(Credits: Far Out / Searchlight Pictures)
Sat 21 February 2026 19:15, UK
Emma Stone might have started out in a string of comedies, seemingly priming herself for success as a leading figure in pretty accessible Hollywood films, but she soon showed herself to be so much more than that with the help of some rather subversive choices.
While she’ll forever cherish the experiences she had working on the likes of The Amazing Spider-Man and Easy A, these movies are a far cry from the surreal titles she has attached herself to in recent years, thanks to a recurring partnership with Yorgos Lanthimos. The pair just seem to understand one another perfectly, resulting in unforgettable performances in The Favourite and, of course, Poor Things, which won Stone an Oscar.
She can do musicals – whether we liked it or not, La La Land was everywhere in 2016 – but she can also transform into someone unrecognisable, as Bugonia recently demonstrated. You’ll struggle to find someone as versatile as Stone these days, and it’s no surprise that she has already begun racking up Oscar nominations with enough speed to make Meryl Streep a bit nervous.
I mean, the 76-year-old star has 21 Oscar nominations to her name, and Stone, who is 40 years her junior, already has seven. Now, I’m not trying to pit the two women against each other, but it seems like Stone could easily come for Streep’s crown as the most-nominated woman in Hollywood if her career keeps going at the rate that it does.
Clearly, Stone knows what makes a good film – an Oscar-winning one, even – so it’s no surprise that the two scenes she has identified as some of the greatest in Hollywood are stone-cold classics. Stone doesn’t mess about; these picks truly reflect the genius of cinema and have no doubt inspired her to greatness.
The first is an iconic monologue delivered by Peter Finch in Sidney Lumet’s Network, which unsurprisingly won the actor an Oscar (although he sadly died before he was able to receive it). Asked to pick out a role that ‘reminds [her] of what great acting is’ by Entertainment Weekly, the actor said, “Peter Finch in Network. The scene where he’s in the raincoat, and he comes storming in and gives that speech on camera. That is great acting.”
His character, Howard Beale, becomes increasingly erratic as he breaks down on live TV, and the speech in which he exclaims “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” has gone down as one of the most iconic in cinema history.
“He just was that part. That’s one of those things where you realise that some roles are destined for certain actors. He was meant to play Howard Beale,” Stone concluded.
The other scene that Stone cherishes takes us back to the 1930s. The actor adores a good Charlie Chaplin movie, but in particular, she’s obsessed with City Lights. “My favourite ending of all time is in City Lights, the Charlie Chaplin movie. I just watch the ending of that movie alone on YouTube and cry,” she once told Interview.
The romantic film, which sees Chaplin’s Tramp character fall for a blind flower seller, has an ending that Stone always goes back to. “He is staring at her in this way that you’ve just never seen—someone with so much love in their eyes. And she says, ‘You?’ And he nods. And he says, ‘You can see now?’
“And she says, ‘Yes, I can see now.’ And he smiles, and then it just fades out. It’s the most beautiful thing,” Stone explained, communicating her love for one of cinema’s most undeniably poignant endings.