Whether she’s geek-chic queen or the girl next door, you might recognize Emma Stone from classic crowd-pleasing favorites such as Easy A, Crazy Stupid Love, and The Amazing Spider-Man films. She’s funny, she’s energizing, she’s gorgeous, and she’s incredibly talented on the screen. Her whipsmart humor doesn’t just prove itself onscreen either; they’re simply part of who she is. “In the past, making a movie … I’ve been told that I’m hindering the process by bringing up an opinion or an idea,” she tells Rolling Stone. “There have been times when I’ve improvised, they’ve laughed at my joke and then given it to my male co-star,” highlighting the continued divisiveness between good quality comedy opportunities and gender and the difficulty of being a woman in Hollywood.
Even at age 33, Stone’s most notable accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2017, she was the world’s highest-paid actress and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Stone’s other most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films are Superbad, Zombieland, The Help, Birdman, La La Land, Battle of the Sexes, The Favourite, and Cruella, some of which feature in our list below of her best comedy roles.
With an active career spanning nearly two decades, having made her television debut as Laurie Partridge on the VH1 talent competition reality show In Search of the New Partridge Family in 2004, Stone has proved herself worthy of her reputation as one of Hollywood’s favorite funny women. These are our favorite roles in which Emma Stone has had us gripping our tummies in giggles, whether she was the butt of the joke or its executor.
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10 Battle of the Sexes — Billie Jean King
Fox Searchlight Pictures
The sweatbands, the mullet hairstyle and giant glasses give you the impression we’re in for a good chuckle at Stone, and while the Academy didn’t go for her understated performance in Battle of the Sexes, in which she was somewhat overshadowed by Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs, it’s an excellent one nonetheless.
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The film is based on Billie Jean King became an entertaining dramedy depicting the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs; the most-watched televised sports event of all time. When Bobby claims he can beat any woman in a tennis match, King agrees to play him on her own terms. Billie Jean’s relationship with love interest Marilyn Barnett emphasizes King’s grappling with her sexuality which Stone depicts very naturally.
9 Superbad — Jules
Columbia Pictures
Playing Jonah Hill’s love interest and high school’s typical popular-girl-hosting-a-party, Emma Stone shines through despite the boyish nature of Superbad. Alongside great performances by Michael Cera and Jonah Hill, Emma Stone plays the charming and funny Jules in her very first movie, which helped her to land more roles, thrusting her forward in her career. She subsequently appeared in The Rocker which, along with Aloha, is probably best left unmentioned.
8 Zombieland - Wichita
Alongside a pre-The Social Network Jesse Eisenberg, Stone’s sharp sarcasm contributes to this wickedly funny zombie movie, a template for the American zom-com at its best. Cast as Wichita, love interest of Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Stone plays a con artist, alongside Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who steal Columbus’ and Tallahassee’s (Woody Harrelson) guns and their car before ultimately taking them hostage and agreeing to a truce in the name of survival. Having already proved herself as a comedy connoisseur by now, her role as Wichita only complemented her efforts further, and proved her ability to display superb onscreen chemistry with other comedic acting talent.
7 Friends With Benefits — Kayla
Sony Pictures Releasing
Though a very brief stint in this sleepover favorite, Emma Stone nonetheless shines in her fleeting appearance in this Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis rom-com. In the opening minutes of Friends With Benefits as Timberlake’s fictional girlfriend who dumps him in the street after he arrives late for a cinema date. As brief as it may be, she lingers in our minds for her bantering spark, proving that something short but sweet can steal a scene.
6 The House Bunny (2008) - Natalie
It would be easy for Emma Stone to become lost among a sea of hilarious women in this stellar line-up, consisting of Anna Faris, Kat Dennings, and Kiely Williams, but Stone holds her place as the awkward attractive girl in The House Bunny. As a dorky sorority sister whom Anna’s former Playboy Bunny takes under her wing, we see Emma, once again, donning her big-glasses nerdy side, while she also channels our favorite girl-next-door energy of hers (perhaps a lean towards her roles as Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spider-Man films). She’s funny and relatable here, where we also get a beloved makeover montage set to Avril Lavigne’s hit Girlfriend, in which Anna Faris declares, “dressing sexy’s all about skimplifying,” and “the eyes are the nipples of the face.”
5 La La Land — Mia Dolan
Summit Entertainment
For Damien Chazelle’s musical about an actress and a jazz pianist who fall in love in Los Angeles, Stone won her first Oscar as Mia Dolan in a classic tale of ’the one that got away,’ in which she furthers the on-screen chemistry she shared with Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love. “I needed someone who’d make the traditional musical feel relevant and accessible to people who think they don’t like musicals,” La La Land writer and director Damien Chazelle told Rolling Stone. “Emma’s very modern, but there’s a timelessness to her, too.”
4 Crazy Stupid Love — Hannah Weaver
Warner Bros.
In Crazy Stupid Love, with her constant sarcasm, energy, and clumsiness, Stone gives her character the realness of an everyday kind of girl we can all relate to, as she grapples with Gosling’s smooth-talking ladies man, whom she encourages to take his shirt off in this movie and exposes his hot “photoshopped” body, for which a grateful nation thanks her.
3 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past — Allison Vandermeersh
Warner Bros. Pictures
In this re-imagined adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Emma plays the dorky high school ex-girlfriend of Matthew McConaughey. She returns from the past to guide the womanizer he has become on the first stage of his romantic journey. Spotted in a perm and an acid-washed jacket, Stone is the terrifyingly manic ex-girlfriend we’d all love to avoid, but her small role in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past drives the narrative forward with hilarious zest and humor, as she reveals the objectifying ways of McConaughey’s character and shows him how he needs to change in order to prove his realized love for the angelic Jennifer Garner.
2 The Favourite — Abigail Masham
When The Favourite hit cinemas in 2018, no one could stop talking about it. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this deliciously wicked and funny dramedy features Stone alongside Rachel Weiss and Olivia Colman in the early 18th century. England is at war with the French and a frail Queen Anne occupies the throne; her close friend Lady Sarah governs the country while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. A new servant, Abigail (Stone), arrives. One night, she witnesses her cousin Sarah (Rachel Weisz), the Queen’s most trusted adviser, having sex with the Queen, and sets out to seduce the Queen herself by any means necessary. This role and the other performances are an absolute joy to watch.
1 Easy A — Olive Penderghast
Her iconic role as Olive Penderghast proved Stone to be an absolute sensation. In this modern retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter that pays homage to John Hughes’ iconic ‘80s teen movies, Easy A showcases Emma with her finest ’everygirl’ charm as the comedic schemer as she rattles off whip-smart dialogue with the comedic timing of a veteran.
Penderghast pretends to lose her virginity to a gay classmate at a party and quickly becomes the talk of the school. Rather than clear up the confusion, Olive roles with her newfound reputation inspired by The Scarlet Letter protagonist Hester Prynn and dons a red A on her chest. As Stone’s first lead role in a movie, she harnesses the opportunity in delivering a sensationally entertaining performance. She makes the movie her own with her enigmatic talent and infectious likeability.
