Michael B. Jordan is not the only recognizable star in “Sinners,” writer-director Ryan Coogler‘s bloody new vampire horror movie. The film’s ensemble cast also includes Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li, Jack O’Connell and Hailee Steinfeld. “Sinners” marks the latter’s first substantial role in a live-action movie in six years (a brief cameo at the end of 2023’s “The Marvels” notwithstanding). Steinfeld has kept busy in those six years, but “Sinners” is primed to remind moviegoers what a welcome presence she is whenever she shows up on the big screen.
She may not even yet be 30, but Steinfeld has been a fixture of film and TV for 15 years now. Throughout that time, she has built one of the most sneakily impressive and successful Hollywood careers of any actress of her generation. In honor of her new role in “Sinners,” here are her five best films, ranked.
5. “Bumblebee” (2018)
When you look at her filmography, you quickly realize that Hailee Steinfeld has an exceptionally strong track record when it comes to Hollywood franchise work. Case in point: 2018’s “Bumblebee.” Directed by former Laika animation director Travis Knight, this “Transformers” prequel is the franchise’s best live-action film. To those familiar with the “Transformers” movies of this century, that might seem like damning with faint praise, but it’s not. “Bumblebee” is immensely entertaining, and it is filled with the kind of endearing likability and humanity that the “Transformers” franchise often lacks.
Steinfeld, for her part, anchors “Bumblebee,” which is itself an Autobot-driven throwback to the John Hughes coming-of-age movies of the 1980s. The actress gives the “Transformers” series its best human protagonist to date and delivers a performance that not only feels natural and effortless but actually makes you believe in the bond between her very real Charlie Watson and “Bumblebee’s” digitally-created eponymous yellow Transformer.
4. “Sinners” (2025)
Hailee Steinfeld is not the star of “Sinners,” which follows two outlaw brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) whose shared dream of starting a club in their Mississippi hometown is torn to shreds by the arrival of a bloodthirsty vampire (Jack O’Connell). She does, however, make quite the impression in the film as Mary, the biracial former lover of Jordan’s Stack Moore.
Mary’s grief over the recent death of her mother is heightened by her unexpected reunion with Stack in the first act of “Sinners,” and it is both her anger and her lingering attraction to him that brings her to his club on its grand opening night. In lesser hands, Mary might have felt like nothing more than a plot device, given the role she ultimately plays in “Sinners.” But Steinfeld’s performance ensures that she comes across as someone much more distinct and powerful than that in a film that is both of those things, too, and not to mention a whole lot of fun.
3. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023)
Animated films are very rarely showcases for their voice actors. That is not the case for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” though, and particularly for Steinfeld’s vocal turn as its second lead, Gwen Stacy a.k.a. Spider-Gwen. Steinfeld has proven over the years — especially in Netflix’s “Arcane” — that she has the ability to give textured, memorable voice performances, and she does so again in “Across the Spider-Verse.”
Steinfeld’s Gwen is lonely and conflicted in “Across the Spider-Verse,” and the actress’ performance clearly, movingly communicates all of the yearning and inner turmoil her character is wrestling with throughout it. Steinfeld’s performance is also, of course, elevated and reinforced by some of the most astonishing animation of any Hollywood film in recent years.
2. “True Grit” (2010)
Not many actors can say they achieved their breakout moment in a Coen Brothers movie they shot when they were just 13 years old — even fewer can say they held their own in said movie opposite actors like Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin. But Hailee Steinfeld can. Her performance at the center of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “True Grit” as Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old farm girl who hires a formidable, grizzled lawman (Bridges) to find and kill the man (Brolin) who murdered her father, made Steinfeld an instant star for a reason.
She gives a performance of incredible confidence in the Western, which is goofy and yet brutal and melancholic in the same way many of the Coens’ best films are. There is a lot to recommend about “True Grit,” including Roger Deakins’ gorgeous cinematography and Bridges’ towering supporting performance as Rooster Cogburn, but it is Steinfeld who holds the drama together and provides it with the heart and soul that it requires.
1. “The Edge of Seventeen” (2016)
A modern coming-of-age classic and a minor masterpiece, writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig’s “The Edge of Seventeen” is a witty, achingly empathetic dramedy. Steinfeld stars as its young lead, high school outcast Nadine, whose already unhappy life is turned upside down when her best friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), starts dating her older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner).
What follows is an anxiety-riddled search for acceptance that further strains Nadine’s relationship with her brother and mother (Kyra Sedgwick) and leads her to look to one of her teachers, the sarcastic Mr. Bruner (a perfectly cast Woody Harrelson), for support. Along the way, Steinfeld gives the best performance of her career in a film about the comedic and emotional struggles of trying to find a place for yourself in a world that can often feel deeply, terrifyingly isolating.
