Charlize Theron’s Top 10 Movies

Charlize Theron Nipslips


Charlize Theron Boobslips
10. Head in the Clouds (2004). A ridiculous, over-the-top World War II melodrama that has the good sense to foreground Theron as a globe-hopping socialite/revolutionary/troublemaker/lover who finds herself hooked up with every side of the war, some by accident. It’s pulpy and loud and silly and very fun, and Theron seems to be exploring the limits of her powers here, alternately blowsy and funny and scary and basically just erasing whomever is standing next to her right off the screen. The movie might not know much, but it knows to stay out of her way. And heavens, that whip scene.

The Burning Plain (2008)

 

9. The Road (2009). In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning novel, the dead wife of the unnamed main character is barely heard from. But for the film version of The Road, director John Hillcoat wisely picked Theron to flesh out the role in flashbacks. The reasoning was obvious: Viggo Mortensen’s rugged survivor of a post-apocalyptic devastation isn’t just grieving for the world but, more specifically, the love of his life, and the Oscar winner makes that absence sting. Plus, Theron has to sell the woman’s shocking decision to walk out on her husband and young son amid the grim circumstances, and she fills the scene with such tenderness and desperation that it’s heartbreaking — and yet somehow understandable, too.
8. Hancock (2008). If you’re looking for the closest precursor to Theron’s no-nonsense, almost otherworldly cool in Atomic Blonde, go back to this Will Smith vehicle, in which she plays an alien superhero who was once married to the titular misanthrope. Hancock is an ambitious, nervy subversion of the comic-book movie that doesn’t quite work, but it’s not her fault. Where Smith is showier, she’s the film’s quiet center, first pretending to be Jason Bateman’s blandly beautiful wife before finally revealing her true identity to Hancock. This is the sort of sly, sexy, commanding performance that would pave the way for her future blockbusters.
Reindeer Games(2000)

 

7. In the Valley of Elah (2007). The first sparks of In the Valley of Elah emerged when Theron and filmmaker Paul Haggis got to know each other on the awards circuit while promoting, respectively, North Country and Crash. “We were the only two sad cases who would be outside in the alley, smoking,” she later recalled. “He said, ‘I will write you a script.’ So, it’s the best thing that cigarettes have ever given me.” Haggis’s Crash follow-up tackles lots of big themes — the Iraq War, the silent hell that awaits many soldiers when they return from combat — and the film is guided by Tommy Lee Jones’s reliably taciturn performance as a retired cop and Vietnam vet seeking the truth of what happened to his missing soldier son. Theron plays a detective he recruits in his efforts, and she’s as stony as he is — which is understandable, considering the character has learned how to block out all the casual sexism she faces on the force. In the Valley of Elah is Jones’s film, but she complements his surly demeanor with her own smart, gruff presence. Theron doesn’t steal the movie — she supports it, beautifully.
6. Atomic Blonde (2017). This David Leitch thriller isn’t the first time Theron has played an ass-kicking action hero. (Don’t forget about Aeon Flux, though audiences sure did at the time.) But nonetheless, Atomic Blonde plays out as a culmination of the Oscar winner’s commercial ascension over the last decade or so. It’s disappointing that the film didn’t perform better at the box office, but the real pity is that Theron’s too easily the best thing about the movie. Based on the graphic novel The Coldest City, Atomic Blonde stars Theron as a steely MI6 spy sent to Berlin at the end of the Cold War, battling myriad KGB agents while cautiously teaming up with a conniving station agent (James McAvoy). Theron has the right combination of grit, athleticism, Bond-ian swagger, and carefully concealed vulnerability, and she executes the next-level fight scenes with effortless panache — even when her character is getting the crap beaten out of her. But on the whole Atomic Blonde is too convoluted and too enraptured by its own blasé hipness to be the perfect action vehicle for a compelling star who’s brought her A-game.
Charlize Theron and Sofia Boutella Girl on Girl scene – Atomic Blonde

gfycat.com

2 Days in the Valley(1996)

 

5. North Country (2005). For years, Theron has spoken out about Hollywood’s gender-pay inequality, and in 2005 she starred in a true-life drama that analyzed the subtle, insidious impact of daily sexism. A fictionalized version of the story of Lois Jenson, a Minnesota miner who successfully sued for sexual discrimination, North Country stars Theron as Josey, a blue-collar wife and mother who’s just fled her abusive husband — only to wind up working in a mine where the men casually debase her and her female cohorts. (If the inappropriate grabbing isn’t enough, then the deeply patronizing “sweetheart”s Josey hears from her boss would be enough to crush one’s spirit.) Undoubtedly an “issue” movie, North Country nonetheless sidesteps potential awards-season sanctimony by grounding the proceedings in Theron’s unvarnished, no-nonsense turn. We never forget that Josey didn’t ask to be a hero, and yet she’s so ruggedly heroic precisely because she simply doesn’t stop, even when she’s mansplained practically within an inch of her life.
4. Young Adult (2011). Theron’s gutsiest performance since the movie that earned her an Oscar could have also been called Monster. Written by Diablo Cody, Young Adult is about a stumbling, self-pitying fuckup who isn’t content circling the drain on her own. Theron plays Mavis, who decides on a whim to go to her high-school reunion in the deluded belief that she can win back her old flame Buddy (Patrick Wilson), even though he’s now happily married with a newborn baby. An alcoholic, a jerk, and very possibly imbalanced, Mavis isn’t so much interested in reliving her past as she is in leaving a trail of carnage in her path, determined to ensure that others are as miserable as she is. Theron doesn’t try to make Mavis lovable, but she damn sure gets us to feel her pain, offering a fascinating cautionary tale about what happens to some people who peak too young. Ostensibly, Young Adult is a comedy, but every laugh gets lodged in the throat.
The Devil’s Advocate(1997)

3. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). The return of Mad Max to the big screen after 30 years turned out to be a bit of a ruse. Tom Hardy’s stoic loner may get his name in the title, but the real protagonist of Mad Max: Fury Road is Furiosa, a fearless warrior determined to protect the Five Wives from the villainous Immortan Joe. Max is merely along for the ride, and Theron commands the movie, literally taking the wheel as our mismatched band of heroes go on an epic journey across an unforgiving desert with most of humanity hot on their heels. Theron matches Hardy’s flinty reserve, but her bare-knuckle physicality can’t completely hide the character’s haunted, emotionally bruised inner world. It’s a performance that’s raw and overwhelming. Theron shaved her head for the role, and she seems to have stripped everything else away as well, making Furiosa the one person you want on your side when the whole world eventually goes to hell.

The Cider House Rules(1999)

2. Tully (2018). Both a combination of Theron’s two most prominent skills — physical transformation and ability to capture a particular brand of steely uncertainty — and an entirely new direction for her, Tully puts Theron front and center, in all her glory and fearsomeness, as a scared, angry, confused and utterly exhausted new mother. She gets no help from her husband, her children, her old friends or the fancy school she’s struggling to pay for, so she finds it the most unlikely of places: A 26-year-old nanny named Tully (Mackenzie Davis) who seems to know her better than anyone else — and give her exactly what she needs. Theron captures the utter despair of being a new mother in a way that will feel revolutionary to anyone who has been there, but she also perfectly rides the line of being on top of everything for everyone while still slowly losing her mind. And on top of all her other skills, Theron proves herself the master of the reaction-shot eye-roll here.

Charlize Theron (‘The Last Face’)

Head in the Clouds(2004)

 

1. Monster (2003). “Usually, you pick three moments in a script, and you wait for those three days to come and really stretch your acting muscles. But in this case, every scene was that scene.” That’s how Charlize Theron described the process of playing Aileen Wuornos, the serial killer and prostitute who is the simmering center of Monster, a deeply despairing character study and tragic romance. Smitten with her lover Selby (Christina Ricci), Wuornos goes on a killing spree, robbing her johns for cash to support the couple. At the time, Theron’s transformation into this desperate murderer seemed remarkable precisely because it was so out of character for the usually glamorous star. But as Theron’s critical cachet has grown in the past two decades, Monster now seems less of a left turn — and yet, the years have done nothing to blunt its impact. Theron and director Patty Jenkins made a movie not just about a monster, but also about how an inexplicable darkness can consume some people. It’s a tough, unsentimental film that’s, somehow, filled with compassion. When she won the Best Actress Oscar, Theron almost got choked up near the end of her speech. Quickly regaining her composure, she announced, “I’m not going to cry.” Lots of people who saw Monster did.