While critics were unkind concerning her Madame Web performance, there are several movies she appeared in that proved she was more talented than the reviews showed. Sweeney has popped up in romantic movies, horror flicks, and even some intense dramas, showing her range in a variety of roles. Sweeney has moved on since Madame Web and used it to catapult her burgeoning career.
Eden (2024)
Eden was a survival thriller with Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, and Sydney Sweeney in the lead roles. With Ron Howard behind the camera, this gave Sweeney one of her best directors to work with. The story follows people who left society between World War I and World War II to live on the island of Floriana in the Galápagos.
Sweeney and Brühl play Heinz and Margret Wittmer, a couple who decide they are tired of living a life of poverty and decide to live off the grid. The problem comes with more people arriving on the island, frustrating the original settlers, Friedrich and Dora (Law and Kirby).
Sweeney easily slipped into the historical role of a young woman in the 1930s, while also selling the horrors of living outside of society (she is pregnant, and her baby’s delivery scene is terrifying). As the surprising anchor of the movie, Sweeney proves to be up for the role, thanks partially to sharing the scenes with the talented Brühl.
Nocturne (2020)
The best way for many young stars to get their footing and find their unique voice in Hollywood is by appearing in horror movies. Sydney Sweeney got a chance to do so in Nocturne in 2020 for Amazon Prime Video. Following her breakout in Euphoria, Sweeney delivered an impressive performance in this Black Swan-style horror flick.
Sweeney stars as a teenager named Juliet who is a student at an elite music academy, where she and her twin sister Vivian (Madison Iseman) both play piano. Unlike her more experienced sister (in every way), Juliet is lagging behind her and has a lot to prove. However, soon a mysterious spirit overtakes her after another student dies by suicide.
Sweeney delivers an incredible performance, showing her slowly changing from the insecure and inexperienced young woman into someone who will do anything to prove she belongs. Nocturne isn’t as good as Black Swan, but Sweeney delivered regardless of the movie’s script and carried the movie to positive reviews.
Clementine (2019)
In 2019, Sydney Sweeney got one of her early starring movie roles in the romantic drama Clementine. It was Otmara Marrero who was in the lead role as Karen, a young woman who was attempting to recover from the end of a relationship. So she breaks into her ex-girlfriend’s lake house and makes some terrible decisions.
One of these poor decisions comes when she befriends a young woman named Lana (Sweeney), with whom she develops a relationship. Sweeney had already shown her talent in Euphoria, so the sexually charged story here was not a surprise for the young star.
The movie is the story of continuing a line of manipulation, with Karen displaying the same control that her ex used on her here with Lana, but Lana has secrets she is hiding as well. Sweeney’s performance when she cuts loose at the end proves she has talent beyond what she ever showed in Madame Web.
Christy (2025)
In 2025, Sydney Sweeney attempted an award-winning role using an old standby trick. She changed her appearance and transformed her body, becoming almost unrecognizable for the role. It worked for everyone from Robert De Niro (Raging Bull) and Charlize Theron (Monster), but Sweeney’s movie didn’t reach the same level.
Christy is the biopic of Christy Martin, a boxer who tries to find success in a male-dominated sport. Sweeney gained 35 pounds of muscle for the role, and she did everything she could to learn to box so she could deliver the performance in the ring, as well as she did with her looks.
Christy received mixed reviews, but critics praised Sweeney’s transformation and performance. Sweeney received several honors for her performance at film festivals, although it didn’t carry over to the theatrical release, as it ended up as a box office bomb.
Anyone But You (2023)
Of course, Sydney Sweeney has mainly been best at regular genre roles, whether in horror movies or romantic comedies. One of her better romantic comedies came in 2023 with the Prime Video release Anyone But You. Directed by Will Gluck (Easy A), this is another modern-day William Shakespeare adaptation.
Sweeney stars as Bea, a law student who meets a Goldman Sachs employee named Ben (Glen Powell). As in typical rom-com form, there is plenty of miscommunication between the two, which makes their eventual connection mean even more. It is not original, but for people who love rom-coms, it delivers what it is supposed to.
The film received lackluster reviews thanks to the script and story, but there was no doubting the star power of Powell and the range of acting from Sweeney. It’s nothing new, but that doesn’t detract from the performances of its stars.
Americana (2023)
Released in 2023, Americana stars Paul Walter Hauser as a down-on-his-luck military veteran named Lefty who meets a waitress named Penny (Sidney Sweeney), who has dreams of being a country music star. They then end up in the middle of a black market deal surrounding the theft of a million-dollar Native American artifact.
The movie has Sweeney playing a small-town young woman in a Western crime drama. This is unlike most of Sweeney’s roles and gives her a chance to do something completely different.
The problem here is that the movie is more about the quirky story, and the irreverence often contrasts suddenly with the commentary about Native American culture. With a positive 65% Rotten Tomatoes score, critics praised the cast, and Sweeney was a hugely important part of this film.
Immaculate (2024)
Sydney Sweeney has appeared in several horror movies, but her best performance in the genre came in Immaculate in 2024. The movie is a tight horror film that flies by thanks to the terrifying story and the solid performance by Sweeney in the lead.
Sweeney plays Cecilia, a young woman recruited to join a covenant in Italy by Father Sal Tedeschi (Alvaro Morté). However, when she ends up mysteriously pregnant, everything goes wrong. This is a shockingly violent film, with buckets of blood flowing and a strong religious atmosphere playing off the horror.
Immaculate wouldn’t work as well without Sydney Sweeney buying into the story of a woman suddenly and inexplicably pregnant, knowing that terrible things are coming. The last scene remains the most shocking, and Sweeney’s performance sold it masterfully.
The Housemaid (2025)
Sydney Sweeney’s newest movie was the massive box office hit, The Housemaid. This film sees Sweeney play Millie Calloway, a woman on parole for manslaughter after killing her rapist. A wealthy woman named Nina (Amanda Seyfried) hires her to work as a live-in maid.
It is easy to see the influences of The Housemaid, especially from 90s movies like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Single White Female. The movie isn’t a deep look at an unbalanced woman, and it also isn’t as campy as others in the genre. However, the twists and turns are so absurd that it checks off all the points genre fans want to see.
What really turns this around is that it’s Seyfried’s character who is the unbalanced character, and Sweeney gets to play the victim, trying to find her place. When it is time to fight back, Sweeney thrives here and offers a perfect counter to Seyfried, ensuring the movie ends on an extremely entertaining note.
Realty (2023)
While critics dismissed Sydney Sweeney following her performance in Madame Web, those critics likely didn’t see her incredible performance in Reality. This 2023 film is easily Sweeney’s greatest performance as an actor, and proves that her role in Madame Web was an anomaly.
Reality is a crime thriller about a woman named Reality Winner (Sweeney), and it is based on the 2017 FBI interview with that real-life American intelligence leaker. Sweeney plays this real-life woman, a U.S. Air Force veteran and former NSA translator, and almost every bit of dialogue is from the actual FBI interview.
In real life, Winner exposed the evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election won by Donald Trump, and she ended up in jail for four years. This movie is about the interviews leading to her arrest, and Sweeney was incredible in her performance. The film has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score, the best for a Sweeney-led film.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
While Reality was Sydney Sweeney’s best performance as an actor, the best movie she ever appeared in was Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Having Tarantino choose Sweeney for a role in his film was a tremendous moment, and she didn’t let the director down.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follows a former television Western star (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is trying to keep his career alive, while his stunt double (Brad Pitt) has a direct confrontation with the Charles Manson family. That is where Sweeney fits in, as Snake, a member of Manson’s murderous cult.
This ended up being Sydney Sweeney’s breakout role, the film hitting the same year that Euphoria began airing. It also gave her a chance to deliver a role strikingly different from Cassie in that HBO television series, and proved she was a star on the rise.