10 Best Lily Collins’ Shows And Movies To Watch Feat. MaXXXine, Tolkien And More

Lily Collins is best known for her role in Emily in Paris. However, besides playing the American in Paris, she has played many iconic characters. Here are 10 shows and movies to watch starring her.

Updated on Aug 20, 2024  |  12:12 AM IST |  74K
Top 10 Shows And Movies To Watch Starring Lily Collins
Lily Collins (PC: Instagram/Lily Collins)

Lily Collins has appeared in several films and television shows since she began her career at the age of ten. Her first foray into Hollywood was a supporting voice role in the 1999 animated feature Tarzan. She acquired her role in the film thanks to her father, Phil Collins, the British musician who famously wrote the soundtrack for Tarzan.

Collins has taken on more prominent responsibilities in recent years. Her next roles came a decade after Tarzan, in 90210, and The Blind Side. From there, her career took off, and she went on to play increasingly important roles. She has suffered throughout her career with her work's wildly inconsistent critical response. Looking at Collins' whole career, below is a summary of her top ten roles and why they were important to the actor's career. 

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1. The Blind Side


Despite The Blind Side, it has since become immensely controversial. The movie was well-received upon its initial release. Collins plays Collins Tuohy, the Tuohy family's daughter. The Tuohy family is a middle-class white family that adopts Michael Oher, an at-risk Black adolescent who goes on to become a football hero. Collins' Tuohy is a supporting character in The Blind Side, as the film focuses on both Michael and his mother, Leigh Anne Tuohy. 

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Nonetheless, Collins' role as the Tuohy daughter served as a springboard for her career. Early in her filmography, The Blind Side gave her the opportunity to star in a high-profile, Oscar-nominated film. Which considerably raised her status as an actor. Collins' position in The Blind Side is less substantial regarding screen time, but she delivers a strong performance as a critical member of the Tuohy family.

2. Tolkien 


Tolkien in 2019 helped Lily Collins regain her reputation after a series of movies with poor reviews. The film is still far from flawless, given Tolkien received mixed reviews. Collins, however, is given the opportunity to shine as the star in the docudrama about J.R.R. Tolkien's early life and inspiration. In the film, Collins portrays Edith Bratt, an orphan whom Nicholas Hoult's Tolkien falls in love with. She does so with a reasonable amount of grace, anchoring the film's drama. 

3. Mirror Mirror

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Lily Collins gets to play the iconic princess Snow White in Mirror Mirror, a reinterpretation of the story. Mirror Mirror was released at a time when adaptations of the work were becoming increasingly popular. The film faced pressure to outperform as a fellow adaptation of the fairy tale after Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman received mixed reviews a year earlier.

4. MaXXXine


While the majority of reviews for A24's horror threequel MaXXXine center on Mia Goth's stirring and scary performance, the actress is supported by an impressive supporting cast. Collins is one such cast member. She appears in the film as an actress in the fictional horror film The Puritan. Collins is appropriately disturbing as Molly Bennett, a character who serves as a mentor to the lead.

Lily Collins' performance in MaXXXine has garnered mixed reactions. While some fans adore her in the part, others have criticized Collins' distractingly poor accent, which is meant to emulate someone from Northern Yorkshire. Still, MaXXXine is an important film in Collins' career.

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5. Les Misérables


Lily Collins' part in the TV miniseries Les Misérables, which aired in 2019, is one of the most underestimated roles. Despite earning mostly excellent reviews, the show has been virtually forgotten in the five years since its premiere. Collins appears in the show as Fantine, a working-class Parisian lady who gets impregnated by a wealthy student and tries to raise her daughter, Cosette.

6. Rules Don’t Apply


Rules Don't Apply, released in 2016, deserves more commendation than it did. Even Lily Collins deserves a round of applause for her work, as she portrayed the character of Marla Mabrey so well. The lead is a difficult character to play, to say the least. It requires a significant age gap between Mabrey and Howard Hughes. Collins' remarkable performance in Rules Don't Apply earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.

7. Okja 


Okja is a notable exception to Lily Collins' career. This pre-Parasite Bong Joon Ho action picture is an ambitious take on the environmental problem and food production that takes off in unexpected directions. It is one of the more inventive films of this era, and it is definitely one of Collins' most well-regarded roles.

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Collins portrayed Red, a lesser role in the film. Red is a member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), an animal rights activist group that serves as a stand-in for PETA in Okja. The ALF's phrases are frequently exaggerated as the group engages in guerilla tactics to defend animals. While Collins' role is not as grandiose as that of Jake Gyllenhaal or Tilda Swinton in the picture. She fits in nicely with the Okja cast, making the role a minor but vital element of her career.

8. To the Bone


Lily Collins' starring role in To the Bone was undoubtedly her most difficult performance. Collins starred in the Netflix drama as Ellen. Collins’ character was a young lady suffering from severe, life-threatening anorexia. In the film, Ellen's life is transformed when she meets an empathetic doctor who will confront her in ways she has never been challenged before while strongly encouraging her on a path of recovery.

Collins gives a powerful performance in the starring role in To the Bone. The picture helped establish Collins as a dramatic protagonist, in a role that worked far deeper than in The Blind Side or The Mortal Instruments. To the Bone was rather controversial regarding its representation of eating disorders, but as an acting performance, it stands out as one of Collins' greatest.

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9. Mank 


Mank ranks on Collins' list of roles. Collin portrays Herman Mankiewicz's real-life assistant, Rita Alexander, in David Fincher's Oscar-nominated biography. Collins had to overcome the challenge of portraying a character relatively forgotten in film history. She accomplished so with grace in this significant role.

Mank is undoubtedly one of her best films, alongside Okja and To the Bone. Mank, shot to emulate the sensibility of Citizen Kane, is a cinematographic marvel that deserves its Oscar triumph for Best Cinematography, as well as nods for Best Picture and Best Actor. Collins was not acknowledged for her role at any major awards events, but she nonetheless played Rita with wonderful elegance and helped preserve the film's potency dramatic beats.

10. Emily in Paris


Lily Collins is now best known for her role in the Netflix series Emily in Paris. Collins stars in the series as Emily Cooper, an American lady who works at a marketing agency in Paris. Her task is to provide her take on everything American. Emily in Paris gave the show average reviews overall. While it first gained major recognition, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, the show is said to have declined since then.

Nonetheless, Collins' role in Emily in Paris is her most prominent. Emily must deal with corporate drama, tangled friendships, and rom-com plots while wearing as many figurative hats as the fashionista herself does in the series. Emily in Paris is Collins' lone main role in a major television series, making it one of the most important aspects of his career.

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Avnii Bagaria is a Entertainment Journalist who is also a music and hollywood enthusiast. She has an experience of

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