The 10 Best Madelyn Cline Roles

Madelyn Cline has built a varied résumé across teen adventures, ensemble mysteries, and indie dramas, moving from guest appearances to leading roles across streaming and theatrical releases. Her projects span network and cable series, Netflix originals, and film-festival selections, showing a steady expansion in both screen time and character complexity.

This list brings together ten key roles that chart that path. You’ll find the project basics, her character, distribution context, and story setup for each entry, making it easy to place every appearance within her broader body of work.

‘Outer Banks’ (2020– ) – Sarah Cameron

Cline stars as Sarah Cameron in the Netflix adventure series set on North Carolina’s barrier islands, where a group of friends pursues hidden treasure amid class divides between Pogues and Kooks. The story follows Sarah’s shifting loyalties as she becomes central to multi-season searches for legendary artifacts and confrontations with criminals and fortune hunters.

Production films in coastal locales to capture marshes, channels, and oceanfront neighborhoods that double for the Outer Banks setting. Sarah’s arc intersects continuously with John B., Ward Cameron, and a rotating cast of allies and rivals, linking family intrigue with map clues, smuggling routes, and island power struggles.

‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ (2022) – Whiskey

Cline plays Whiskey in Rian Johnson’s ensemble whodunit, which brings a group of creators and influencers to a private Aegean island for a tech mogul’s elaborate gathering. As Benoit Blanc investigates a staged game that spirals into a real crime, Whiskey’s ties to a political live-streamer and other guests position her inside the story’s motive-and-alibi grid.

The production features large-scale sets, practical puzzles, and group interrogation sequences that shuffle perspectives between suspects. Whiskey appears in party scenes, witness walk-throughs, and reveal beats that connect social-media personas, brand partnerships, and personal leverage to the mystery’s central chain of events.

‘What Breaks the Ice’ (2020) – Emily

Cline co-leads as Emily, a teenager who befriends another girl during a summer in a Northeastern resort town, where seasonal work and small-community dynamics frame their days. The plot pivots when a violent incident sets off investigation and rumor, forcing the pair to navigate interviews, conflicting accounts, and family pressure.

The film favors intimate locations—lakeshores, diners, and backroads—to keep the focus on police questions and peer whispers that spread through a close-knit town. Emily’s scenes track how evidence, timelines, and friendships are tested as adults and teens reconstruct what happened across a single pivotal night.

‘The Giant’ (2019) – Olivia

Cline appears as Olivia in a rural psychological mystery that follows a young woman confronting disappearances and unresolved trauma in her hometown. The narrative uses sparse dialogue and atmospheric staging to chart how sightings, secondhand reports, and memory gaps complicate the search for answers.

Olivia’s presence links the protagonist to party outskirts, field gatherings, and nocturnal encounters that circulate clues without clear resolution. The film’s design leans on open spaces, headlights, and ambient sound to emphasize uncertainty while connecting characters through overlapping rumors and fragmented testimony.

‘This Is the Night’ (2021) – Sophia Larocca

Set in Staten Island, the drama follows a family and their neighbors through one eventful evening tied to a blockbuster premiere, tracing how teens and parents handle pride, fear, and celebration. Cline’s character, Sophia Larocca, intersects with local teens negotiating friendships, crushes, and neighborhood rites of passage against a backdrop of street crowds and home life.

Period details—storefronts, music cues, and community hangouts—anchor the setting while cross-cutting between family kitchens, school corridors, and outdoor gatherings. Sophia’s scenes connect the coming-of-age thread to the film’s focus on fandom, identity, and how a single night reframes everyday relationships.

‘Vice Principals’ (2016–2017) – Taylor Watts

Cline appears as Taylor Watts in the North Jackson High–set dark comedy created by Danny McBride and Jody Hill, where two administrators battle for control of a public school. Episodes blend faculty scheming with student-life snapshots, using assemblies, sports events, and hallway confrontations to escalate petty rivalries into larger crises.

Taylor’s scenes situate student perspectives inside a faculty-driven power struggle, tying daily classroom rhythms to staff decisions that ripple through the campus. The show’s structure mixes serialized vendettas with standalone dilemmas, placing Taylor in spaces where rumors spread and administrative choices land with visible consequences.

‘Stranger Things’ (2016– ) – Tina

Cline guest-stars as Tina, a Hawkins High student who appears in party and hallway sequences that expand the series’ view of teen social circles beyond the core group. Her moments coincide with school events and house gatherings that sit adjacent to the show’s supernatural investigations.

Tina’s appearances help map how gossip, popularity contests, and cliques intersect with ongoing threats around the town. Era-specific production design—lockers, AV equipment, and suburban basements—grounds these scenes in everyday routines that continue even as larger mysteries unfold.

‘The Originals’ (2013–2018) – Jessica

Cline appears as Jessica in the New Orleans–set supernatural drama about the Mikaelson family’s uneasy balance with witches, werewolves, and rival vampires. Episodes during her appearance track shifting alliances, territorial disputes, and information trades across bars, coven spaces, and French Quarter streets.

Jessica’s scenes add a civilian and nightlife angle to storylines that revolve around supernatural politics and family feuds. The show’s citywide canvas—clubs, alleyways, and historic squares—keeps her interactions close to the deals and betrayals that drive the series’ conflicts.

‘Boy Erased’ (2018) – Chloe

Cline appears as Chloe in the adaptation of Garrard Conley’s memoir about a young man sent to a church-affiliated conversion program. The film contrasts group-session rules and exercises with glimpses of life outside the facility, showing how family expectations and community norms frame the protagonist’s choices.

Chloe’s scenes contribute to the portrait of the protagonist’s wider social environment, including school and peer interactions that sit alongside therapy mandates. The production balances clinical interiors with campus and neighborhood locations to situate personal testimony within everyday context.

‘Savannah Sunrise’ (2016) – Willow

Cline plays Willow in a family road-trip dramedy that pairs a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law for an unplanned journey filled with logistical detours and unresolved tensions. The route threads through motels, gas stations, and suburban homes, using travel mishaps to surface practical and emotional tasks the family has postponed.

Willow appears within the network of relatives and acquaintances the travelers encounter, connecting home-base responsibilities to events on the road. The compact ensemble and regional backdrops support a story built around caregiving decisions, household transitions, and the conversations that emerge between stops.

Share your favorite Madelyn Cline role in the comments and tell us which project you think deserves more attention!