Looking back at the breakthrough movies for today's biggest stars (2024)

Roadside Attractions

You likely didn’t see Bill Engvall’s sitcom, so you missed that playing his daughter was a young actor named Jennifer Lawrence. She first turned heads in the serious, searing drama Winter’s Bone, a small indie darling film (with a great turn by John Hawkes). Soon enough, Lawrence would be Katniss Everdeen, and superstardom was nigh.

Sony

Chris Pratt had a TV career of some notability before he was a major movie star. We have to shout out Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation . His first film role of substance was as real baseball player Scott Hatteberg in the unexpected hit Moneyball . Apparently, people want to see a movie about Billy Beane, at least if Brad Pitt plays him.

Paramount

Imagine getting your first big film role in a Martin Scorsese movie where you are asked to hold your own against Leonardo DiCaprio playing a maniac. If you pull that off, you know you have the good. Margot Robbie definitely did that. Despite all the excess in The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie stood out.

Columbia

When those two awful Fantastic Four movies came out, a lot of people said, “Well, at least Chris Evans was good.” We want to go even further back for the future Captain America. Do we mostly just want to reference Not Another Teen Movie? Sure, but he is good in the movie.

Lionsgate

Evans is in Knives Out as well, and his sweater almost stole the show. However, even Evans and a delightful Daniel Craig couldn’t overshadow Ana de Armas. She shines as Marta, the heart of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery. Benoit Blanc may have the franchise, but de Armas won us over.

Warner Bros.

Now, delving into the world of Harry Potter, we could obviously point at the first film as a star marker for the three leading kids. But that goes without saying. By dint of being cast as Harry, Daniel Radcliffe was effectively turned into a star overnight. When Robert Pattinson was cast as Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire, that was not the case. Now, he’s a bigger star than any of the three co-leads (though Radcliffe’s turn as Weird Al was a ton of fun).

Focus Features

Scarlett Johansson was acting when she was a kid (famously, she was in a sketch on Conan O’Brien’s Late Night), and she was in the cult classic Ghost World before Lost in Translation. This was her star-making role. You didn’t need to be into outsider comics to hear about Johansson in Sofia Coppola’s film.

Disney

We can kind of get a twofer here, as the first Princess Diaries was the breakthrough film for Anne Hathaway. In the sequel, we saw the introduction of the character of Nicholas Devereaux. It was the first feature film performance for Chris Pine, who would go on to lead the Star Trek reboot.

MGM

You know Fighting with My Family worked because even people who aren’t into professional wrestling would tell you they watched it and enjoyed it. There was a lot of talk at the time about the young actress in the lead role of Saraya, known as Paige in WWE. Her name? Florence Pugh.

TWC

Since we’re doing films and not TV, we can’t go with The Wire . That is clearly where Michael B. Jordan first made a splash. His stardom was completely etched in stone in 2015, when he starred in Creed and Fantastic Four, even if the latter flopped. Before that, he and director Ryan Coogler got a lot of acclaim for the searing drama Fruitvale Station, where Jordan starred as Oscar Grant.

Sony

Tom Holland was largely unknown when he was cast as Peter Parker, but he first appears in Captain America: Civil War. In Homecoming, we are introduced to Michelle, aka MJ, as played by Zendaya. If you weren’t of an age to watch her Disney Channel work, this was your first time seeing Zendaya on screen. That same year, she was also in The Greatest Showman. One year later, she would be Meechee.

MGM

Be Cool was a flop. It also wasn’t Dwayne Johnson’s first film role. He had already been the Scorpion King. Also, he had been The Rock, the biggest wrestler in the world. Be Cool, though, was early in Johnson’s career, and it was the first time people were really paying attention to his acting. There was the talk of “You know who was actually good in Be Cool? The Rock!” It probably helped legitimize him as an actor more than anything, and more than, say, Walking Tall.

Universal

The Fast and the Furious franchise arguably made a lot of names. A lot of people probably first saw Vin Diesel or Paul Walker in the first movie, though Walker never really broke through from the franchise, so he didn’t become a star as much as the franchise did. In the fourth film in the series, confusingly titled Fast & Furious , we got the film debut of Gal Gadot. We wouldn’t call Gadot a good actor by any means. A movie star? Absolutely. You star in Wonder Woman, you get that label.

Sony Pictures Classics

If you go back and watch Interstellar, you might say to yourself, “Hey, that’s Timothee Chalamet!” The future star of Dune didn’t exactly pop in Christopher Nolan’s film. In 2017, he had a memorable supporting role in Lady Bird, but he also starred in Call Me by Your Name, which was really when he grabbed people’s attention.

Fox Searchlight

Elizabeth Olsen’s older sisters, Mary Kate and Ashley, were defining child stars of their generation and also effectively out of acting by the time they reached adulthood. Elizabeth had a different path, one that led her to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. First, she made her debut in the cult drama (as in a drama about a cult) Martha Marcy May Marlene, where she got a ton of critical acclaim and became more than the Olsen Twins’ sister.

New Line Cinema

Wedding Crashers is a bad movie, but it was a hit. It certainly got a lot more attention than the actually funny but little seed cult comedy Wet Hot American Summer . Thus, for many, Bradley Cooper burst onto the scene in his supporting role in this movie. Cooper avoided being typecast as the obnoxious guy and eventually became not just a movie star but an Oscar nominee and a successful director.

Dreamworks

Speaking of Oscar nominees, Amy Adams has been nominated a whopping six times, though she has yet to win. Steven Spielberg presumably saw some of that talent when casting for Catch Me If You Can. Adams was very early in her career and not exactly getting great parts. She was in the direct-to-DVD sequel to Cruel Intentions, for example. Spielberg, let her shine, and Adams’ career took off a few years later.

CBS Films

By 2013, the Coen Brothers could work with whomever they wanted. They had that cache thanks to both box office success and winning Best Picture withNo Country for Old Men . Oscar Isaac had maybe turned a few heads in the woeful Sucker Punch or the cult favorite Drive, but his breakthrough came when he was cast in the lead in a Coens movie. He’s great inInside Llewyn Davis, even if he became swallowed up by the Disney machine with full force.