(Photo by Amazon Prime Video/courtesy Everett Collection. ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR.)
The latest: Another Simple Favor, re-uniting Lively with Anna Kendrick, is Certified Fresh!
After her major feature debut in 2005’s The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants, Blake Lively hopped over to television as the lead in Gossip Girl, the CW teen drama fixture that ran for six seasons. Though busy with the show, Lively was still able to turn in a few memorable appearances in films, like the Certified Fresh crime saga The Town and Green Lantern, where she would meet future husband Ryan Reynolds.
Though Gossip Girl ended in 2012, it would be several years before her film career would resume in earnest, starting with the romantic fantasy The Age of Adaline. But it would be shark movie The Shallows that would propel her to movie stardom. 2018’s A Simple Favor, where she goes tête-à-tête with Anna Kendrick, was another critical and box office hit. And in 2020, Lively starred in The Rhythm Section, where she goes on a one-woman mission to take down those responsible for a plane crash that killed her family. In her most recent film, It Ends With Us, Lively plays the brave Lily Bloom, who moves to Boston to fulfill her lifelong dream of starting her own business. See where the rom-com places as we rank Blake Lively’s best movies (and her worst) by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo
#1
Critics Consensus: Tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast, The Town proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse — and that he’s a director to be reckoned with.
#2
Critics Consensus: Twisty, twisted, and above all simply fun, A Simple Favor casts a stylish mommy noir spell strengthened by potent performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively.
#3
Critics Consensus: With surprisingly touching earnestness, The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants follows four best friends as they try on adulthood — and though it isn’t an easy fit, their journey becomes bearable thanks to the threads they share.
#4
Critics Consensus: Lean and solidly crafted, The Shallows transcends tired shark-attack tropes with nasty thrills and a powerful performance from Blake Lively.
#5
Critics Consensus: Sailing through on the strength of its predecessor, Another Simple Favor is the perfect cocktail of mystery, intrigue, and sharp casting with a dash of well-timed comedy.
#6
Critics Consensus: Café Society‘s lovely visuals and charming performances round out a lightweight late-period Allen comedy whose genuine pleasures offset its amiable predictability.
#7
Critics Consensus: Reverential and offbeat, the road trip film Private lives of Pippa Lee takes emotional detours and is elevated by great performances, particularly that of Robin Wright-Penn.
#8
Critics Consensus: The workable chemistry among the four leads combined with the enriching message make for a winning Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
#9
Critics Consensus: The Age of Adaline ruminates on mortality less compellingly than similarly themed films, but is set apart by memorable performances from Blake Lively and Harrison Ford.
#10
Critics Consensus: Earnestly performed if marred by clunky dialogue, It Ends With Us is surprisingly at its most graceful when handling the more provocative elements of its melodramatic source material.
#11
Critics Consensus: It’s undeniably messy, but Savages finds Oliver Stone returning to dark, fearlessly lurid form.
#12
Critics Consensus: A sweet ode to rediscovering one’s inner child, IF largely works as old-fashioned family entertainment despite an occasionally unfocused and unnecessarily complicated plot.
#13
Critics Consensus: Like its characters who aren’t able to meet their potential, Accepted‘s inconsistent and ridiculous plot gets annoying, despite a few laughs.
#14
Critics Consensus: Like many anthologies, New York, I Love You has problems of consistency, but it isn’t without its moments.
#15
Critics Consensus: All I See Is You hints at a number of intriguing questions with its premise, but they dissolve in a stylish yet empty psychodrama that fails to connect.
#16
Critics Consensus: Blake Lively delivers an impressive lead performance, but The Rhythm Section plods predictably through a story that could have used some flashier riffs.
#17
Critics Consensus: Noisy, overproduced, and thinly written, Green Lantern squanders an impressive budget and decades of comics mythology.
#18
Critics Consensus: Hick‘s talented young star is ill served by a film whose story wavers between discomfitingly inappropriate and simply muddled.
