The 12 Best Dakota Johnson Movies, Ranked

Certainly one of Hollywood’s premier nepo babies (and we are saying that with love), because the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, Dakota Johnson was all the time going to have the ability to have a profession within the leisure trade if she wished it. And though she’s had a couple of missteps over time (“Madame Net” comes instantly to thoughts, and “Fifty Shades of Gray” is not far behind), she’s additionally been in various spectacular movies.

With a straightforward attraction and a dry humorousness, Johnson can normally be relied upon to make a optimistic impression in no matter films she seems in. She’s been performing for 15 years now (not counting a childhood cameo in her mom’s movie “Loopy in Alabama” again in 1999), so she has loads of credit in her filmography. However which of her films are one of the best of one of the best? Some are high-profile blockbusters, whereas others are smaller indies, however they’re all top-tier Dakota Johnson movies.

Look, generally an engagement simply will get away from you. You’ve each intention of getting married on an affordable timeline after which life will get in the way in which. That is the case within the romantic comedy “The 5-Yr Engagement” starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, when a fortunately engaged couple see their relationship torn to shreds as numerous obstacles emerge that forestall them from tying the knot. 

After the 2 quickly separate and try to maneuver on, Tom (Segel) strikes to San Francisco the place he begins working as a sous chef and courting Audrey, the hostess of the restaurant performed by none aside from Dakota Johnson. Though their relationship is in the end short-lived, for the reason that most important couple need to at the least attempt to get again collectively or this is not a lot of a rom-com, Johnson makes essentially the most of her restricted screentime. “The 5-Yr Engagement” was a modest success on the field workplace, however these days it is higher remembered for that includes a number of comedic rising stars, together with Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, and Kumail Nanjiani.

Nowadays, the city of Somerville simply outdoors of Boston has been fairly completely gentrified, however again within the Seventies there was some fairly substantial mob exercise, particularly within the Winter Hill neighborhood the place Whitey Bulger ran issues. In “Black Mass,” we get an up shut and private take a look at Bulger (performed by Johnny Depp) as he makes the choice to show authorities informant in opposition to his fellow members of the Irish mob. Dakota Johnson has a small however essential position within the movie as Bulger’s girlfriend Lindsay, with whom he shares a younger son, Douglas. 

After a extreme allergic response to aspirin, Douglas tragically passes away. Inside the context of the movie, Lindsay and Douglas characterize Whitey’s lingering ties to his humanity as two of the few folks he cares deeply for and is made weak by. The crime drama obtained typically optimistic evaluations and led to Depp’s Display Actors Guild nomination for Greatest Actor, whereas some critics argued that he ought to have obtained an Oscar nomination for the position.

In “The Excessive Observe,” Tracee Ellis Ross portrays Grace Davis, a legendary R&B singer whose profession has ebbed into what we would name a snug lull. She’s proof against the thought of releasing new music, however can be not thrilled by the thought of taking on a Las Vegas residency, a step on the highway to retirement for previously nice music icons courting irrelevance. Dakota Johnson performs Maggie, Grace’s private assistant who goals of changing into a music producer. Between bolstering Grace’s self-confidence and nurturing the profession of David (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a proficient younger musician who Maggie hopes to work with in the future, she’s acquired rather a lot on her plate. Though the theatrical launch of “The Excessive Observe” was stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic, it nonetheless obtained largely optimistic evaluations from critics and carried out properly as a video-on-demand title. 

What makes “The Excessive Observe” particularly fascinating is how near the center it will need to have been for Ross, because the daughter of famed singer Diana Ross, though she has mentioned that the character of Grace Davis was not based mostly on her mom. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she defined, “The story actually has nothing to do with any of the issues that I do know from my mother’s expertise. Apart from the truth that there’s an actual humanity to this lady and she or he’s not a paper-thin quote-unquote diva that the world normally paints larger-than-life girls as. She’s an actual particular person. That is the one connection that I can draw.”

Seven years after the discharge of “The 5-Yr Engagement,” “Our Pal” sees Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel crew up once more, this time beneath far more dramatic circumstances. Johnson performs Nicole, a younger married lady who’s grappling with the devastation of a terminal most cancers analysis. Whereas she and her husband Matthew (Casey Affleck) are coming to phrases with their new actuality, their shut buddy Dane (Jason Segel) strikes in to assist out. And naturally, the trio all study from each other and draw the energy that they should handle the following steps of their lives, nonetheless troublesome they might be. 

A traditional tearjerker, “Our Pal” was based mostly on a real story as written by the real-life Matthew Teague in an Esquire article. Though it obtained optimistic evaluations for its tenderness and sentimentality, “Our Pal” was one more cinematic sufferer of the theater shutdown through the COVID-19 epidemic, slumping onto video-on-demand at first of 2021. It is not a straightforward watch, however there’s one thing inherently shifting about how these three pals assist one another by means of essentially the most difficult experiences of their lives.

Celine Music’s first movie, the achingly melancholic “Past Lives,” knocked the socks off just about everybody, so to say that expectations have been excessive for her sophomore directorial effort is an understatement. In 2025, she launched “Materialists,” a romantic comedy starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans. In it, Johnson performs Lucy, a girl who works at a high-end matchmaking firm in New York Metropolis which has sarcastically made her greater than somewhat disillusioned on the total idea of affection and relationships. 

She’s actually not discovering any straightforward solutions in her personal love life, torn between a brand new fling who on paper looks as if the right man (Pedro Pascal) and her ex for whom she’s nonetheless carrying one thing of a torch (Chris Evans). Johnson’s naturally dry standoffishness is a wonderful match for the attraction offensive launched by each Pascal and Evans, providing a thoughtful, mature perspective on relationships that’s usually missed in romantic comedies. In a cinematic panorama the place rom-coms are so usually foisted onto streaming providers, “Materialists” proved that they nonetheless have a spot in cinemas.

A remake of the traditional Dario Argento horror movie from 1977, “Suspiria” offers us a mixture of spooky witchcraft and excessive camp as solely director Luca Guadagnino may present. It stars Dakota Johnson as Susie, a younger American dancer who strikes to Germany to attend an elite ballet academy. However unbeknownst to her, dance is not the one factor they educate at this college — it is also acquired a roaring commerce in the dead of night arts. Like many Guadagnino movies, it was ultimately polarizing amongst critics and carried out poorly on the field workplace, though many praised particular qualities of the movie, together with its distinctive aesthetic, ingenious dance sequences, and A+ use of Tilda Swinton. 

Johnson and Guadagnino had beforehand labored collectively on “A Larger Splash,” and though by all accounts Johnson discovered the undertaking creatively fulfilling, she wasn’t shy about the truth that surrounding herself with such darkish subject material for your complete size of the shoot left a mark on her psyche. “[Filming] ‘Suspiria,’ no lie, f***ed me up a lot that I needed to go to remedy,” she advised Elle. “We have been in an deserted resort on prime of a mountain. It had 30 phone poles on the roof, so there was electrical energy pulsating by means of the constructing, and everybody was stunning one another.” Her efforts have been rewarded by the Unbiased Spirit Awards, the place “Suspiria” gained the Robert Altman Award, which is a bunch award that honors the forged, director, and casting director of the celebrated movie.

Not like most of the movies included on this record the place Dakota Johnson is an element of a bigger ensemble, “Daddio” is an old style two-hander — the overwhelming majority of the manufacturing revolves round Johnson and her costar Sean Penn. And on the face of it, it is type of a tricky promote, seemingly a lot better fitted to the stage than the massive display screen, given the truth that it is mainly only one lengthy dialog between the 2 most important characters — Girlie (Johnson), who hails a cab from JFK late one night and spends the vast majority of the trip chatting together with her driver (Penn) about the whole lot beneath the solar. 

Actually, “Daddio” languished on the Black Listing, an annual record of screenplays that readers loved however have been thought of for one purpose or one other to be unfilmable. However ultimately, it discovered a house and was launched in 2024. Critics praised the performances of Johnson and Penn and the chemistry the 2 shared on display screen collectively. Johnson discovered the character of Girlie refreshing to play, telling Screen Rant that “it’s changing into increasingly clear to me as I proceed to work on this trade and broaden my profession that [I want to] inform tales about human connection and trustworthy folks — girls, males. Being true, though it is probably not well-liked or acceptable, is changing into increasingly necessary to me.”

A gaggle of eccentrics who every have a secret all checking right into a resort within the desert through the late ’60s? Signal us up, please. “Unhealthy Occasions on the El Royale” incorporates a compelling ensemble forged of characters who’ve all arrived on the El Royale for their very own causes, few of which they’re desirous to share with each other. However as their paths proceed to cross and they’re always thrown collectively, chaos unfolds. Dakota Johnson performs Emily Summerspring, a younger hippie who has simply rescued her youthful sister Rose (Cailee Spaeny) from a cult run by the unsettlingly charismatic Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth). 

It did not take lengthy for “Unhealthy Occasions on the El Royale” to develop a cult following of its personal, as audiences have been drawn in by the unusual and interesting patrons of the titular resort. As a circuitous neo-noir, you get out of what you set into it, and when you’re keen to put money into the movie, “Bad Times at the El Royale” pays off massively with popcorn thrills. For Johnson’s half, she was interested in the movie because of its uncompromising, balls-to-the-wall storytelling. “It is hardcore,” she mentioned in an interview with The Times. “My character does horrible issues, however solely as she’s fiercely protecting of her sister. It is a devotion I discovered lovely.”

In “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” a younger man with Down syndrome named Zak (Zack Gottsagen) steals away from the establishment the place he had been residing, crossing paths with and in the end befriending a taciturn fisherman (Shia LeBeouf, then within the midst of a short-lived redemption tour after a string of abuse allegations and erratic habits). Zak goals of changing into an expert wrestler and needs to journey to an academy the place he can practice beneath his hero, and Tyler (LeBeouf), equally desirous to get out of city, agrees to assist him. In the meantime, social employee Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) is desperately attempting to trace Zak down in order that she will be able to convey him residence, solely to shift gears when she learns of the restrictions he’ll face as punishment for his escape. 

“The Peanut Butter Falcon” obtained an excessive amount of reward for its lead performances, particularly from newcomer Zack Gottsagen, whose work within the movie as an actor with Down syndrome goes a great distance in furthering illustration throughout the trade. It in the end turned a sleeper hit, incomes again practically 4 occasions its modest funds of $6.2 million.

You suppose that by the point you are in your 30s, you are going to have at the least a number of the main stuff sorted out, nevertheless it’s usually actually only the start of your journey of self-discovery. At 32, Lucy’s (Dakota Johnson) life is just about outlined by her shut relationship together with her greatest buddy and roommate Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), a dynamic that threatens to vary when Jane broadcasts that she and her boyfriend Danny are planning on shifting to London as the results of a promotion at work. 

Whereas the 2 have a couple of drinks (OK, most likely various) to have a good time, Lucy confesses to Jane that she thinks she could be a lesbian. With Jane’s encouragement, Lucy begins to discover her sexuality, beginning by tentatively courting her colleague Brittany (Kiersey Clemons). The result’s an intimate, deeply private story penned by Lauren Pomerantz and directed by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne. Genuine and relatable, “Am I OK?” represents a few of Dakota Johnson’s greatest work, and a reminder that it is by no means too late to vary your life.

Scorching on the heels of his shock hit debut “S#!%home,” Cooper Raiff directed and starred in one other coming-of-age movie, “Cha Cha Actual Clean.” It revolves round a current faculty graduate, Andrew (Raiff), who does not fairly know what to do along with his life, however finds an sudden area of interest as a hype man for his group’s many bar and bat mitzvahs. Youngsters could be awkward at events, and generally they want an extroverted, fun-loving presence to interrupt the ice — that is the place Andrew is available in. 

Whereas at one in every of these bat mitzvahs, he meets Domino (Dakota Johnson, who also produced the film) and her autistic teenager daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt), and the three develop a right away rapport. Andrew falls onerous for Domino, however her life is far more difficult than his. After successful an Viewers Award on the Sundance Movie Pageant, “Cha Cha Actual Clean” induced a bidding struggle that in the end led to Apple TV+ buying the distribution rights for a staggering $15 million. The plucky romantic comedy is as earnest and likable as its two lead performances, making it an understated however emotionally resonant crowd pleaser.

Primarily based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, “The Misplaced Daughter” punctures a gap within the sunny fable of motherhood as a perpetually emotionally fulfilling state of being. It stars Olivia Colman as Leda, who crosses paths with a harried younger mom (Nina, performed by Dakota Johnson) whereas on vacation. The 2 develop into pleasant (even though Leda has, for some purpose, has inexplicably stolen Nina’s daughter’s beloved doll) to the extent that they discover themselves confessing uncomfortable truths that they would not be capable to inform anybody else. 

Nina finds her marriage oppressive and the crush of motherhood stifling, whereas Leda drops the bomb that she left her husband and two daughters for 3 years to flee from the duty of her position of their lives, solely returning when she genuinely started to overlook them. You may nearly really feel hordes of Fb mother teams turning to mud on the mere thought. For it is unflinchingly trustworthy tackle motherhood, “The Misplaced Daughter” obtained widespread important acclaim, and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards: Greatest Supporting Actress for Jessie Buckley (who performs the youthful model of Leda), Greatest Actress for Olivia Colman, and Greatest Tailored Screenplay for Maggie Gyllenhaal. This marked Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, and “The Misplaced Daughter” instantly turned one in every of her greatest movies.