jon Favreau that retells the epic journey of self-discovery of an orphan child named Mowgli (Neel Sethi), who is brought up in a jungle by his animal guardians, a pack of wolves. The little boy’s adventure begins when a villainous tiger, Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba), threatens him with death. While Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), a black panther, contributes to rendering him flee from the Jungle to the nearby village.
During his journey to seek refuge in the dense forest, Mowgli, along with his mentor Bagheera come across with so many wild creatures and encounters a genius and extinct ape, King Louie (voiced by Christopher Walken), a sly snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), whose erotic voice and gaze fascinates a man-cub Mowgli and a free-spirited lazy bear Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray), who saves the little guy from becoming a meal of the python Kaa. Later he becomes his guide, who teaches him the law of the Jungle in order to survive.
3. Lucy (2014)
- IMDb Rating 6.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 66%
The action-packed sci-fi flick Lucy is full of mystery. A thriller that evokes excitement is written and directed by Luc Besson. The story revolves around a smart college student Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), who is tricked into doing shady dealings in the black market by her new boyfriend, Richard (Pilou Asbeak). He hands in a briefcase to Lucy to deliver it to a suspicious Korean guy Mr. Jang (Choi Min-Sik), a drug lord, who forces her to become a dope pusher.
The story takes an interesting turn when she gets kicked in her abdomen; the bag leaks that she is having on her stomach, and the CPH4 drug is released into her body, unlocking her unimaginable mental and physical capabilities and transforming her into a ruthless warrior. Lucy uses her supernatural powers to combat her captors. However, the mystical powers continue to increase, and Lucy discovers that she barely has 24-48 hours to live.
She contacts a neuroscientist and a professor, Norman (Morgan Freeman), who can help preserve her extraordinary brain to serve humanity before the villains catch her and kill her.
2. Marriage Story (2019)
- IMDb Rating 7.9/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 95%
Marriage Story is a rom-com drama film directed by Noah Baumbach. The film follows a close-knitted couple, a brilliant director Charlie and the former film star of LA, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), who find their marriage in jeopardy and seek help from the marital mediation, but the failure of sessions ultimately leads the couple to part their ways.
1. Lost In Translation (2003)
- IMDb Rating 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Rating 95%
A well-made and well-shot rom-com drama movie, Lost in Translation is undeniably a masterpiece written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It features a faded American film star Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a middle-aged and lonesome man. Bob travels to Tokyo to shoot a Japanese Whiskey commercial, where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), the neglected wife of a celebrity photographer. Soon the two build a deep emotional connection, and their friendship blossoms into something much more meaningful.
