For more than a decade, Aubrey Plaza has delivered hilarious, off-kilter performances in a variety of roles. Her breakout came in 2009 on Parks and Recreation, where her deadpan character April Ludgate was one of the show's highlights.
Since then, Plaza has nailed many comedic characters, as well as a supervillain role in Legion and a lot of voice acting in animated shows, including The Legend of Korra. More recently, Plaza has explored grittier and more realistic roles in films like Black Bear and Emily the Criminal. At her best, she plays funny, vulnerable characters with a dark edge, though she has arguably yet to receive a role that taps into her full potential. Next year she is set to have a major part in the second season of HBO's The White Lotus, which seems like the kind of show that will play to her strengths. Plaza will also play the lead in the upcoming drama Olga DIes Dreaming, about two Puerto Rican siblings living in New York when Hurricane Maria strikes.
'Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates' (2016) - IMDb: 6.0/10
The titular brothers (played by Zac Efron and Adam Devine) post an ad online for dates to their sister's wedding in Hawaii. Mike and Dave hope to party and get up to other shenanigans, but Tatiana (Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick), the girls who answer the ad, just want to use them for a free vacation.
Plaza and Kendrick are great, and their contrasting characters are good foils for one another. Plaza is alpha and reckless; Kendrick is the dorky sidekick. Their aimless conversations about what they're going to do with their lives make for some of the movie's best scenes. It's not an especially memorable rom-com, but fans of Plaza who haven't seen it yet should get a kick out of it.
'Best Sellers' (2021) - IMDb: 6.1/10
In this comedy-drama, Plaza plays Lucy, a young publisher who has inherited her late father's struggling publishing business. To keep the business from going under, she convinces a famous (and famously curmudgeonly) author Harris Shaw (Michael Caine) to let her publish his latest manuscript. Lucy and Harris set off on a book tour, but the eccentric writer proves difficult to handle.
Best Sellers is far from Plaza's best work. The script is uneven, and the story gets a little overly sentimental at times. However, Caine is on top form, and he and Plaza have great chemistry. Viewers looking for something light and uplifting could do a lot worse than this literary world comedy.
'Ned Rifle' (2014) - IMDb: 6.2/10
Ned Rifle is the most recent movie from Hal Hartley, the director behind the cult 1990 black comedy Trust. It is the final entry in a trilogy of films including Henry Fool and Fay Grim. Liam Aiken stars as the title character, the son of the leads from the two previous movies. Ned has been living in witness protection while his mom serves time in prison. On his 18th birthday, he ventures out into the world on a quest to find and kill his absent father.
However, Ned's plan is complicated by broke college student Susan (Plaza), who has her own reasons for finding Ned's dad. What follows is an odd, funny story that moves briskly from scene to scene and crams a lot into its lean 85-minute runtime.
'Black Bear' (2020) - IMDb: 6.5/10
Plaza plays Allison, a filmmaker struggling with creative block. She heads to a retreat on the edge of a lake in search of inspiration. After a tense evening with the young married couple who own the place, Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and Blair (Sarah Gadon), Allison is confronted by her own issues. The lines between reality and fiction blur in this thoroughly meta comedy/thriller about relationship strife.
Plaza shows off a lot of emotional range in the film, from faux-ironic defensiveness to a full-on nervous breakdown. Even more impressively, she also manages to be funny throughout. One drunken scene, in particular, stands out.
'Mystery Team' (2009) - IMDb: 6.6/10
2009 was a big year for Plaza. That was the year of Parks and Rec and Judd Apatow's Funny People, in which she had a supporting role. Less well-known is her performance in Mystery Team, a film by the sketch comedy group Derrick Comedy, comprising Dominic Dierkes, DC Pierson, and Donald Glover.
It's a goofy comedy about a trio of amateur detectives who try to prove they are 'real' investigators by solving a case of a double homicide. It's a super low-budget affair and is a little amateurish, but it's a fascinating snapshot of both Plaza and Glover early in their careers before they would go on to fame and success and (in Glover's case) multiple career phases.
Ingrid Goes West (2017) - IMDb: 6.6/10
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Ingrid (Plaza) is an unstable, social media-obsessed woman who moves to LA to get close to her influencer idol Taylor (Elizabeth Olson). She goes to extraordinary lengths, including a full makeover to look like Taylor and even kidnapping her dog.
It's a dark satire of social media and stardom centering on a deeply disturbed anti-hero, like an iPhone Age version of The King of Comedy. Plaza plays Ingrid with a lot of complexity. Guillermo Del Toro praised Plaza's performance in a tweet, and called the film "a cautionary Instagram tale of labyrinthian narcissism."
'Happiest Season' (2020) - IMDb: 6.6/10
This holiday rom-com revolves around a couple, Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis), as they visit Harper's family over Christmas. On the way, Harper reveals that she has not yet come out to her parents but intends to do so after Christmas. Abby reluctantly agrees to pretend to be Harper's roommate during their stay. The situation grows more untenable from there, as some secrets from the past bubble to the surface.
Happiest Season is limited by a fairly formulaic script, but the cast is good. Plaza plays Riley, an ex that Harper dumped years before. Riley and Abby strike up a friendship, and the scenes between Plaza and Stewart are highlights of the movie. One almost starts rooting for them to end up together.
'Emily the Criminal' (2022) - IMDb: 6.7/10
Emily (Plaza) is struggling to get by in Los Angeles, working a minimum-wage job, and paying off student looan debt. Her prior felony conviction isn't helping her employment situation. This leads a co-worker to tell her about an opportunity to make $200 in one hour. All she has to do is purchase an item on behalf of credit card fraudster Youcef (Theo Rossi).
After her first job, Emily decides to dive into the criminal enterprise completely. At first, she excels, but inevitably the situation becomes unstable, with rival criminals and the feds closing in. Plaza is magnetic as the independent but vulnerable Emily, a desperate person with little to lose. It might be her best dramatic performance to date.
'Safety Not Guaranteed' (2012) - IMDb: 6.9/10
Plaza stars alongside Mark Duplass in this sci-fi comedy from Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow. Plaza plays magazine intern Darius, who is enlisted by one of the writers (Jake Johnson) to investigate an ad in the classifieds seeking a partner for a time travel mission.
Darius goes undercover as a job applicant and begins spending time with the ad poster, the zany, heartbroken Kenneth (Duplass), who claims to have a time machine which he intends to use to reconnect with his long-lost love. It's a surprisingly touching rom-com that puts a fresh pin on time travel tropes.
'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' (2010) - IMDb: 7.5/10
Plaza has a supporting role in Edgar Wright's hyper-stylized Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as the snarky Julie Powers. She is especially mean to Scott (Michael Cera) and cusses him out repeatedly. Julie has plenty of great lines, like "They're called jobs, something a *censored* ball like you wouldn't know anything about" and "For the record, I am so pissed off for you right now."
Wright and Bryan Lee O'Malley, author of the original Scott Pilgrim comic, even went so far as to tell Plaza ten secrets about her character to add to her portrayal. Wright said that he was particularly happy with the casting of Scott Pilgrim and that he had actually cast Plaza before she appeared in Funny People or Parks and Recreation. It was a significant role for Plaza, helping to catapult her to the position she holds now.