Credit: Netflix

Jessica Chastain could play the most insufferable woman you’ve ever met, and yet, without you realising it, you’d still end up cheering her on. That requires some faculty. She doesn’t need her characters to be particularly nice or even sensible at times to make you care about them. In fact, give her a woman who’s had a shambolic life, and she’ll turn the whole thing into something you cannot take your eyes off.

And now, our Jessica has returned to Netflix with a country music drama in Heartland. She plays Misty Jones, a former Nashville superstar who’s spent years keeping well away from the limelight. But just when she thinks she has left all that behind, her niece goes missing, and before you know it, she is pulled straight back into the past. Quite the pickle, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, and if you thought talented Miss Chastain was here to entice us with only her acting, you’re about to be proven wrong, as here’s another little treat: Chastain is doing her own singing in the film. But then, are we really surprised? This is Jessica Chastain we’re talking about. The same actress who got herself an Oscar for playing Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye and gave us that fierce poker queen in Molly’s Game.

So, if Heartland has left you wanting a bit more of Jessica Chastain in your life, you are in for a treat. The woman’s filmography is full of brilliant performances, and frankly, some of them deserve more attention than they get.

Five Jessica Chastain movies to watch on Netflix

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Michael Showalter, 2021)

Jessica Chastain is almost unrecognisable in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and it’s not just because of the extraordinary amount of makeup she’s wearing. She plays televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker with such warmth that you almost forget how ridiculous her world can be. And she deserves all the credit for making us love and care for a woman who was so often treated as a joke, probably the reason why she earned an Oscar.

The film is about Tammy and her husband Jim (Andrew Garfield), who start out running a religious TV show and end up building a huge empire. Of course, things don’t go too well once the scandals start coming out. But what really makes Chastain’s performance stand out is how she shows Tammy’s kinder side, especially when Tammy supports people whom others in her religious community are quick to judge.

And Chastain certainly didn’t take this role lightly. She bought the rights to the original documentary in 2012 and spent years researching Tammy’s life. That dedication eventually won her the Best Actress Oscar, and it’s difficult to argue she hadn’t earned it.

Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin, 2017)

Molly’s Game gives Jessica Chastain the rather enjoyable role of putting some of Hollywood’s wealthiest and most arrogant men in their place, although you do have to wonder how these supposedly intelligent gentlemen managed to lose such extraordinary amounts of money playing poker.

Chastain plays Molly Bloom, the woman responsible for organising their exclusive gambling sessions, and she is extraordinarily good at making you understand why even the most powerful people in the room know better than to underestimate her. The interesting thing is that Molly was originally training to become an Olympic skier, which makes it all the more surprising that she ended up running poker games where people could lose an absolute fortune in a single night.

And since this was Aaron Sorkin’s first film as a director, you get a lot of his sharp dialogue exchanges, which Chastain handles brilliantly, mind you, especially in those scenes where Molly has to deal with powerful men who aren’t used to being told no. She even earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role.

Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)

This time, Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a CIA analyst who has spent years hunting Osama bin Laden, and you can see the frustration and exhaustion on her face. Maya makes people look like complete fools without raising her voice, and in Zero Dark Thirty, she seems to have run out of patience with just about everyone around her.

Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller takes you through the decade-long search for bin Laden, with Maya pursuing a lead that she believes could end the hunt. And Chastain makes the whole thing worth watching because, beneath Maya’s steely determination, you can see what years of chasing one man have cost her.

What’s worth mentioning is that Maya was inspired by a real CIA operative whom Chastain never had the chance to meet, so she had to rely on research to understand the woman she was portraying. She ended up winning a Golden Globe and receiving an Oscar nomination, which says a lot about the performance.

The Help (Tate Taylor, 2011)

Though the lead of the film might’ve been Emma Stone, Chastain’s Celia Foote might be the biggest surprise and most loved character in The Help, especially if you’re used to seeing her play an intimidating woman. All Celia wants is to fit in with Jackson’s society crowd, but they just seem adamant about hating her.

Set in 1960s Mississippi, the film follows Black domestic workers whose experiences of racism are brought into the open through a writing project. Celia’s friendship with her housekeeper Minny, played by Octavia Spencer, gives Chastain room to show the pain she is hiding beneath all that cheerful energy.

And it was the role that earned Chastain her first Oscar nomination. She later said she’d love to revisit Celia in a sequel with Spencer. Now, that reunion would be worth watching!

The Good Nurse (Tobias Lindholm, 2022)

One of the most powerful performances by Chastain, The Good Nurse is most likely to catch you off guard, because here she drops her powerful lady-tier and portrays a nurse who’s struggling to get through the day without her life falling apart. Her character, Amy Loughren, is an ICU nurse and single mother dealing with a serious heart condition, and Chastain makes you feel the weight of everything Amy has.

The Netflix thriller follows Amy as she befriends a new colleague, Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), who seems like the person who comes in handy in a difficult situation. All that, until patients start dying under suspicious circumstances, and Amy begins to suspect that the man she’s come to trust might have something to do with it.

And this is based on a true story, with the real Amy Loughren having played a crucial part in bringing Cullen to justice. Chastain spent time with her and underwent nursing training alongside Redmayne to prepare for the film, which gives you some idea of the care she put into the role.