Your full attention: Jesse Eisenberg’s 10 best film performances – ranked!
As his new movie The Debut closes the London film festival, we count down the best of the actor’s shy, sly and sometimes hairy outings A doppelganger role can be a trap for an actor: either the two roles are not sufficiently distinct, or they are too hammily different, and either way the result can look like a film school graduation project. But Jesse Eisenberg gives a stylish split-personality turn in Richard…
Key points
- The Guardian Culture ranked Jesse Eisenberg's 10 best film performances as his new movie The Debut closes the London film festival.
- The list includes his roles in The Double, The Squid and the Whale, Roger Dodger, Sasquatch Sunset, Café Society, Zombieland, The Art of Self-Defense, A Real Pain and The Social Network.
- His performance as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network is described as a classic performance that convinced a generation.
The Guardian Culture has ranked Jesse Eisenberg's 10 best film performances, timed to his new movie The Debut closing the London film festival. The list covers roles that showcase his shy, sly and sometimes hairy characters across his career.
The ranking includes performances from films such as The Double, The Squid and the Whale, Roger Dodger, Sasquatch Sunset, Café Society, Zombieland, The Art of Self-Defense, A Real Pain and The Social Network.
Key roles highlighted
In The Double, Eisenberg plays Simon, a shy computer programmer, and his confident doppelganger James. The Squid and the Whale features him as precocious teenager Walt, while Roger Dodger was his feature debut as high school kid Nick.
Sasquatch Sunset has Eisenberg in full makeup as a grunting, nonverbal sasquatch. In Café Society, he plays a nervy romantic who grows from boy to man, and in Zombieland he is Columbus, a brainy guy in a post-apocalyptic world.
You are like a giant, cock-blocking robot developed in some kind of secret government lab!
— Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus in Zombieland
Standout performances
The Art of Self-Defense casts Eisenberg as Casey, a lonely office worker who turns to karate after an attack. A Real Pain, which he also directed, sees him as David, a strait-laced figure on a road trip to Poland with his cousin Benji, played by Kieran Culkin.
His role as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network is called a classic performance. The article says it allowed Eisenberg to weaponise his nerdy persona and showed he was a natural performer of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue.
