Saoirse Ronan is the second youngest person to accrue four Academy Award nominations, on top of which she also has five BAFTA nominations and has won dozens of other awards. Not only is Ronan one of the most acclaimed actors in Hollywood; she’s also one of the most versatile.
Over the years, Ronan has played all kinds of characters. She’s played a painfully relatable Sacramento teenager, a former Queen of Scotland, a murder victim trapped in an ethereal afterlife, and a kid who was raised from birth to kill without remorse.
Susie Salmon (The Lovely Bones)
Ronan narrated and starred in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones in the role of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who gets murdered by her creepy neighbor.
After the killing, Susie lingers in “the in-between,” a sort of afterlife in which she has to choose between exacting revenge on her killer and allowing her family to grieve and move on. The movie is far from perfect, but Ronan’s performance is great.
Mary, Queen Of Scots (Mary Queen Of Scots)
Josie Rourke’s feature directorial debut Mary Queen of Scots starred Ronan as the titular Queen of Scotland opposite Margot Robbie as her cousin, Elizabeth I, the Queen of England.
Ronan and Robbie are a perfectly matched duo in these roles. Their on-screen chemistry salvages a movie that gets too bogged down in political discourse.
Charlotte Murchison (Ammonite)
One of many historical love triangle movies on Ronan’s filmography, Ammonite, revolves around a British geologist who is married to a man but falls in love with her female colleague.
The historical accuracy of the movie has been disputed by some critics, but the fiery, passionate chemistry between Ronan and her co-star Kate Winslet is undeniable.
Daisy (How I Live Now)
In How I Live Now, Ronan plays a disillusioned American teenager who’s sent to stay with her aunt and her three children in the English countryside. Suddenly, a terrifying war breaks out and the kids are all separated.
Daisy and her young cousin set off on a journey across a lawless dystopian battlefield to get back home and reunite with her lover, Eddie. The movie doesn’t shy away from the bleakness of a war-torn near-future, with on-screen child murders, masked hunters patrolling the woods, and civilian corpses piling up in the streets.
Jo March (Little Women)
From Dorothy Bernard to Katharine Hepburn to June Allyson to Winona Ryder, the role of Jo March has been played by many different actors over the years. In Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, the latest adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic, the part is played spectacularly by Ronan.
Ronan is one of the most memorable Jo Marches to date. The Gerwig adaptation focuses on Jo’s creative expression, and Ronan gives a quintessential turn as an aspiring writer faced with the frustration of constant rejection (and a spiteful sister who torches her manuscript).
Éilis Lacey (Brooklyn)
John Crowley’s Brooklyn, one of the many movies that Ronan has been Oscar-nominated for, is an emotional rollercoaster. Ronan plays Éilis Lacey, a young Irish woman who’s given the opportunity to move to New York City.
Upon arrival in the Big Apple, Éilis feels lonely and homesick, but she eventually finds love. She returns to Ireland after a family tragedy and meets a charming new suitor. She ultimately decides to return to her husband in Brooklyn, where she now feels she belongs. Through this arc, Brooklyn forges a truly beautiful exploration of what “home” means.
Agatha (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
Along with Zero, the narrator, Agatha is one of the sweetest and most likable characters in the sprawling ensemble of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. When Zero first mentions his late wife to the writer he’s having dinner with, he explains that he finds it difficult to talk about her because it brings up so much sadness.
This foreshadowed a grim fate for the character. Ronan proceeded to play Agatha as the kind-hearted, dryly hilarious standout of the cast, so audiences dreaded that grim fate.
Hanna (Hanna)
The title character in Hanna is like a 15-year-old John Wick. She’s a cold-blooded assassin who’s been trained to kill from birth. The movie is a pitch-perfect blend of a heartfelt coming-of-age dramedy and a visceral action thriller.
The genius of Ronan’s performance is the way she contrasts Hanna’s effortless competence as a killer with her authentic awkwardness as a fish-out-of-water teen trying to make friends.
13-Year-Old Briony Tallis (Atonement)
Ronan became one of the youngest Oscar nominees of all time with a Best Supporting Actress nod for her widely acclaimed turn as 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the wartime romance Atonement.
The 13-year-old version played by Ronan is a bright-eyed aspiring novelist nicely contrasted with Romola Garai as an 18-year-old Briony, a nurse-in-training, and Vanessa Redgrave as an older Briony, now a successful novelist.
Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Lady Bird)
Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, is one of the most authentic coming-of-age movies ever made. With one of the most deeply moving portrayals of a mother-daughter relationship in film history, Lady Bird adheres to the rule that the more specific a movie is, the more universally identifiable it will be.
From her rebelliousness to her doomed high school romances to her complicated love-hate relationship with her mother, Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is painfully relatable.
