The 15 Best Jessica Chastain Roles

Jessica Chastain has built a filmography that reads like a highlight reel of contemporary cinema and prestige television, moving effortlessly between historical biopics, grounded thrillers, and ambitious science-fiction. Across studio features, indies, and limited series, she has consistently anchored complex stories with precise character work and a curator’s eye for collaborators.

This list spotlights fifteen standout roles from across her movies and shows. You’ll find lead turns that earned major awards attention, crucial ensemble performances in large-scale productions, and television work that expanded her range. Each entry notes the project, her character, key creative partners, and the context that makes the role essential in understanding her body of work.

‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ (2021) – Tammy Faye Bakker

Chastain portrays televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in a biographical drama that follows Bakker’s rise with PTL, her highly visible ministry work, and the financial and personal scandals that engulfed the organization. The production draws on archival television footage and biographies, with the film tracking Bakker’s media presence, on-air interviews, and philanthropic initiatives, including outreach to AIDS patients at a time when that topic saw limited support from religious broadcasters.

The role required extensive transformation through prosthetics, makeup, and live singing, with Chastain overseeing research into Bakker’s broadcast style, diction, and musical catalog. The performance was recognized industry-wide, culminating in an Academy Award for Best Actress, while the film’s makeup and hairstyling also received top honors for its period accuracy and character continuity.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012) – Maya

As Maya, a CIA analyst engaged in the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, Chastain leads a procedural that maps interrogation reports, data analysis, and inter-agency briefings through shifting counterterrorism strategies. The narrative compresses intelligence milestones, operational roadblocks, and bureaucratic constraints while maintaining a focus on how analysts synthesize incomplete information into actionable leads.

Chastain’s work is built on consultation with intelligence sources and an emphasis on process: case files, surveillance logs, and operational timelines are dramatized through her character’s decision points. The film earned multiple Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Chastain, underscoring the industry recognition for the role’s rigor and detail.

‘Molly’s Game’ (2017) – Molly Bloom

Chastain plays Molly Bloom, a former competitive skier who runs high-stakes poker games that attract celebrities, financiers, and sports figures. The film adapts Bloom’s memoir, structuring the narrative around legal depositions, federal charges, and attorney-client strategy sessions, with card-room operations and compliance risks shown in granular detail.

Working from Aaron Sorkin’s script and direction, Chastain anchors rapid-fire courtroom and negotiation scenes that cover financial records, wire transfers, and RICO exposure. The performance drew major awards attention, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, highlighting the role’s precision with legal and business mechanics.

‘Interstellar’ (2014) – Murphy Cooper

Chastain appears as the adult version of Murphy Cooper, an earthbound physicist whose research intersects with deep-space exploration led by her father. Her arc centers on deciphering scientific data and solving a gravitation problem that underpins the film’s survival narrative, connecting laboratory work, theoretical physics, and messages transmitted across vast temporal frames.

Working with Christopher Nolan, Chastain’s scenes integrate practical set design—chalkboard derivations, lab instruments, and mission logs—with the story’s cross-cutting space sequences. The ensemble structure places her character as the fulcrum between planetary crises and mission outcomes, integrating scientific method into a large-scale cinematic framework.

‘Scenes from a Marriage’ (2021) – Mira

In this limited series created by Hagai Levi and inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s earlier work, Chastain plays Mira, an executive whose relationship with her spouse is examined through therapy-like conversations, separations, and reconciliations. Each episode functions as a chamber piece, emphasizing evolving agreements about parenting, work travel, and household logistics.

Chastain and co-lead Oscar Isaac rehearsed extended takes that preserve stage-like continuity, supported by a production design that shifts subtly with the couple’s financial and emotional states. The series premiered on HBO, with critics citing its formal rigor, and Chastain’s performance subsequently received nominations from major television awards bodies.

‘Miss Sloane’ (2016) – Elizabeth Sloane

Chastain leads as a high-profile Washington lobbyist navigating committee hearings, vote counts, and the tight corridors of advocacy strategy. The script foregrounds whip operations, media placement, and conflict-of-interest pitfalls, using her character’s calendars, memos, and staffing choices to dramatize legislative maneuvering.

The film’s depiction of compliance law and ethics investigations provided a structured environment for Chastain’s performance, which was recognized with a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. The role situates her squarely in policy-driven storytelling, emphasizing procedural clarity and institutional detail.

‘A Most Violent Year’ (2014) – Anna Morales

As Anna Morales, Chastain portrays a business owner’s partner navigating audits, legal exposures, and insurance disputes against a backdrop of industry competition and organized crime. The narrative tracks inventory losses, credit pressures, and risk-management choices, emphasizing ledger entries and counsel meetings that determine the company’s survival.

Chastain’s performance aligns with the film’s grounded approach: wardrobe, accent, and body language are calibrated to show a New York business stakeholder attuned to both legitimate operations and street-level realities. The role earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress, reflecting broad recognition from awards circles.

‘Crimson Peak’ (2015) – Lucille Sharpe

In Guillermo del Toro’s gothic romance, Chastain embodies Lucille Sharpe, whose family estate functions as a character in its own right through production design—collapsing roofs, red clay seeping through floorboards, and mechanical heating systems. The film uses diaries, heirlooms, and architectural features to unveil a history of inheritance and secrecy.

Chastain’s work is tightly integrated with the film’s practical effects and costume design, where fabric textures and color palettes reinforce the character’s psychological profile. Her performance anchors the story’s interplay of domestic space, financial need, and concealed pasts, providing a precise hinge between romance and menace.

‘The Martian’ (2015) – Melissa Lewis

Chastain plays NASA mission commander Melissa Lewis in a science-driven survival story that pivots on orbital mechanics, mission protocols, and inter-agency collaboration. The film maps decision-making across mission control, the crew’s spacecraft, and international partners, showing how checklists, telemetry, and trajectory windows dictate options.

The role required extensive coordination with technical advisors to maintain accuracy in EVA procedures, chain-of-command interactions, and emergency planning. Chastain’s character bridges crew dynamics with mission authority, aligning performance beats to the film’s engineering-first depiction of problem-solving.

‘The Tree of Life’ (2011) – Mrs. O’Brien

Chastain appears as Mrs. O’Brien in Terrence Malick’s family chronicle, which intercuts domestic scenes with cosmic imagery. The production captured natural light and improvised moments, using long lenses and minimal blocking to preserve spontaneity in household routines, discipline, and parental care.

Her performance complements the film’s non-linear structure, providing an anchor for voiceover reflections and memory fragments. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and received multiple Academy Award nominations, situating Chastain within a landmark auteur project early in her breakout period.

‘Take Shelter’ (2011) – Samantha LaForche

Opposite Michael Shannon, Chastain plays Samantha LaForche in a drama about a family confronting financial anxiety, healthcare hurdles, and community trust. The film tracks savings plans, medical appointments, and job-site tensions alongside the protagonist’s escalating fears, grounding the story in household economics and small-town support systems.

Chastain’s scenes emphasize practical problem-solving—craft-fair income, budgeting, and navigating insurance options—while the production’s Midwestern locations and sound design heighten the story’s realism. The film premiered at Sundance and became a critical touchpoint for the director’s approach to intimate, working-class narratives.

‘The Good Nurse’ (2022) – Amy Loughren

Chastain portrays real-life nurse Amy Loughren, whose collaboration with law enforcement helps expose a colleague’s pattern of hospital deaths. The film details medication dispensing systems, chart audits, and hospital administrative responses, illustrating how clinical workflows and staffing schedules intersect with investigative work.

Her performance draws on interviews and case files to reflect Loughren’s off-shift cooperation with detectives, including recorded conversations and documentation of patient anomalies. The production adapts Charles Graeber’s nonfiction book, with attention to the accuracy of nursing procedures and the legal framework surrounding corporate liability and whistleblowing.

‘George & Tammy’ (2022) – Tammy Wynette

In this limited series about Tammy Wynette and George Jones, Chastain performs as Wynette with an emphasis on studio sessions, touring logistics, and the music industry’s contract structures. Episodes incorporate re-creations of recording dates, television appearances, and venue bookings that chart the pair’s professional peaks and setbacks.

Chastain completed extensive vocal preparation and performed songs associated with Wynette, working with music producers to match phrasing and timbre. The role earned major television accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series.

‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’ (2017) – Antonina Żabińska

Chastain stars as Antonina Żabińska in a true-story drama about Warsaw Zoo operators who shelter refugees during the occupation. The production consulted diaries and museum archives to depict the zoo’s layout, animal care under wartime scarcity, and covert operations conducted under the cover of agricultural permits.

Her performance integrates animal-handling protocols, household management under curfew, and coordination with resistance contacts. The film was directed by Niki Caro and shot on European locations that replicate historical neighborhoods, emphasizing logistical detail in transport routes and hiding places.

‘It Chapter Two’ (2019) – Beverly Marsh

Chastain plays the adult Beverly Marsh in the continuation of a horror saga that brings the Losers Club back to their hometown. The film tracks the group’s individual return trips, artifacts collection, and coordinated plan to confront their shared threat, intercutting adult perspectives with formative memories.

Chastain’s role required extensive practical effects work and physically demanding set pieces, aligned with the film’s large-scale ensemble coordination. The production maintains continuity with the earlier installment through casting, costuming, and location design, mapping character trajectories across time while staging set-piece sequences in familiar spaces.

Got another favorite role of hers? Share your pick in the comments!