Vanessa Kirby possesses that elusive type of screen presence, he kind that can drop your heart with a glance or turn a passing smirk into a whole subplot. She’s a chameleon who navigates worlds effortlessly, as comfortable in a corset as she is driving a getaway car. Her own career to date has been a masterclass in range and emotional nuance, very role-filled with both power and vulnerability.
With her Netflix thriller Night Always Comes smoking the Top 10 and her recent MCU entry as Sue Storm still very much on pop culture’s radar, there is no better time to look back at the performances that have established her as one of the most compelling screen talents working today. Let’s count down the eight characteristic roles that confirm Vanessa Kirby is indeed one of a kind.
8. The Dresser (2015)
Before Hollywood’s arrival, Kirby was already swapping lines with giants. In this television version of Ronald Harwood’s backstage melodrama, she plays Irene, a young woman caught up in the shenanigans attending a falling-apart Shakespeare company. Playing opposite Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen, Kirby infuses each scene with a shiver of aspiration and despair. It’s a low-key performance, heavy with the kind of emotional accuracy that promised early on the dynamo she would become.
7. Mr. Jones (2019)
Kirby requires little screen time to make a mark. As Ada Brooks, a tough, principled journalist embroiled in a terrifying true tale of the Ukrainian famine, she grounds Agnieszka Holland’s historical thriller with compassion and moral footing. Although the script restricts her to the fringes of the story, Kirby brings Ada life and conviction, turning what could have been a supporting role into an engaging and admirable one.
6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Meet Alanna Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow, he sort of woman who might charm you and betray you with equal ease in the same sentence. Kirby injects a sleek, deadly presence into this espionage world, holding her own against Tom Cruise in a flat-out sprint. She exudes control, elegance, and intrigue, transforming what might have been a throwaway bad guy into one of the franchise’s most chic characters. And based on her return in subsequent films, fans (and filmmakers) paid attention.
5. The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015–2017)
Even when she is not in the spotlight, Kirby does not fade into the background. Playing Lady Jemima Hervey, a perceptive and empathetic aristocrat, she provides the gothic detective series with an emotional heartbeat. Hervey’s arc may close a little too prematurely, but Kirby’s nuanced work makes the characters’ leave-behinds painfully felt testament to her strange knack for making sparse screen time feel large.
4. Great Expectations (2011)
Years before The Crown and Oscar attention, Kirby’s performance as Estella demonstrated that she was already looking past the page. Her Estella is not simply cold or cruel; she’s a creation of suffering, someone trapped between self-preservation and desire. Kirby discovers the isolation beneath Estella’s poise, giving this iconic Dickens part a raw, contemporary edge. It’s the type of early career work that simply whispers: pay attention.
3. The World to Come (2020)
In Mona Fastvold’s lyrical frontier romance, Kirby is Tallie, a married woman who finds ill-advised love and intimacy with her neighbor, Katherine Waterston. The rapport between them crackles tender, tentative, electric. Kirby conveys so much through silence and subtle movement, building a performance that is at once close to us and sprawling. It’s reserved, yes, but not a chilly reminder of how massive she can be when she goes inward.
2. Pieces of a Woman (2020)
Few performances hit as hard as Kirby’s portrayal of Martha, a woman grappling with unimaginable loss after a tragic home birth. The now-famous opening scene, a 30-minute unbroken take, is a masterclass in control and collapse. But it’s the quiet aftermath, the numbness, the small moments of rage and reflection, that reveal her true brilliance. The performance earned her an Oscar nomination and universal praise, not because it’s glamorous, but because it’s lived-in, tough, human, and audacious.
1. The Crown (2016–2017)
If Pieces of a Woman demonstrated her strength, The Crown made her a star. Playing Princess Margaret, Kirby is radiant, brittle, and fearless, wicked and hurt. She captures each contradiction of the royal rebel’s life: the yearning for freedom, the isolation of privilege, the craving for love. Over two seasons, she transforms Margaret from a supporting character into the show’s emotional center. It’s the part that earned her a BAFTA and forever established her as acting royalty in her own right.
Honorable Mentions
Kirby keeps coming on stronger with every endeavor, whether she’s assigning steely ferocity to Napoleon as Joséphine, the Empress, stealing moments in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, or starring in Netflix’s Night Always Comes, reminding viewers she’s equally at home in a thriller as a three-hankie drama.
From Shakespearean stages to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Vanessa Kirby’s career is an ongoing masterclass in transformation. Whether the genre or the scale, she has one thing in common: the capacity to make us feel everything.