This month, Angelina Jolie stars in Maria, Pablo Larraín‘s latest film, as opera singer Maria Callas. Jolie has had a varied career, attaining success at the pinnacle of Hollywood as well as in independent cinema, and now, later in her career, as a director. In this Retrospective Roundtable, we celebrate a few of our favorite Angelina Jolie films. Continue reading below:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith has earned its place in the pop culture lore of the 2000s, standing as the film that brought together Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt both romantically and on-screen. As a film, it is a pretty typical studio action-comedy that follows a married couple who both harbor secrets about being assassins. As luck would have it, they even work for rival firms and now, they are hired to kill one another. It is a fun and bombastic film, a definite guilty pleasure of mine. Jolie’s filmography has rarely stacked up to her acting ability and Mr. & Mrs. Smith is no exception, but it gives her a role that she makes the absolute most out of at every moment. She plays the hardened, highly skilled, and cold assassin with brutal effectiveness. A scene of John (Pitt) weary about being poisoned in his drink or food by Jane (Jolie) is as funny and effective as it is because of Jolie’s coy and playful facial expressions as she deviously messes with his mind and fosters doubt over whether she would poison him or not. Her expressive face exudes the right level of playfulness in the film’s tone, but Jolie is also right at home when needing to play the sultry and sinister badass. Her charisma, expressiveness, and chemistry with Pitt make Mr. & Mrs. Smith into the enjoyable marital romp that it is with her skill elevating the film at every turn. – Kevin Jones

A Mighty Heart (2007)

In Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, Angelina Jolie stars as journalist Mariane Pearl. Mariane and her husband, Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman), also a journalist, are in Karachi researching Islamic militants. Daniel set up an interview with Sheikh Gilani (Ikram Bhatti) last minute before leaving Pakistan. Daniel would end up being kidnapped and murdered shortly thereafter. A Mighty Heart is the telling of the story of Mariane in the days following Daniel’s kidnapping and the efforts made to attempt to rescue Daniel. 

A Mighty Heart is a heavy, depressing film though it is one that demonstrates the immense resilience of Mariane Pearl. There’s a quote in the film from Mariane – “Kidnappers – their point is to terrorize people. But I am not terrorized, and you cannot be terrorized” – that is absolutely defiant and elicits an emotional response to. Mariane also exhibits a remarkable grace towards the Pakistani people despite Daniel’s fate where so many others would not. Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Mariane Pearl has received ample praise and Jolie disappears into the role and reminded audiences of her capability to excel in dramatic roles. – Alex Sitaras

By the Sea (2015)

Starring Angelina Jolie and her then husband Brad Pitt, By the Sea is a romantic drama that was highly anticipated when it was released in 2015. Unfortunately for the film, it was met with a tepid response from both audiences and critics though I remember admiring the film. I had just gotten into film at the time and this month I was eager to see what I would make of the film after rewatching. Years later, By the Sea remains a thoughtful examination of love, introspection, jealousy, and the weight that life carries and the film would end up being prophetic in a sense with Jolie and Pitt’s divorce occurring a few years later.

Shot during Jolie & Pitt’s honeymoon in Malta, the film follows married couple Roland (Brad Pitt) and Vanessa (Angelina Jolie) during a vacation. The two are distant from each other at the start of the trip and Vanessa seems withdrawn and uneager to spend much time outside of the hotel. The film points to some incident as the source of this distance, but it isn’t made clear until near the conclusion of the film why the two exhibit these mannerisms. There’s tension as illustrated in the verbal barbs thrown at each other, however there still seems to be some sense of love present. 

To complicate the trouble between Roland and Vanessa, a young, just-married, happy couple arrive and stay next door and Vanessa’s comparison of her relationship to theirs eats away at her. She discovers a hole in the wall between the two rooms and spends a good part of her day observing the couple, and cinema fans will find much to compare the voyeurism in this film to cinema’s classic films with voyeuristic undertones. For Vanessa, voyeurism prompts comparison and her observation of the couple is akin to scrolling Instagram and seeing others’ happiness while not feeling the same.

The young couple is acted by French actors Mélanie Laurent & Melvil Poupaud, and each actor excels in portraying two very different relationships. Roland and Vanessa can come off as shallow (they’ll even admit to as much) while the young couple may be perceived as naive in their love, and these character traits probably distanced audiences from this film. Nonetheless, Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea is a unique and impressive intersection between Hollywood cinema and French arthouse that I make the case shouldn’t be missed. – Alex Sitaras