Regardless of where you fall on the Captain Marvel debate, you can’t deny the charm Brie Larson brings to her MCU hero. Working in the industry from an early age, Larson has traversed across TV and film, bringing her amazing talent with her to every project. 6y6z15

With The Marvels getting blasted by fans and critics alike, many are finding refuge in Larson’s other projects to get their taste of her abilities. Considering her first film role dates back to 2001, there’s a lot of options to choose from when you get a hankering for Brie Larson. So, to satisfy your craving, regardless of what type of movie you prefer, here are the best films of Larson’s across all the genres she’s done.

COMEDY — 21 Jump Street 283o2n

When people talk about the Jump Street films from Lord and Miller, the focus is always on leads Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill for their ridiculous portrayal of cops pretending to be high schoolers. But often overlooked are the actors playing actual high schoolers, like Dave Franco and Larson. Larson in particular has a hilarious role playing the deadpan drama star Molly who is falling for Schmidt (Hill). The scene with her tripping on the mysterious drug HFS proves Larson has the comedic chops to stand against some larger powerhouse comedians.

ROMANCE — The Spectacular Now 5270i

Surprisingly, Larson has never had the chance to be a lead in a romantic film yet in her career. However, that hasn’t stopped her from participating in the genre in more ing roles. Take, for example, her role as Miles Teller’s ex in The Spectacular Now. She gets the chance to play into a relationship while also acting as a driving force between the two leads, since she’s the reason they even get together in the first place.

MUSICAL — Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 5j5l6f

Yes, Scott Pilgrim isn’t a musical film. We don’t care, the only reason we watch this film is for Brie Larson performing “Black Sheep.” 10/10 performance every time. If they make a filmed version of Six, we need her in the cast.

ACTION — Fast X 4qw

Thankfully, someone else besides Marvel saw potential in Larson’s butt-kicking abilities and gave her a role in the latest Fast & Furious film as the daughter of Mr. Nobody (fellow MCU-er Kurt Russell), Tess. Larson fits in with the rest of the ensemble well, and is definitely able to throw punches right alongside Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and the rest of the family.

DRAMA — Room 6932

Larson won her first Oscar from playing Ma in Room and rightfully so. While Larson had starred in dramas like Short Term 12 and The Gambler before, playing a young hostage forced into captivity with her son gave her so much material to work with. You feel her pain as she tries to create a happy life for her son even in the worst of circumstances, proving Larson’s acting success hasn’t been just luck.

SUPERHERO — Captain Marvel 1j3u6o

Listen, we get it. You think Captain Marvel is an overpowered hero, she’s a Mary Sue, she’s boring. Whatever excuse you use to write off this MCU entry, that doesn’t change the fact Larson kills it as Carol Danvers. She’s snarky, powerful, stylish, and just overall someone we want to be friends with even without the powers.

For reasons that can’t readily be explained, there’s a very vocal contingent among the online community who vehemently disagree with the notion of Brie Larson being a hugely talented star, one that’s more than capable of leading her own standalone Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

Captain Marvel was trolled, decried, and review-bombed in the buildup and aftermath of its release, with YouTube forced to change its algorithm as a result, all while Larson’s co-star Clark Gregg labeled them as nothing more than sad and butthurt.

The fact the movie made over a billion dollars at the box office would indicate the impact wasn’t even noticeable, and we’re expecting big things from sequel The Marvels when it lands in February 2023.

By the time Larson had even turned 30, she’d won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and a BAFTA, directed her first feature film, headlined a smash hit solo blockbuster, and lent in what was briefly the highest-grossing movie ever made, so she’s evidently very good at her job.

The majority of those aforementioned accolades came from Room, the gut-punching drama that finds the actress as a young mother trying to gain her freedom after spending years as a captive. It’s powerful, regularly haunting stuff, but that hasn’t dissuaded Netflix subscribers from firing it up this weekend. As per FlixPatrol, Lenny Abrahamson’s film has pitched up on the most-watched list, even reaching the Top 10 in a couple of countries.

One of Brie Larson’s best movies is trending on Netflix today. According to rankings shared by FlixPatrol, 2015’s Room – not to be confused with Tommy Wiseau’s immortal The Room – is the tenth most-watched film on the streaming giant. It’s not being binged quite as much as more easygoing fare like The Grinch (#9), Mr. Peabody and Sherman (#6) or We Can Be Heroes (#1), but still, a lot of folks are obviously appreciating the emotional drama based on the bestselling novel by Emma Donoghue and directed by Lenny Abrahamson. Room stars Larson as Joy Newsome, a woman who was abducted seven years ago and lives in a squalid shed with her five-year-old son Jack (Jason Tremblay), who was born in captivity. The film follows Joy’s attempts to keep her boy safe from their captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridger), and shield him from the truth. You see, Jack grows up believing that only the shed AKA “Room” is real and the outside world, which he sees through the TV, is fiction. While Tremblay supplies an incredibly mature performance, Larson is the star of the picture and she rightly achieved widespread acclaim for her work. Room was nominated for four Academy Awards, with the future Captain Marvel icon even winning Best Actress. Larson was a familiar face before this, of course, from the likes of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but it was Room that made folks really sit up and take notice of her talents. In fact, it’s possible that without the pic, she wouldn’t have appeared on Marvel’s radar for Carol Danvers. If you’ve already checked out Room and are in the mood to catch more of Brie Larson’s movies, Netflix thankfully has a wide selection to choose from. For instance, you may want to watch Unicorn Store, the actress’ directorial debut in which she reunites with Marvel co-star Samuel L. Jackson.

There’s very little I can say about director Lenny Abrahamson’s brilliant and heart-wrenching drama Room that has not already been said – critics and audiences have praised it and the Oscars rewarded it. As the film makes its way onto Blu-ray this month, audiences will have another opportunity to experience the painful humanity of this drama, a story about a mother/child bond forged in trauma and fantasy. Room is not an easy film to watch; while it avoids overly explicit depiction of the abuse experienced by Joy (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Tremblay) at the hands of their kidnapper Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), it is nevertheless a disturbing, claustrophobic film that treats its subject with unblinking understanding. It does not shy away from the aftermath of their trauma, their difficulty in adapting to the world outside their prison, and their intense connection during the first five years of Jack’s life where they were, for all intents and purposes, the only two people in the world. In avoiding overt examination of abuse, the film further avoids making this story about the ab. Nick is a near-phantom, a shadow in Jack’s life, not a real person, and his downfall is not even explicitly depicted on-screen. It’s all about Joy and Jack, as well it should be. The first half of Room develops the fantasy world that Joy so carefully constructs for her son, keeping him from any with Nick and maintaining his belief that the “real world” is confined to the small room in which they are imprisoned. While for Joy the room is a trap, for Jack it’s his only world, his mother the only tangible human being outside of himself. The second half of the film picks up with the pair’s escape from the room, as Jack must come to understand the reality of the world outside and the part he’ll have to play in it. The internal conflicts and fears of the room are now externalized, and the viewer is made to feel both Joy’s relief in their rescue, and Jack’s terror at the world outside. Room succeeds at being a strikingly human and humane film, providing tension, respite and even humor in the midst of terrible circumstances. Larson richly deserved her Best Actress Oscar, but her performance is firmly anchored in her relationship with Tremblay, undoubtedly a young actor to watch. Between them they form a believable, intense bond, one in which they depend absolutely on one another – and the severing of that bond, so necessary for their lives to continue, is more painful for Joy than it ultimately is for Jack. Joy has maintained the fiction of their lives for so long that she has come to believe in it as a necessity for survival. The Blu-ray release of Room is an attractive one, presented in 1080p HD and DTS Surround Sound. It’s an excellent film to watch on the small screen too, as its intimacy provides the viewer with a sense of claustrophobia and immersion that is sometimes hard to achieve on a large screen. While some recent Blu-ray releases have been overly contrasted, with their visually darker scenes occasionally hard to decipher, Room is well-balanced – we almost don’t realize how dark the scenes inside the room are until, like Jack, we’re plunged into the brightness of the outside world. Like the film, the special features on this disc are sparse but powerful. These include an excellent twelve minute “making of” feature with interviews with the cast and crew about the development of the film, its casting, and filming. “11×11” discusses the relationship between Joy and Jack and the set design and cinematography of the room, while “Recreating Room” provides a brief glimpse of the rebuilding of the Room set as a part of a multimedia installation. The ubiquitous but always interesting audio commentary with the filmmakers rounds out the disc. Room is an example of how intimate and powerful filmmaking can be while avoiding cliché and melodrama. It occasionally made me uncomfortable to watch, but that was part of the point: this is not a comfortable subject. But perhaps Room’s strongest message is in what it chooses not to express. Room is not about repressing trauma; it’s about coping with it, surviving it, and eventually transcending it not through anger or hate, but through unbreakable, indelible love.

In many ways, Brie Larson’s triumphant Oscar win was foretold long before Lenny Abrahamson’s Room released in theaters. Our glowing review coming out of Toronto International Film Festival last year was full of praise for not only Abrahamson’s intimate direction, but also Larson’s raw performance alongside her young co-star, Jacob Tremblay. Imprisoned in the claustrophobic room, the pair lead a life that is decidedly insular; this is their home, and anything that exists beyond the four walls that encapsulate them is essentially alien. Larson plays Ma, a caring mother who has created a whole universe for Jack (Tremblay), Lifted from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel of the same name, Room also stars Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers, and William H. Macy. Nevertheless, Abrahamson’s rendition is ultimately about the timeless bond between mother-and-son, and how that can transcend even the most harrowing of circumstances. And so, to commemorate the film’s award coup, We Got This Covered is giving away one copy of Room on Blu-Ray. To be in with a chance of winning, simply subscribe to our all-new push notification system. Please note, this is only available in Google Chrome/Firefox and on Desktop/Android devices at the moment. A winner will be selected at random on March 11th and announced via the push notification system. Good luck!

The 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards are this Saturday, so it’s time to take a look and see who has the best chance of taking home the coveted statue that leads to an Oscar most of the time. The fascinating thing about this year is that there isn’t a clear cut winner in several of the categories, with there only being two that seem to be a sure thing (i.e. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were wrong in at least one or two categories). However, as usual, we’ll take a look on a category by category basis, where we’ll go through the potential winners and the ramifications that they’d have. Best Performance by a Female Actor in a ing Role

• Rooney Mara – Carol
• Rachel McAdams – Spotlight
• Helen Mirren – Trumbo
• Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl
• Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs

We start with a category that is completely up in the air, divided between three or possibly even four contenders who could take it. In fact, the only one I’m sure is not going to win is Helen Mirren, because she’s the only one here who didn’t earn a subsequent Oscar nomination. However, that still leaves us with several names. The biggest winner throughout the critics awards was Alicia Vikander, but it was for the fantastic sci-fi flick Ex Machina, not The Danish Girl. Rooney Mara won a few awards for her performance in Carol, including honors from the New York Film Critics Online and the Online Film Critics Society, so it could certainly go to her, but we also have to consider the fact that Kate Winslet won the Golden Globe for Steve Jobs, a film that was sadly robbed of a Best Cast nomination. Could SAG be looking to make up for their awful mistake by giving this to her? Perhaps, but in the end, I’m guessing that they’re going to go with Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl, a performance for which she won the Critics Choice award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, a group that has matched the Academy’s choice for the last six years in a row. However, as I said, this is very much up in the air, so don’t be surprised at all if she doesn’t win in favor of one of the others. I wouldn’t even count out Rachel McAdams entirely given that Spotlight may end up being the favorite film of the night. Best Performance by a Male Actor in a ing Role

• Christian Bale – The Big Short
• Idris Elba – Beasts of No Nation
• Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies
• Michael Shannon – 99 Homes
• Jacob Tremblay – Room

ing Actor is going to be one of two vitally important categories of the evening, but more on that in just a bit. This is a race that appears to be down to just Mark Rylance for his brilliant performance in Bridge of Spies and Christian Bale for his bizarre performance in The Big Short, the only two nominees who also received Oscar nods (Sylvester Stallone has been the most popular winner in this category throughout awards season for his performance in Creed, even taking the Critics Choice and Golden Globe, but was not nominated here). Rylance has won in numerous places throughout the critics awards, with all of them being rather big wins, including the New York Film Critics Online, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the National Society of Film Critics. Christian Bale has won…. nothing. He’s been nominated in several spots, but has strangely failed to receive a single award, so why does he have a strong chance of being the one to win here? Well, with the surprise win for The Big Short at the Producers Guild awards, we suddenly find ourselves with a new frontrunner for Best Picture, and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s a film that’s only in the lead for two awards at present (Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay), so it would need to find another win from one of its other categories to pull in the minimum haul of three awards on the big night. Director and Film Editing seem almost entirely locked up for Mad Max: Fury Road, leaving ing Actor as the most vulnerable spot to get that third win. The problem is that he only won five years ago (undeservedly over Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech), so it seems a little too quick to give him another one, especially since it would be over better performances once again. This, combined with the fact that he hasn’t won anywhere previously would seem to point to a Rylance victory, which is my final prediction. Although,  if The Big Short ends up being the popular film of the evening, and indeed of the rest of the awards season, a Bale win could actually happen.

Audiences were truly spoiled for great performances in 2015. It seems now like we may be in some kind of golden age for exceptional actors and actresses working in their prime – Tom Hardy, Emily Blunt, Michael Fassbender, Brie Larson, Oscar Isaac and the like – as huge stars are pushing themselves further than ever, giving us tremendous performances that continue to leave us wildly impressed. A mere top ten wouldn’t do them all justice – this was a vintage year for film, after all, full of fine turns from some of Hollywood’s absolute best. So, instead, here are the 20 best movie performances of 2015. Enjoy, and as always, drop a comment letting us know which performances you really dug this year.

*Please excuse the quick technical hiccup that occurs at about the 9:00 mark in the video, as there was an issue with the camera and we unfortunately lost a few seconds of recording. Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson broke through to American audiences with Frank, a comedy-drama which starred Michael Fassbender as a band leader who covers his face with a paper-mache mask. The film was an amazing critical success, and now Lenny has topped it with his latest effort, Room. An adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s acclaimed novel, the movie stars Brie Larson as Joy, a young woman who is raising her five year old son Jack in captivity. We eventually learn that Joy was kidnapped several years ago by a man who tricked her into helping him find his dog, and now the time has come for her and Jack to escape their surroundings and get back to the real world. But upon returning home, they both come to discover that leading a normal life is an even bigger challenge than they originally thought. At the recent press day for Room, which was held in LA, we caught up with Abrahamson for an exclusive interview. During our discussion, he described the many challenges he had in shooting the film on such a tiny set, and how Room is so much more than just an abduction story. Check out the interview above for to hear what Lenny had to say and be sure to catch Room when it opens in movie theaters on October 16^th.

Few motion pictures will enter this year’s award circuit with as much good-will as Lenny Abrahamson’s family drama, Room. Based on Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name, the poignant story features a young mother (Brie Larson) who looks after the son she birthed while housed in captivity in a dinky and drab shed. As the footage released thus far has revealed, Larson’s character coaches Jack into believing that the titular, 10-by-10-foot adobe is the only object in existence, and anything beyond the windowless walls of their room is simply make belief. For all five years of Jack’s life, this is the only existence he has ever known, but the sense of comfort and control that Joy experiences – while bordering on agoraphobia – is enough to make her happy. There comes a time when the pair are forced to leave the shed, however, and that’s where today’s clip via Entertainment Weekly comes in. Showcasing a tense interaction between Joy and her worried mother (Joan Allen), it’s but a small taste of Larson’s emotionally raw performance – one which has catapulted her to the front of the pack in the run for Best Actress. Room will make its bow in select theaters this weekend, before opening up nationwide on November 6. To get a small gist of Brie Larson’s emotionally raw performance, be sure to check out the clip below. For more on Abrahamson’s starry drama, head on over to our glowing review from TIFF 2015.

Like any good mother, Joy dedicates herself to keeping Jack happy and safe, nurturing him with warmth and love and doing typical things like playing games and telling stories. Their life, however, is anything but typical—they are trapped—confined to a windowless, 10-by-10-foot space, which Joy has euphemistically named “Room.” Joy has created a whole universe for Jack within Room, and she will stop at nothing to ensure that, even in this treacherous environment, Jack is able to live a complete and fulfilling life. But as Jack’s curiosity about their situation grows, and Ma’s resilience reaches its breaking point, they enact a risky plan to escape, ultimately bringing them face-to-face with what may turn out to be the scariest thing yet: the real world.

Growing up, one of the early lessons that your parents would often teach is that at times the world can be a scary place. But for Lenny Abrahamson’s much-touted adaptation Room, Brie Larson’s caring mother takes that to a whole new level by convincing her young son Jack that their decrepit 10-foot by 10-foot abode they call home is quite literally their entire world. Imprisoned in the claustrophobic room for reasons that are not quite clear yet, the pair lead a life that is decidedly insular; this is their home, and anything that exists beyond the four walls that encapsulate them is essentially alien. For all five years of his miserable life, Jack (played with aplomb by up-and-comer Jacob Tremblay) has been locked away from the outside world in a premise that borders on agoraphobia. But no longer is Jack a baby for Larson’s character to shelter, and she soon devises a plan for her nearest and dearest to escape. Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel of the same name, Room is emerging as something of an Oscar dark horse, particularly when it comes to Larson’s emphatic, heart-wrenching turn as the mother. Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers, and William H. Macy may also star in the drama, but Abrahamson’s rendition is ultimately about the timeless bond between mother-and-son, and how that can ultimately transcend even the most harrowing of circumstances. For more on Lenny Abrahamson’s thrilling drama, you can check out our early thoughts from TIFF.

Like any good mother, Ma dedicates herself to keeping Jack happy and safe, nurturing him with warmth and love and doing typical things like playing games and telling stories. Their life, however, is anything but typical—they are trapped—confined to a windowless, 10-by-10-foot space, which Ma has euphemistically named “Room.” Ma has created a whole universe for Jack within Room, and she will stop at nothing to ensure that, even in this treacherous environment, Jack is able to live a complete and fulfilling life. But as Jack’s curiosity about their situation grows, and Ma’s resilience reaches its breaking point, they enact a risky plan to escape, ultimately bringing them face-to-face with what may turn out to be the scariest thing yet: the real world.

Films that feature a child’s perspective are often powerful when they work, and painful when they don’t. Room is an example of this device working. We see and experience the world of the movie from inside the eyes and mind of Jack, the five-year-old boy played by Jacob Tremblay; it’s a world consisting of a small single room that we quickly learn he’s never left, spending all five years of his life in this tiny space with his Ma, played by Brie Larson. What we know from the introductory scenes is that they are never allowed to leave this little room, that they are brought necessary supplies by a man they call Old Nick, and that Jack and Ma have a close and loving relationship. This is a simple, even naïve perspective from which to view their situation, as we quickly become aware, but that is precisely the point—as the story progresses, Jack’s world becomes larger, his perspective becomes broader, and thus the perspective of the film becomes broader for the audience as well. Room is more about getting into the minds and emotions of these characters more than it’s about plot (in fact, I’d recommend going into it knowing as little of the plot as possible). The story does move, and when it moves it flies, but much of it is also about the lack of movement, the feeling of stasis that comes towards the latter half of the film. That is to say, the inevitable escape scheme is carried out with the necessary kineticism, and the subsequent act with the appropriate mundaneness. One of the striking ways the world of the film is established, driving home the limited perspective possessed particularly by Jack, is the use of language. The title of the movie itself seems awkward at first (and hopefully does not confuse people into thinking they’re seeing The Room), but once it’s clear that “room” is not simply a noun to these characters but a proper noun, “Room,” used in the same way someone would use the word “Home” to refer to a specific place, or maybe more accurately, “Earth.” Abrahamson also employs some nifty trickery to play with the scale of the room, making it seem almost adequate in size when lived in, but later reveals how tiny it is after they escape. The fact that they escape the room (please let there never be a Room-themed escape room) has been the focus of the promotional material accompanying the movie, so it might as well be addressed (I sort of wish their escape attempt(s) were more of a surprise, as they were for me—I watched it with minimal information going in). Perhaps it’s because so much of the story is devoted to the aftermath of Joy (Ma’s real name) and Jack’s trauma, but to the actual film’s credit, there’s a strong sense that the whole movie could take place in Room if it wanted to, culminating in their eventual getaway. But then, that’s also perhaps the movie’s greatest strength: in a typical mainstream narrative, getting out of Room would constitute a kind of happy ending, but here, it follows the more interesting PTSD narrative of life after Room. In of the pacing of these two sections, both are handled quite well. In Abrahamson’s previous film, Frank, this deliberate pace and muted tone clashed, for me, with the alienating story. With a story as emotional as Room, however, allowing us to dwell in the highs and lows serves the narrative quite effectively. Most attention will be paid, deservedly, to the performances in the film. Larson has become the type of actor whose great work it’s easy to take for granted, as if screen brilliance is just par for the course, but her importance to how well Room works would be hard to overstate. Her relationship with and devotion to her son are the most moving elements of a very emotional film, but it’s also worth mentioning the difficult emotional arcs of Joy’s parents, played by Joan Allen and William H. Macy. There is also a strong reminiscence to Beasts of the Southern Wild here, largely due to the incredible performance by Tremblay. It’s clear it takes a special young actor to make a film like these work, one that hinges so strongly on whether we believe the performance and buy into the child character’s perspective. Like Quevenhané Wallis in Beasts, there’s a rawness to Tremblay here that manages to capture the strangeness of his situation as well as an endearing innocence that makes us root for him even more. For Room, the result is a powerfully moving experience of the struggle for two characters to regain their humanity after having it taken from them.

It feels like it’s only a matter of time until Brie Larson becomes a household name. The actress did excellent work on Showtime’s United States of Tara before jumping to the big screen with solid ing turns in The Spectacular Now and 21 Jump Street as well as a stellar lead performance in Short Term 12 that should have put her squarely in the Oscar mix. Larson hasn’t quite broken big yet – but the first trailer for Lenny Abrahamson’s award-tipped captivity drama Room tells me she’s about to. The actress stars in the adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel as Ma, a woman who is imprisoned in a 10-foot by 10-foot shed that she refers to as Room. Raising her young son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) within Room’s narrow confines, Ma ekes out a bearable existence for his sake – but she knows that if he’s to have a chance at a good life, they must escape. Joan Allen and William H. Macy co-star, but this feels like Larson’s movie through and through. The teaser does a great job of building suspense and emotion even as Ma speaks in hushed, nurturing tones to her son. “Do you how Alice wasn’t always in Wonderland?” She asks her son. “Well I wasn’t always in Room.” Room should be a revelatory vehicle for both Larson and Abrahamson. She’s expected to end up in the Best Actress race this year, which should broaden her fan base before she leads 2017’s Kong: Skull Island with Tom Hiddleston. As for the director, he last helmed the endearingly quirky and complicated Frank, about a musician (Michael Fassbender) who hides his face beneath a papier mache mask. Room is a slightly more mainstream venture, and if Abrahamson pulls it off, expect him to become very in demand. Room is screening in the Toronto Special Presentations and will come to theaters on October 16.