Gemma Chan's affable and distinctive acting persona has caused her to become one of the biggest overnight celebrities in film history. Starting her career with single-episode appearances in several major broadcast television series, she moved on to taking minor roles in big-screen successes, eventually landing a major role in the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians, which surpassed expectations to become one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time.
This was ultimately what ushered in her rise to fame, and she's enjoyed a very lucrative career ever since, receiving roles in MCU films such as Captain Marvel and, coming up, The Eternals. While many of her roles were very well-received, several films she appeared in flopped, so we'll be looking at both as we check out her best and worst films, according to their critical score on review archivist and ranking behemoth Rotten Tomatoes.
Worst: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) - 55%
In the 2014 spy epic Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the titular Tom Clancy character, a CIA analyst based in Moscow, discovers a carefully planned global domination plot - of which the first step is to destroy the U.S. economy. With the clock ticking down, Ryan must crush the scheme using only his Bond-ish field skills and ineffable wit.
Gemma Chan herself only has a minor role in the film and clearly wasn't responsible for its mixed reviews - and despite the aforementioned reviews, it was still somewhat of a box office success and was Chan's biggest film to date - indirectly leading to her more efficacious future roles.
Best: Mary Queen of Scots (2018) - 63%
The 2018 period drama Mary Queen of Scots is based on a conflict between the former queen of Scotland, Mary I, and her more successful cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England. Chan appears as high-ranking noble Bess of Hardwick, an ally to Elizabeth who follows the Queen's orders to place Mary under house arrest - which, to some degree, were offered to protect Mary.
But, to a larger degree, were simply meant to keep the troublesome throne claimant out of Elizabeth's way. Despite some glaring historical inaccuracies, the film was an overall success, accentuating Chan's post-Asians rise and receiving two Academy Award nominations.
Worst: Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) - 15%
2017's Transformers: The Last Knight is arguably the worst film of its sizeable franchise. The fast-paced plot involves quite a bit of time-shifting, looking at the Transformers' long history on Earth, which ends up becoming the only thing that can save the world from a cataclysmic doom.
Chan's appearance in the film constitutes a voice role as the lead antagonist Quintessa, the Cybertronic creator of Optimus Prime whose long-held goal has been to destroy her archnemesis, Unicron - a planet-eating Transformer encased in the Earth. The film didn't perform as well as its predecessors, and, as previously mentioned, it was a substantial critical failure - thankfully, it didn't take Chan's professional career down with it.
Best: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2017) - 74%
A spinoff of the Harry Potter film franchise, the 2017 film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them follows Newt Scamander, a wizard traveling the world to track and tabulate an array of marvelously magical creatures, such as Billywigs and Nifflers. When some of his more curious examples are accidentally released into New York, however, he's caught in the middle of a historic disagreement between Muggles (people without magic) and wizards.
Chan appears as the witch Ya Zhou, a representative of the International Confederation of Wizards (basically the United Nations of the wizarding world). The film received positive reviews from critics for being a well-crafted and worthy successor to the Potter films, and it definitely moved Chan farther into the spotlight.
Worst: Shanghai (2010) - 4%
The 2015 political thriller Shanghai follows an American spy visiting Shanghai four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Posing as a Nazi sympathizer, he investigates the death of the spy he was there to meet, in the meantime running across several unsavory characters as well as a potential love interest.
Gemma Chan only appears briefly, since she was a near-unknown when filming wrapped in 2008, but that's probably for the best considering the universal panning the film was subject to - with the various plot contrivances and weak production value being especially targeted by critics, although the acting did receive some very laid-back praise.
Best: Captain Marvel (2019) - 78%
The 2019 MCU film Captain Marvel takes place in 1995 and follows Vers, an alien soldier of the Kree race - with an abundance of superpowers - who is part of an elite military unit known as the Starforce. After crash-landing on Earth, she discovers she was once a U.S. Air Force pilot and must use her powers to end a troublesome alien conflict.
Chan plays a Kree sniper named Minn-Erva, who's somewhat jealous of Vers' powers. The film received critical acclaim and made more than a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, and Chan will appear in another, upcoming, MCU film - she's set to play superhuman Sersi in The Eternals.
Worst: Pimp (2010) - 0%
The 2010 mockumentary Pimp is written, directed, produced and starred in by Scottish filmmaker Robert Cavanah - so we at least have some idea of who's responsible for the tragedy that this dumpster-fire-caught-on-tape is. The thriller follows a (fictional) documentary team as they document the life of a Soho pimp during a week full of twists and turns.
Critics lambasted the film for its lack of plot, structure, and cinematic value, with many describing it as mindless indulgement fodder and generally unengaging. Thankfully, Chan had only a small role in the film, because it received such a severe critical castigation that it was pulled from theaters after just one screening, earning about $275 in American dollars.
Best: Submarine (2010) - 87%
Another one of Chan's minor roles from the early 2010s was in Submarine, a lighthearted comedy-drama about Oliver Tate, a 16-year-old navigating a familiar coming-of-age narrative, balancing his dual responsibilities (in his mind) of saving his parents' marriage and building a relationship with his spirited girlfriend Jordana.
The film received positive reviews from critics for its well-established characters, emotional relatability, and unerring comedic moments, and greatly improved Chan's filmography given that it was released just a few months after Pimp.
Worst: Stratton (2017) - 0%
The 2017 action film Stratton follows the titular MI6 operative tasked first with invading an Iranian bioweapons facility and later with defeating an insane Soviet terrorist planning to unleash his gargantuan stockpiling of stolen chemical weapons upon London.
While she's not in the spotlight as often as the eponymous lead, Chan does have a starring role in the film, playing Stratton's MI6 contact, Aggy. The film, meanwhile, follows a now-formulaic pattern of action-adventure execution and delivers the same twists as other, better films in the secret-agent genre - and that only makes it worse; thankfully, this cliched cinematic calamity being one of Chan's first starring roles doesn't seem to have put a damper on her reputation.
Best: Crazy Rich Asians (2018) - 91%
The film that made Gemma Chan a household name is also her best. 2018's Crazy Rich Asians, the first major Hollywood film in nearly 25 years to have an ensemble cast predominately of Asian descent, focuses on NYU professor Rachel Chu, who travels with her long-term partner Nick to Singapore - discovering his family is much more eccentric and demanding than she had previously imagined.
Chan shines as glamorous fashionista Astrid, Nick's cousin, who is doing her best to actively function through her struggling marriage. The film received critical acclaim for its story, characters, drama, and emotion, becoming one of the most successful romantic comedies of all time and springboarding Chan's leap to stardom.