16 best films with Keira Knightley

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

One of the most sought-after British actresses is celebrating her 34th birthday.

A pretty ingenue, a girl from a neighboring apartment, an exquisite lady, a daredevil - the list of types that the English actress Keira Knightley can embody is quite large.

Kira's rise as an actress was helped by a fun fact - her physical resemblance to Natalie Portman, who played Queen Padmé Amidala in Star Wars. Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Keira Knightley was invited to play the role of Sabe, Amidala's double. In the makeup, the girls were indistinguishable from each other, and the audience was convinced that both roles were played by Portman. The difference was noticed only by experts and very attentive movie fans.

1. Pit

• UK, 2001.
• Thriller, drama, horror film.
• Duration: 102 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 2

The secret party of four students of a private school ended badly: the guys were trapped in an old underground bunker. The police psychologist is trying to figure out what happened. To do this, she has to listen to the story of the only girl who was able to get out of the pit.

Keira Knightley played the school beauty Frankie, who, along with the rest of the guys, was trapped in a bunker. Her partner on the site was Torah Birch, an interesting actress with a small but strong filmography ("American Beauty", "Phantom World").

2. Real love

• UK, USA, 2003.
• Tragicomedy.
• Duration: 135 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 6.

Nine love stories, each set shortly before Christmas. Keira Knightley appears in one of the short stories as a girl named Juliet. The heroine recently got married and does not yet know that her husband's best friend may have forbidden feelings for her.

The director of the film, Richard Curtis, once said that he wanted to make a movie that would include all his ideas. After all, if he shot each one separately, a whole life would not be enough for this. And this experiment was quite a success for him. A scattering of great actors of all stripes, multiplied by a variety of fascinating plots - and in total we get a great film.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: the curse of the Black Pearl

• USA, 2003.
• Action, adventure film, fantasy, comedy.
• Duration: 143 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

Journeyman Will Turner teams up with a charming and eccentric pirate named Jack Sparrow to save his beloved Elizabeth Swann from a gang of ghost pirates.

After this film, Keira Knightley's career quickly took off. The role of the governor's pretty daughter instantly glorified the actress, who at the time of the release of "Pirates" was only 18 years old.

4. King Arthur

• USA, 2004.
• Historical thriller.
• Duration: 126 minutes or 141 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 3.

In the plot of the film, myths about King Arthur and real historical events that took place in the province of Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire are intertwined in an original way.

Keira Knightley plays the wife of the protagonist Guinevere. The film offers a non-standard take on this character. In the performance of director Antoine Fuqua, the place of a medieval lady was taken by an Amazon, armed with a bow and dressed in leather.

The same applies to all the other heroes of the epic about Arthur: Merlin became a military leader, and in general, the whole story turned into a historical action movie.

5. Pride and prejudice

• France, UK, USA, 2005.
• Drama.
• Duration: 129 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 8.

An unmarried girl from the English province of Elizabeth Bennett meets a lonely, wealthy and arrogant Mr. Darcy. Despite the mutual sympathy that arose between them, the heroine dislikes his snobbery. Darcy is in no hurry to fall in love with a woman with a low social status.

During the filming of Elizabeth Bennett, Kira wore a wig, behind which she hid short hair. The fact is that at this time the actress was preparing to star in the movie "Domino", where she played a bounty hunter.

For her role in Pride and Prejudice, Keira Knightley was nominated for an Academy Award.

6. Jacket

• USA, 2005.
• Thriller.
• Duration: 102 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 1.

An amnesiac war veteran is accused of killing a police officer and sent to a mental hospital for insane criminals. There, the former military man becomes the object of the doctor's experiments, who tries a certain unique drug on his new patient.

In this film, Keira Knightley plays the waitress Jackie Price, who is mysteriously linked to the protagonist's past. Adrien Brody, known for his mature intellectual game, became the partner of the actress on the site.

7. Atonement

• UK, France, 2007.
• Melodrama, war film.
• Duration: 123 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 8.

Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis irreversibly changes the lives of several people when she blames her older sister Cecilia's beloved for a crime he did not commit.

Keira Knightley is again filming for director Joe Wright: their first collaboration was the film "Pride and Prejudice." The actress plays Cecilia Tallis, although she originally auditioned for the role of Briony's younger sister.

The fact is that by this time Kira had become a hostage of the archetype of an inexperienced young girl. Therefore, the actress wanted to play a more mature character so as not to get stuck in one image.

8. Duchess

• Great Britain, France, Italy, USA, 2008.
• Biographical film, drama, historical film.
• Duration: 110 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 9.

The film tells the life story of the charismatic Duchess Georgiana Cavendish. As a young woman, she marries the Duke of Devonshire. But there is no love at all in this marriage. Tired of her husband's indifference, Georgiana lives for herself. Gradually, she takes a great interest in politics, becomes a fashionable icon of her time and even falls in love with each other.

Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes, who have played more than one villain, embodied the images of the Duchess and Duke of Devonshire. Kira was faced with the task of convincingly portraying the despair of a woman, deprived of the opportunity to freely dispose of her life. Needless to say, the actress did an excellent job.

9. Don't let me go

• UK, USA, 2010.
• Dystopia, drama.
• Duration: 103 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 2.

Three friends - Ruth, Katie and Tommy - spend their childhood in a closed boarding school. This place seems perfect, but it's actually not that good. Having reached the age of majority, the guys understand that all this time they were in isolation for a reason.

Keira Knightley played one of the most significant roles in her career in the film adaptation of the novel by the Nobel Prize winner in literature Kazuo Ishiguro. The film received many positive reviews, and Kira was awarded the Saturn Prize for Best Supporting Actress.

10. Looking for a friend for the end of the world

• USA, 2012.
• Drama, comedy, melodrama, fantasy.
• Duration: 108 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 7.

In three weeks, the asteroid will destroy all life on Earth. All the inhabitants of the planet are shocked by this news, only Dodge Petersen calmly goes to work and sells insurance.

But the situation changes when he receives a letter from his old school love. The main character decides at all costs to find her in order to spend the end of the world together, and sets off on the road with his neighbor Penny.

This time, the British actress was paired with one of the most famous American comedians Steve Carell. And Kira plays the eccentric, but sweet friend of the protagonist Penny Lockhart.

11. Dangerous method

• UK, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, 2011.
• Biographical drama.
• Duration: 99 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 4.

David Cronenberg's biopic tells the story of the relationship between the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and his student Carl Jung, who is in love with his patient.

Not all critics appreciated Keira Knightley's performance. Someone thought she was too beautiful for the role of Sabina Spielrein. Others, on the other hand, noted that Kira's acting makes the film more energetic. However, in 2012 the actress was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress.

12. Anna Karenina

• UK, 2012.
• Melodrama.
• Duration: 129 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 6.

The film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel tells about the forbidden love of a married woman Anna Karenina for a young officer Alexei Vronsky.

Anna Karenina is the third collaboration between director Joe Wright and Keira Knightley. In the English adaptation of the Russian classics, the actress embodied the image of Anna, the role of Alexei Karenin was played by Jude Law, and Vronsky was played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

13. At least once in my life

• USA, 2013.
• Musical tragicomedy.
• Duration: 104 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 4.

Music producer Dan Mulligan goes into binge after losing his job. One day he meets a young singer Gretta in a bar. Dan immediately realizes that her songs can be commercial success - all that is needed is the right arrangement.

For the role of Gretta James, the actress took guitar lessons from her husband James Wrighton, lead singer of the Klaxons.

A small reputational scandal is also associated with the film. Film director John Carney criticized Kira's acting, calling the actress a supermodel without musical talent. True, he later apologized for these words.

14. Baby

• USA, 2014.
• Melodrama.
• Duration: 99 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 4.

The film tells about the vicissitudes of the crisis for 30 years. Megan has a round date soon, all her friends have already got families and jobs. The heroine receives a very untimely marriage proposal and decides to hide from problems in the house of her new 16-year-old girlfriend. Only the girl's lonely father is not happy with this idea.

A stupid romantic comedy with a star cast - Keira Knightley as the overage "girl" Megan, Chloe Grace Moretz and Sam Rockwell. Despite good reviews from critics, the film did not receive awards and did not collect much at the box office. However, you can watch it for the sake of Kira's pleasant company and indie rock on the soundtrack.

15. The imitation game

• USA, 2014.
• Historical drama.
• Duration: 114 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

The plot focuses on the life of Alan Turing, the legendary British cryptographer and mathematician. Together with his colleagues, the mathematical genius is struggling with the problem of decoding the messages of the Enigma machine used by the Nazis.

Keira Knightley plays Turing's colleague Joan Clarke, with whom mathematics has a close but complex friendship.

The Imitation Game has received the highest reviews from critics and the press. Keira Knightley was also not deprived of awards: the actress received the Hollywood Film Festival prize for Best Supporting Actress.

16. Colette

• USA, UK, Hungary, 2018.
• Biographical film, drama.
• Duration: 111 minutes.
• IMDb: 6, 8.

Biographical drama about the life of the French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. The heroine's husband, a mediocre author, passes off her novels as his own. The writer has to defy the social constraints of the time in order to assert her right to creative freedom.

Colette is not the first film about women whose talent is exploited by their husbands (Wife, He and She, Big Eyes). Therefore, its plot is pretty predictable. Nevertheless, Keira Knightley did an excellent job of playing the role of a daring icon of French literature in the language.