Indie queen Aubrey Plaza is adored for her quirky and offbeat roles, with the talented actress’ personality and humor endearing her to audiences everywhere. Having gotten her start doing sketch comedy and improv at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater, Plaza gained widespread recognition when she nabbed the role of the cynical and snarky April Ludgate on the NBC smash-hit mockumentary series Parks and Recreation. During its seven season run, the sitcom garnered numerous accolades and earned critical acclaim, propelling its dynamite cast to further stardom and success and attracting a passionate fan following.
Plaza would go on to appear in unique and entertaining films, showcasing her notable range as a performer with roles in independent pictures like the zombie comedy Life After Beth, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Safety Not Guaranteed. In recent years, the actress has headlined dark dramedies and thrillers such as Black Bear and Ingrid Goes West, and delivered a sharp and exceptional portrayal in the FX superhero series Legion. Her upcoming crime drama Emily the Criminal premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, with Plaza receiving rave reviews by critics and fans alike. These are some of Aubrey Plaza’s best performances.
9 Happiest Season
Touting a superb ensemble cast including Kristen Stewart, Aubrey Plaza, Mackenzie Davis, and Dan Levy, the 2020 holiday romantic dramedy Happiest Season tells the poignant tale of a young woman who is faced with the difficult decision to tell her ultra-conservative parents that she is a lesbian and in a long-term, committed relationship when the pair come home for Christmas.
Writer and director Clea DuVall has expressed that “in a lot of ways, this movie is autobiographical” and that many of the experiences depicted on screen were that of her own. In the heartfelt dramedy, Plaza portrays Riley, the ex-girlfriend of the struggling main lead Harper who feels hurt over the manner in which Harper handled their relationship. Happiest Season was a hit with both critics and audiences, winning the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film–Wide Release.
8 Life After Beth
In the 2014 zombie comedy Life After Beth, Aubrey Plaza portrays the recently deceased Beth Slocum, the girlfriend of the devastated Zach Orfman who mysteriously returns with no knowledge of her death, much to his joy and wonder. Zach quickly begins to realize something is a little off with Beth when she becomes increasingly violent and begins to undergo a terrible transformation.
The zany flick was written and directed by Plaza’s now-husband Jeff Baena (and frequent collaborator) and had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, in which the actress garnered praise for exceptional performance as the undead Beth; The Observer declared that she “steals the show with one foot in the grave, her rotting heroine ricocheting between adolescent snarkiness and cadaverous rage, a lethal combination of which no one around her has the measure.”
7 The Little Hours
Loosely based on The Decameron by Italian poet and writer Giovanni Boccaccio, Jeff Baena's 2017 medieval dark comedy The Little Hours takes place in the 14th century and follows nuns Fernanda, Alessandra, and Ginevra as they find themselves enticed by the servant Massetto, a young man in hiding who is introduced as a deaf mute by the priest to discourage temptation.
Featuring a dynamite cast including Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, and John C. Reilly, the delightful comedy was actually improvised by the actors, with only a detailed outline created for the production to follow. The Little Hours utilized an accurate medieval set but infused the film with contemporary language, attitudes, and behavior, resulting in hilarious performances, jokes and humor both audiences and critics raved about.
6 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Edgar Wright directed the beloved 2010 romantic action comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which is based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley that centers on the titular laid-back musician as he attempts to win a life-changing competition for a coveted record deal, all the while battling it out with his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers’ seven troublesome exes.
Wright worked closely alongside O’Malley during production of the visually stunning picture, shooting the comedy in Toronto because according to producer Miles Dale it is, “the biggest movie ever identifiably set in Toronto” and “the books are super-specific in their local details.” Starring Canadian actor Michael Cera as Pilgrim and featuring the additional talent of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, and Aubrey Plaza, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has developed a passionate cult following since its release.
5 Black Bear
Written and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine, the 2020 dark dramedy thriller Black Bear stars Aubrey Plaza as Allison, a filmmaker struggling to re-discover her creativity who decides to embark on a rural retreat in search of inspiration. Allison crosses paths with a young couple at a remote lake house, sending their lives in a tailspin for the sake of her craft.
Co-starring Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon, the provocative picture earned rave reviews at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, with Plaza being singled out for her exceptional performance. The Guardian raved about the indie queen’s daring and multi-layered portrayal of the unsettling Allison, calling it the actress’ “best role yet, her cool feline sensuality achieving something more mysterious than anything in her previous work.”
4 Legion
The FX superhero television series Legion takes place in an alternate timeline of the X-Men film franchise, focusing on the emotionally troubled “mutant” David Haller (Dan Stevens) as he struggles to understand and control his mysterious new powers while facing off against a nefarious government agency. In the critically acclaimed program, Aubrey Plaza once again demonstrated her impressive range as a performer when she appeared as Lenore “Lenny” Busker, David’s friend who is killed and brought back as the main persona of powerful mutant Amahl Farouk/Shadow King.
Despite the part initially being written for a middle-aged man, creator Noah Hawley was intrigued by Plaza and wanted to rework the character’s dialogue, but Plaza insisted the lines stay the same and played Amahl as both male and female. She oscillates through various personalities throughout the show, with one of the biggest highlights being her supernatural dance scene set to Nina Simone. For her scene-stealing role, Plaza went on to be nominated for the Imagen Award for Best Television Actress.
3 Safety Not Guaranteed
Inspired by a joke ad written in a 1997 issue of Backwoods Home Magazine, the 2012 sci-fi romantic comedy Safety Not Guaranteed tells the story of the brilliant but disenchanted Darius Britt, a recent college graduate interning at a Seattle magazine who investigates a newspaper classified ad seeking a companion for time travel. Along with her co-workers Jeff and Arnau, Darius sets out to meet the mysterious Kenneth Calloway, who claims to have created a time machine.
Safety Not Guaranteed is often regarded as one of the most influential films of the 2010s, for its ability to take the independent film movement of its previous two decades and bring it to mainstream contemporary sensibilities (and current technologies like streaming). The film was a critical and commercial success, garnering praise for its sharp screenplay and endearing performances of its impressive young leads. The picture helped demonstrate the appeal and power of small budget pictures, ultimately foreseeing the pivotal role of streaming in film creation and its subsequent distribution.
2 Ingrid Goes West
Recipient of the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival, the 2017 dark comedy drama Ingrid Goes West follows the mentally unstable Ingrid Thornburn (Aubrey Plaza). After the death of her mother and a series of personal setbacks, Ingrid leaves her home of Pennsylvania for sunny Los Angeles in search of her personal obsessions: Instagram star Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen).
Plaza and Olsen are outstanding as the unlikely pals, initially growing close despite their vastly different backgrounds until both their covers are blown in terrifyingly hilarious fashion. Plaza told Entertainment Weekly she was interested in dissecting the personality disorder and impulses of her character, saying, “Just the idea of creating these relationships that aren’t real in your mind because Instagram and the internet and social media, none of it is actually tangible, so there was an element of delusion that I was really interested in.”
1 Parks and Recreation
Arguably Aubrey Plaza’s most memorable and popular role to date was as the hilariously cynical intern April Ludgate on the adored mockumentary sitcom Parks and Recreation, which focuses on Pawnee, Indiana’s perky deputy director Leslie Knope as she works in the parks department with her quirky co-workers in the fictional small town. The part of April was specifically written for Plaza, with casting director Allison Jones having told co-creator Michael Shur: “I just met the weirdest girl I’ve ever met in my life. You have to meet her and put her on your show.”
The actress’ charming chemistry with (eventual) on-screen husband Chris Pratt (Andy Dwyer) and her amusing banter with her co-stars in the Parks and Recreation cast like Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman. and Rashida Jones helped skyrocket the show to popularity. Parks and Recreation ran for 7 seasons and was the recipient of accolades such as NAACP Awards, a Golden Globe and a Peabody in 2012.