# What is the best Scarlett Johansson performance of all time?

> From a lonely newlywed drifting through Tokyo to a lethal alien prowling Glasgow to the voice of an AI you fall in love with — Scarlett Johansson has never stopped surprising. Which role defines her?

*By YPB Team · Published April 10, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-scarlett-johansson-performance-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Lost in Translation**
   The 2003 Sofia Coppola film that established Johansson as a sophisticated talent, playing a neglected young wife who forms an unlikely bond with a fading actor in Tokyo.
2. **Under the Skin**
   The 2013 Jonathan Glazer sci-fi film in which Johansson delivers an eerie, largely wordless performance as an alien predator driving through Scotland luring men to their doom.
3. **Her**
   The 2013 Spike Jonze romance in which Johansson won the Rome Film Festival Best Actress award for her voice-only performance as Samantha, a disembodied AI operating system.
4. **Marriage Story**
   The 2019 Noah Baumbach drama that earned Johansson a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her devastating portrayal of an actress navigating a painful divorce.
5. **Jojo Rabbit**
   The 2019 Taika Waititi film that earned Johansson a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as the warm, courageous mother secretly hiding a Jewish girl during World War II.
6. **Girl with a Pearl Earring**
   The 2003 period drama in which Johansson embodies Vermeer's iconic painting subject with a luminous, largely silent performance as a servant who becomes the artist's muse.
7. **The Avengers**
   The 2012 Marvel ensemble blockbuster in which Johansson cemented Black Widow as a fan-favorite Avenger, holding her own alongside gods and super-soldiers with lethal precision.
8. **Ghost World**
   The 2001 Terry Zwigoff cult classic that announced Johansson's arrival, playing a disaffected teenager drifting apart from her best friend in the aimless summer after high school.
9. **Vicky Cristina Barcelona**
   The 2008 Woody Allen romantic drama in which Johansson plays an adventurous American drawn into a passionate love triangle with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz in Barcelona.
10. **The Prestige**
   Christopher Nolan's 2006 thriller about dueling magicians, in which Johansson plays a stage assistant caught between Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale's escalating rivalry.
11. **Lucy**
   The 2014 Luc Besson action film in which Johansson carries the movie as a woman who gains superhuman abilities after a drug is absorbed into her bloodstream.
12. **Black Widow**
   The 2021 Marvel solo film in which Johansson finally gets to explore Natasha Romanoff's origins, confronting her surrogate family and the Red Room that made her.
13. **Don Jon**
   The 2013 Joseph Gordon-Levitt comedy-drama in which Johansson steals scenes as a Jersey girl whose superficial allure masks a sharply drawn commentary on modern relationships.
14. **Avengers: Endgame**
   The 2019 Marvel epic in which Johansson delivers arguably her most emotional turn as Black Widow, culminating in a devastating sacrifice to save the universe.
15. **A Love Song for Bobby Long**
   The 2004 indie drama in which Johansson plays a young woman who returns to New Orleans after her mother's death, discovering two eccentric squatters living in the family home.

Tags: movies, celebrities, actors, scarlett johansson