Even if you don’t know who Paul Dano is, odds are you’ve already seen him in something. From Best Picture dramas to romantic comedies, the soon-to-be DC villain has made the rounds in Hollywood, working with respected, high-profile directors. Since he started out at age 17, starring in the edgy drama L.I.E. with Brian Cox, Dano has largely stayed out of the headlines and prefers focusing on his work. And he’s had a lot of it, from Linklater’s Fast Food Nation to The Fablemens, forthcoming from Spielberg. He’s also been a favorite of international directors like Paulo Sorrentino and Bong Joon-ho.
He has a particular gift for portraying unlikable characters, but he can be just as charming and lovable as he can be weaselly and infuriating. He was perfect in BBC’s series War and Peace as the endearingly awkward Pierre. Regardless of whom he’s playing, he always does his homework, approaching every character with a deep understanding of their motivations. This diligence makes for his especially rich portrayals of mental illness and trauma.
By 37, he has already amassed one of the most impressive acting portfolios in the industry, and he hasn’t just stopped at acting; he was praised for his directorial debut, 2018’s Wildlife,a family drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan. With the unique brand of sensitivity and complexity he brings to even the most deplorable characters, casting him as DC’s next big villain makes a lot of sense. In honor of that upcoming release, let’s take a look at Paul Dano’s best performances and movies so far.
Updated June 2022: If you love Paul Dano, you’ll be happy to know we’ve updated this list with additional content and entries.
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10 The Batman (2022)
Warner Bros. Pictures
The Batman proved to be a smash hit at the box office. There had been some concerns at Warner Bros. that the nearly three-hour runtime and the higher ticket prices would deter turnout, but that clearly wasn’t the case. As the Riddler, Dano went above and beyond the call of duty. His colorful portrayal of the iconic villain (once portrayed by Jim Carrey in the ’90s) almost reads like a combination of Dano’s other acclaimed performances, such as Prisoners, 12 Years a Slave and even Little Miss Sunshine (see below for details on each of these roles). We hope to see Dano in future Caped Crusader installments.
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9 Swiss Army Man (2016)
A24
The indie favorite Swiss Army Man even weirder, funnier, and more original than it sounds. Dano stars alongside Daniel Radcliffe as Hank, the millennial answer to Tom Hanks in Castaway, a man who is stranded on a deserted island and on the verge of suicide until a half-animated farting corpse (Radcliffe) washes up to keep him company. Or, at least, that’s how it seems. Like many of his roles, Hank is borderline unhinged, struggling with his sanity. As the movie fluctuates in tone, the dichotomy between frenetic, expressive Dano and the childlike (but useful!) Radcliffe carries it home with a surprisingly moving mixture of comedy and depth. By the end, your laughter might just turn into tears.
The directors of Swiss Army Man, collectively known as Daniels, are currently buzzing in Hollywood with the recent of their A24 hit film Everything Everywhere All At Once, starring Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis. The plots of these two films are entirely different, but you’ll see similarities when it comes to style and tone.
8 Looper (2012)
TriStar Pictures
This twisty, mind-boggling flick from Rian Johnson is set in a dystopian future where time travel is controlled by ruthless gangs who erase proof of their crimes by wiping their victims from history. “Loopers” are the time-traveling hitmen who handle this, though their work comes at a heavy price: at a certain point, they will have to kill their future selves. Providing a bit of comedic relief as the sensitive Seth, a looper who lets his future self go, Dano is a bright spot in the already stellar film. His screen time is limited, and he meets a memorably gruesome end, but his character embellishes Looper’s themes of legacy and mortality.
7 Ruby Sparks (2012)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
This quirky romantic dramedy was undoubtedly a labor of love for Paul Dano. He joined forces with his partner, writer and actress Zoe Kazan, and the Little Miss Sunshine director duo that helped launch his career, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Dano helps brings Kazan’s clever script to life, playing writer Calvin, who wakes up to find the fictional girl he has been writing about alive, and in his kitchen. The changes he makes in his novel manifest in real life, and he goes about creating the girl of his dreams like a Build-a-Bear. In other hands, the film could easily amount to a horny fantasy. Thanks to Dano and Kazan, Calvin’s desires are interrogated, and Ruby Sparks becomes a clever deconstruction of the manic-pixie-dream girl cliché that characterizes so many of its cinematic predecessors.
6 Okja (2017)
Plan B Entertainment
Bong Joon-Ho’s film eviscerates capitalism and the global food industry in his typical darkly comedic and absurdist style. He gets some help from Paul Dano here, who plays Jay, the good-hearted leader of an animal activist group. Okja follows a young girl (Ahn Seo Hyun) as she and her best friend, a genetically modified pig named Okja, flee a corporation with nefarious plans. Despite his reputation for playing the unstable villains and rejects, Dano is undeniably charming as a good guy here. He admits this made it a little easier to align himself with the character.
5 12 Years a Slave (2013)
Regency Enterprises
Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave, about Solomon Northrup, a freeman who is kidnaped and sold into slavery was a powerful, violent view into American history. Dano showed his villainous acting chops amongst a star-studded cast, playing an abusive slave driver who feels threatened by Solomon. Dano explained his process in approaching such an odious character to IndieWire: “For me, definitely figuring out who he is before the film starts is the most important thing.” He brings his trademark complexity to the character, portraying him as both pathetic and viciously cruel and racist to protagonist Solomon Northrup. Most of his talents are concentrated in a single, raw scene, but it’s one that’s impossible to forget.
4 Prisoners (2013)
Alcon Entertainment
Dano really made our skin crawl in Denis Villeneuve’s chilling crime drama, Prisoners. His portrayal of Alex Jones (not that one), the prime suspect, is one of the most unsettling depictions of a criminal suspect, period. While other actors might have approached a man suspected of abducting two children with one-note creepiness, Dano strives to understand his character. He layers in the trauma, as he often does, building up to the reveal that his character is a victim himself. This only unsettles us more. In a particularly harrowing scene, Alex is tortured on screen, and we begin to question if he knows anything at all beyond his own painful existence. Dano’s performance is at the heart of the moral gray areas Villeneuve explores in the film.
3 Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Searchlight Pictures
Dano barely even had to speak to break out as a top-notch actor. In this touching comedy, he plays the Hoover family’s introverted teen son, Dwayne, who has taken a vow of silence and communicates mostly via notepad. Dwayne loathes his painfully average family, but when his intellectual uncle (Steve Carell) comes to stay with them after a suicide attempt, he makes an unexpected friend. During the family’s road trip to California for his sister’s beauty pageant, Dwayne grows and breaks his silence. Little Miss Sunshine cemented Dano as a promising talent, cementing his ability to express himself physically and convey angst and emotional turmoil so acutely. The scene where Dwayne has a full-blown backseat meltdown after he learns he’s colorblind is acting gold from Dano.
2 Love & Mercy (2014)
River Road Entertainment
Paul Dano’s portrayal of Brian Wilson, the lead singer of the Beach Boys, brilliantly captures the artist’s struggles with his mental health while recording the hit album, Pet Sounds. Though many expected a by-the-numbers music biopic, the film surprised audiences with its artistic use of sound design and unorthodox portrayal of the musical legend’s life, with John Cusack playing Brian Wilson as he heals and finds love later in life. While both actors received praise for Love and Mercy, reviews heralded this as a career-best performance from Dano, who was able to portray Wilson’s spiral into drugs and instability with tact and subtlety. Some even wished he had stepped in for Cusack as the older version of Wilson, too.
1 There Will Be Blood (2007)
Ghoulardi Film Company
Still early in his career, Dano turned in an electrifying performance as impassioned young preacher, Eli Sunday, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece. Dripping in mud, blood, and oil, this epic drama sets ideas of morality, religion, family, and capitalism against one another to explosive results. It seems like the part of Eli in There Will Be Blood was written for Dano, with his unique skill at delivering lines in both boyish murmurs and blood-curdling shrieks. However, he was originally only set to play the character’s brother, Paul. Weeks into shooting, the actor playing Eli was fired on set, and Dano found himself with his biggest role yet. He is the perfect adversary fo Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a ruthless businessman riding the California oil frenzy at the turn of the 20th century. No one can forget Dano’s terrifying, unsettling speech to his congregation, his body writhing against some unseen power: “Get OUT of here, ghost!” he screams, looking directly at the camera and pushing it away, out of his church. The surprise casting was a lucky break, for both Dano and the film.
