#Best Saoirse Ronan Movies, Ranked

When Saoirse Ronan debuted on the Irish television drama The Clinic at age nine, it seemed obvious that this little girl was full of talent. Four years later, she has her first film appearance in I Could Never Be Your Woman, but another film that came out in the same year became her breakthrough role: Atonement. Paired opposite with Keira Knightley, who was fresh off of her Pride and Prejudice run, Ronan gave an outstanding performance that earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was thirteen years old then, making her the seventh-youngest nominee in that specific category.

Ever since, Ronan has continued to appear in numerous films, many of which are period pieces. After Atonement, she received leading roles in films like Hanna and The Lovely Bones, but when Ronan was twenty-one, she began to prove her talent as a leading lady. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Brooklyn, making her the eighth-youngest ever nominee in the category. This is a nomination she would receive again for her roles in Little Women and Lady Bird. Her choice of movies has proven to be eclectic, representative of feminine experiences, and diverse in its period. Here are the best Saoirse Ronan movies ranked.

8 Mary, Queen of Scots

When Mary, Queen of Scots came out in 2018, it was met with skepticism. The film spins history in a feminist retelling, one marred by historical inaccuracies to ramp up the drama and tension. Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan star as Queen Elizabeth I (Robbie) and Mary Stuart (Ronan) tangled in a notable conflict of English history: the fight over who is the rightful heir to the English throne. The two queens are known to have never met in real life, but in the film, they meet repeatedly and are depicted as having something akin to a weak friendship at first. With Robbie and Ronan in the leading roles, their performances were solid. However, they couldn’t save a lackluster script that tries to be something it isn’t. As history dictated this event to be rather mundane, there wasn’t much to salvage it to make it more interesting.

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7 The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones captures a fear that permeates American society: what happens when a young child goes missing? The movie adapts a 2002 book with the same name by author Alice Sebold. Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is only a freshman in high school when she is raped and murdered by her neighbor (Stanley Tucci). She then is trapped in purgatory. Unable to move on to heaven, she watches as her family and loved ones deal with the grief of her disappearance and death. There isn’t much that can be done with this script, either. The premise is simple, one redeemed by outstanding performances by Tucci and Ronan, although unsatisfying at times due to the exposition and lack of anything really happening.

6 Ammonite

Ammonite thrusts the duo of Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet into an LGBTQ+ period drama that is about real-life people whose sexualities are unknown—it is unconfirmed if these characters were lesbians in reality. Mary Anning (Winslet) is a paleontologist active during the 1840s. While in Dorset caring for her ill mother, she meets Charlotte Murchison (Ronan), a geologist, and a passionate love ensues between the two. Rather than turning the film into a history lesson, director Francis Lee has created a piece that longs and lusts for connections between women outside of the work that they’re known for. In Anning’s case, she externally seems simple-minded, but the arrival of Murchison complicates her narrow vision of what passion means to her. Ronan is the perfect compliment to Winslet, creating chemistry and tension that slowly unwinds and unfolds as the story progresses.

5 The Grand Budapest Hotel

Before appearing in The French Dispatch, Ronan made her debut in a Wes Anderson film in his 2014 movie The Grand Budapest Hotel. The year is 1985, and author Zero (Tony Revolori), a self-made man, tells his story at the dinner table. He was once a lobby boy at the Grand Budapest Hotel when the head concierge (Ralph Fiennes) inherits a priceless painting. Naturally, this leads to chaos in a true, highly-visual, Anderson style. Ronan plays Agatha, the love interest of Zero. She’s an apprentice baker who helps the concierge and Zero evade the police while being hunted for the painting.

4 Atonement

Saoirse Ronan found her breakout role in Atonement, although she is outshone by the romance elements of the drama. She plays Briony Tallis, the younger sister of Cecilia (Keira Knightley). Briony aspires to be a writer but is naïve about the world and how it works. When she sees the romantic tension and lust between her sister and the housekeeper’s son (James McAvoy), she misinterprets it because of the filtered way she sees the world, thus creating a predicament that can end poorly. Ronan was the only actor from the film nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, which is a testament to how well she portrayed Briony. Briony isn’t supposed to be likable. She represents the annoying younger sister who messes everything up, except in this case there are more dire circumstances because of her actions.

3 Little Women

Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women seeks to adapt a classic and update it for modern audiences. Little Women is a story about girlhood, but it also dares to expose feminism for what it is: having the power to choose the destiny one wants. Ronan plays Jo March, a young woman who wants to be a writer in a time where it seems like not many women were writers. Viewers see the tenderness of her interactions with her sisters, played by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen, then cheer and moan when she turns down her smitten suitor (Timothee Chalamet). It’s a classic story of girlhood, one where each sister grows up to become something different but still represents the feminine experience as a whole.

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2 Brooklyn

Ronan is no stranger to the plot of Brooklyn, which is probably why she’s so good at it. She stars as Eilis Lacey, an Irish immigrant who has just stepped off the boat from Ireland into New York City. Eilis seeks out a new life, one where she can find prosperity, but she desperately misses home and the life she left behind. Brooklyn is a movie that teaches us to not look into the past and dwell upon what we once had but instead look to the future and find joy in new situations and people. It is both lighthearted and serious, offering a glimpse into what everyday life is actually like. Life as an immigrant isn’t easy, especially when it coincides with one’s coming-of-age.

1 Lady Bird

Christine MacPherson (Saoirse Ronan) doesn’t want to be Christine anymore. She is Lady Bird. She is the epitome of sophistication, dresses like a 2002 art student on a budget, and desperately searches for more cultured things to do. But Lady Bird is also lost, just a girl with a strained relationship with her mother trying to navigate the world. And that’s what makes this film so special; viewers follow her journey while learning to see both sides of the situation. Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, who plays her mother, give spectacular performances worthy of their Oscar nominations. Lady Bird is an intimate snapshot of girlhood that seems to come from the soul. There’s something in the movie for everyone, whether they’ve lived through a similar experience or not.

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