Scarlett Johansson is one of those rare movie stars who’s familiar and admired both by the critics who prefer quiet, dramatic character stories and audiences who go to movie theaters in search of eye-popping action.
It’s not every actor who can give two Oscar-nominated performances and star in what was the highest-grossing film ever, all in the same year.
After starting out as a child actor, Johansson’s star-making role came in Sofia Coppola’s acclaimed Lost in Translation in 2004, when Johansson was only a teenager. She then broke into the Hollywood A-list, starring in critical favorites across genres, including Match Point, Under the Skin, and Marriage Story.
And in 2010, she began her nine-film tenure as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which made her the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Today, no woman in movie history can boast a higher lifetime box office total.
Of course, no entertainer has a perfect batting average. While the 2010s consisted of nearly nonstop hits for Johansson, her earlier career was more hit and miss, with a few genuine disasters along the way that you may have forgotten even existed.
Scarlett Johansson’s career as a child actor has a number of highlights, such as her first starring role in a feature at the age of 11 in the indie dramedy Manny & Lo and getting attention for her turn in The Horse Whisperer as a preteen
In 2007, Johansson starred in The Nanny Diaries, a light dramedy adapted from the popular novel.
While the film did alright at the box office, it was torn apart by critics. Johansson portrays Annie, a recent college graduate who gets a job as a nanny for a difficult and demanding rich family
Things did turn around for Scarlett Johansson very shortly after, as she would spend the next decade alternating between making smash hit blockbusters like The Avengers films and collaborating with celebrated filmmakers.