Paul Mescal hasn’t been a film actor for very long, in the overall scheme of things, but he’s nonetheless made a name for himself as a rising star of the 2020s worth keeping an eye on. Pre-2020, his acting was generally limited to the stage, but he first got widespread attention through starring in the miniseries Normal People, alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones. That heavy-going romantic drama scored Mescal an Emmy nomination, and numerous film roles have followed ever since (with one even getting him an Oscar nomination at the age of just 26).
He rides a fine line between feeling like a star, owing to his charisma and screen presence, while also having a devotion to his characters, plus a certain type of film he often appears in, which often makes him seem more down-to-earth on screen. He’s also shown promise in appearing in films that aren’t character-focused dramas, thanks to a lead role in a certain Ridley Scott blockbuster in 2024. He’s been in relatively few movies to date, so at this stage in his career, it’s not too hard to rank them all, which the following intends to do (barring anything that’s not a feature-length movie, so that aforementioned show about the People who are Normal isn’t included).
9
‘Foe’ (2023)
If you want to watch every Paul Mescal movie he’s been in between 2020 and 2024, the biggest foe you’re likely to run into is, fittingly enough, 2023’s Foe. This is the closest thing to a stinker Mescal has starred in to date, but to spin that a little more positively, it’s not ghastly. There are some things that work or come close to working, with Mescal and co-star Saoirse Ronan both turning in performances that elevate the material they’re working with, and that material does involve a somewhat intriguing sci-fi premise about identity, human nature, and all those good old reliable science fiction themes.
Still, it feels like it fails to do in two hours what something like Black Mirror can generally do in half that time, and Black Mirror will be on your mind while watching Foe if you’ve seen that show, because the plot here is like a less exciting “Beyond the Sea.” And that episode itself had some issues, so Foe is really out here sinking a lot more than it swims. Some broadly interesting ideas (that are ultimately underbaked) and a couple of decent performances can only take a movie so far, it seems.
8
‘Carmen’ (2022)
Carmen is perhaps the most out-there and risky movie Paul Mescal has appeared in so far, which isn’t to say it’s great, but it is at least more interesting than Foe. Carmen takes a lot of swings and a good number of those swings miss, but what it’s going for is intriguing nonetheless, being something of a musical, road movie, and broadly tragic romance film all at once. The premise involves a young woman (Melissa Barrera) going on the run after her mother is murdered, which eventually sees her crossing paths with members of a border patrol, which is how she meets Mescal’s character.
He goes on the run with her, and feelings start to develop between the two, but then, perhaps in an attempt to not have things feel clichéd, Carmen starts going off on some strange tangents, and staging some hit-or-miss musical numbers. The execution is lacking, and it’s a movie that strains to feel big while dealing with some big ideas and weighty themes, but certain sequences are striking. Undoubtedly, Carmen is a good-looking movie, the score is interesting, and both Mescal and Barrera are solid, but judged as a whole, it doesn’t entirely stick the landing.
7
‘God’s Creatures’ (2022)
A rather dour drama that looks at issues of morality in a small fishing village, God’s Creatures might well be a little too slow for its own good, but those willing to be patient will find aspects of it rewarding. Emily Watson and Paul Mescal star, and both are very good, with Watson being the central character: a woman who’s forced into a difficult situation when her son (Mescal) reappears, isn’t clear about just what he’s been doing, and is then accused of committing a terrible act within the village.
Even going that far when discussing what happens in God’s Creatures could be saying too much, given it’s intentionally light on narrative and, though not quite a mystery, certainly keeps key pieces of information hidden for long stretches of the runtime. It’s relatively compelling as far as gritty, small-scale character dramas go; not exactly a mass-appeal kind of movie, but it generally achieves what it sets out to do without necessarily excelling.
6
‘The History of Sound’ (2025)
One of the more obscure Paul Mescal films so far, as well as a fairly recent one (at the time of writing), The History of Sound is set a bit over 100 years ago, and is something of a romantic drama, and a movie about music, too. It’s about two male music students (Mescal as one, Josh O’Connor the other) falling in love, and then traveling together in the years following World War I, finding their bond tested for various reasons, and with expected drama surrounding whether to pursue art or pursue love, since it’s inevitably a struggle to do both.
The History of Sound was screened at Cannes, and it got one of those lengthy standing ovations that’s easy to make fun of (longer than some other movies at the film festival in 2025, but not the longest). And it is rather fine for what it is, but there’s a little something missing and holding it back from being a great movie. Mescal and O’Connor are good, and it’s moving enough, but it doesn’t really stick in one’s mind and, for the moment, doesn’t seem like it’ll endure to a particularly great extent as more time passes.
5
‘The Lost Daughter’ (2021)
Paul Mescal had a modest role in The Lost Daughter, which was ultimately his feature film debut, being one part of a cast that also included the likes of Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, and Ed Harris. Colman is certainly the central character here, playing a woman with a troubled past that’s far from clear for much of the film’s duration. Little snippets of it are gradually revealed through flashbacks, where Buckley plays a younger version of the same character: a mother struggling with the pressures that come with raising two young children.
The past reflects the present in some ways, and various truths about the complex character at The Lost Daughter’s center get revealed in a way that’s generally intense and involving. It’s a fairly well-made psychological drama elevated by the performances, with Colman and Buckley both receiving Oscar nominations, and the likes of Johnson, Harris, and Mescal all turning in solid supporting performances. Like God’s Creatures, it’s slow-going at times, but is inevitably a little more worthwhile of being stuck with than that film.
4
‘Gladiator II’ (2024)
Time will tell if Paul Mescal chooses to seek out more large-scale projects in the future, but Gladiator II does demonstrate that he’s more than capable of succeeding in such a realm. It’s a far bigger and more action-packed movie than anything the actor’s been in up until this point, with it aiming to equal – or even top, in some regards – the level of spectacle found in the first movie, released 24 years earlier. Mescal’s character goes through a similar arc to Russell Crowe’s hero from the first film, but there are a few tweaks narratively; it’s not just a copy of Gladiator.
The risks it takes are generally appreciated, but there was a satisfying directness to the first film that’s lacking here. Even if a couple of cast members return, and Ridley Scott is once more helming the entire thing, Gladiator II does live in the shadow of the first movie in many ways, but anyone after “more Gladiator” will inevitably get that here. The action impresses, it’s technically very well-executed, and though some of the film’s talented actors don’t get much time to shine (like Pedro Pascal, Derek Jacobi, and Joseph Quinn), others (like Mescal and Denzel Washington) thankfully do.
3
‘Hamnet’ (2025)
Hamnet is interesting to watch if you’re well-versed in Paul Mescal, since it’s another movie that stars both him and Jesse Buckley, after The Lost Daughter, though they share scenes here. Oh, and Mescal plays characters named “Will” in both. And also, Hamnet features Emily Watson in a supporting role, and she was in God’s Creatures with Mescal. Maybe they just don’t have many actors in that part of the world at the moment? Oh, well. They’re all good actors, and they’re all good in Hamnet. The acting is the main reason to see Hamnet, in fact. It’s a movie that has Mescal playing William Shakespeare, and the others playing real-life people, too, and then the whole story revolves around love, tragedy, ensuing grief, and trying to grapple with that in a way that may or may not involve channeling it into some kind of artistic expression.
So, the actors get to play real people, and those people are going through a lot, which might make some Oscar bait alarm bells go if in some people’s minds. And those bells are maybe right to go off, but Hamnet is at least well-made, and the acting is very strong. It is a slow film throughout, and if you know anything more than a one-sentence summary of the plot, you won’t really be surprised by where this goes, and that predictability hurts what otherwise might be very emotional. It’s weird to be left feeling a little cold, when everyone’s giving it their all on screen, and the story is such an undeniably somber one, but there is something missing in Hamnet. But without focusing too much on what it could’ve been, and assessing what Hamnet is… it is pretty good. It is pretty good for what it is. It’s ultimately about Shakespeare making perhaps his most ambitious and emotionally charged work, so it would’ve been nicer if the film itself had been a tiny bit more ambitious or adventurous, but still, what you get here is good, and it’s worth watching for the acting alone.
2
‘Aftersun’ (2022)
Aftersun is a bit hard to describe without giving everything away, because it’s one of the slowest slow-burns in recent memory. Just what it’s going for narratively and thematically only becomes clear in the final couple of scenes of the movie, and even then, certain implications don’t really hit until after the end credits have stopped rolling. It’s a tricky, haunting, and somber experience that certainly lingers in the mind after it’s over, which is fitting, considering so much of it’s about memory, and it is an intensely internal/emotional movie.
Broadly, it follows a young man and his daughter going on a vacation, with the daughter looking back on the experience a couple of decades later and, as an adult, finally beginning to understand certain truths about her father. Frankie Corio is excellent as the younger version of the daughter, and Mescal is similarly mesmerizing in a challenging, subtle, and sometimes even harrowing performance. For Mescal’s work in Aftersun, he received an Oscar nomination, and it was well-deserved. It might not be as amazing as the best film Mescal’s starred in to date, but Aftersun does boast what would have to be his best lead performance to date.
1
‘All of Us Strangers’ (2023)
Honestly, both Aftersun and All of Us Strangers are among the best films of the 2020s so far, and so it could well be a flip of the coin that determines which one is better overall. All of Us Strangers might have more going on, but Aftersun is the film where Mescal is featured more prominently. By contrast, All of Us Strangers mostly centers on a never-better Andrew Scott, who feels as though he appears in just about every shot of the film, navigating a relationship with Mescal’s character at the same time he reconnects with mysteriously younger versions of his parents, both of them at the age they were when they were killed in a car accident.
There’s an exploration of grief, trauma, and memory here that might make one think of Aftersun, and All of Us Strangers similarly builds to an incredibly moving finale. So, if you want emotional devastation and two great Paul Mescal performances, these two films could make for a truly heartbreaking double feature… no, that’s a terrible idea, even as a joke. Space these films out if you haven’t seen them, but undoubtedly make time for both. They’re two great movies, and both demonstrate Mescal’s talents as an actor especially well.
