Olivia Cooke’s best movie roles

1 March 2021

Olivia Cooke has gone from strength to strength in recent years featuring in TV shows like Bates Motel and Vanity Fair, and Cooke is soon to return to the world of television in the upcoming hotly anticipated prequel series to Game of Thrones. No biggie...

Olivia Cooke in Pixie

The small screen isn’t the own platform on which Cooke’s acting talents are on full display however as she has an enviable silver screen filmography behind her too. To celebrate the release of her latest film, the Irish crime comedy Pixie (available to Download & Keep and on DVD now), we’ve rounded up our favourite Olivia Cooke big screen ventures. From an introverted coming-of-age film through to a Spielberg blockbuster of epic proportions, Olivia Cooke is an actor with range and a resume to prove it.

Pixie

This Irish gangster comedy caper features Cooke as the spirited titular character - a savvy, freewheeling and charming young woman who wants to avenge her mother’s death by masterminding a risky heist. Unsurprisingly, her plans go awry and along with two young men (Ben Hardy and Darryl McCormack) she goes on the run from some shady sinister gangsters across the Emerald Isle. With charisma and charm by the bucketload, Cooke shines in the central role, depicting the feisty no-nonsense anti-heroine as someone we can truly get behind.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

This endearingly off-kilter dramedy surrounding a trio of friends in Pittsburgh is strong on both style and substance. Based on Jesse Andrew’s novel of the same name, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl follows Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a socially-adept high schooler diagnosed with leukemia and her unlikely friendship with the not-so-socially-adept Greg (Thomas Mann) and Earl (RJ Cyler). Though they far from hit it off straight away, Rachel and Greg develop a life-affirming and genuine friendship and Cooke’s wonderful portrayal as the deadpan teen provides the film with emotional heft without ever becoming overly-sentimental.

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline’s sci-fi novel is regarded as one of the best books of the 2010s and when cinema giant Steven Spielberg was confirmed to be at the helm of the adaptation, anticipation was unsurprisingly through the roof and fans were not left disappointed. Cooke stars as Samantha / Art3mis in this sci-fi dystopian adventure, the companion and love interest of Tye Sheridan’s Wade Watts / Parzival. Packed full of 80s easter eggs and epic special effects, Spielberg’s latest foray into the sci-fi genre gives audiences a fantastical world to immerse themselves into and Cooke and Sheridan’s character bond gives the film an emotional core you can root for.

Sound of Metal

Darius Marder’s critically acclaimed directorial debut into feature film has been making a lot of noise on this year’s awards circuit and already has nominations locked in at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards with the performances in particular generating a lot of buzz. Riz Ahmed heads up the stellar cast as Ruben, a talented drummer in a band with his girlfriend Lou (Cooke) whose hearing deteriorates rapidly as a result of his unrelenting passion for drumming and loud live music.

Though the film is yet to be released here in the UK, if the awards buzz and glowing reviews are anything to go by - we should be in for a treat with the Sound of Metal. (At the time of writing it sits on a very healthy Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% from over 200 reviews. Impressive stuff.) Olivia Cooke fans should seek this out!

Thoroughbreds

Olivia Cooke and fellow woman-of-the-moment Anya Taylor-Joy head up this 2017 pitch black comedy thriller. Written and directed by Cory Finley, this twisted tale follows the story of Amanda (Cooke) an emotionless and devoid-of-empathy high schooler and Lily (Taylor-Joy), the popular and academic yet deeply resentful teen. The former friends’ worlds collide again following a period of having drifted apart and their reunion results in some sinister consequences. From watching Thoroughbreds, it’s easy to see how both Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy have both gone on to even bigger and better projects and as far as we’re concerned, long may their success continue!