Julia Garner

Julia Garner is one of her generation’s most talented and versatile female actors, as exemplified not only by her stunning recurring role as Ruth in the Netflix series, Ozark (2017-2022), but also in her feature film roles, starting with supporting turn in director/writer Sean Durkin’s drama, Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), co-starring Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson and Hugh Dancy, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released by Fox Searchlight Pictures to a fine $5.4 million box office.

Garner landed her first starring movie role at age 18 in director/writer Rebecca Thomas’s drama, Electrick Children (2012), with Rory Culkin, Liam Aiken, Bill Sage, and Billy Zane, and released by Phase 4 Films following a Berlin Film Festival premiere. Director/writer Stephen Chbosky cast Garner in the feature adaptation of his best-selling 1999 novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), co-starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and distributed by Summit Entertainment via Lionsgate.

Garner made a brief appearance in Sopranos creator David Chase’s feature, Not Fade Away (2012), starring James Gandolfini, John Magaro and Jack Huston, and then Garner co-starred with Bill Sage and Amber Childers in We Are What We Are, director/co-writer Jim Mickle’s horror remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s 2010 Mexican feature original, Somos lo que hay (which itself was a direct sequel to Grau’s Cronos (1993)), and after premiering in the US at Sundance and internationally in the Director’s Fortnight competition at the Cannes Film Festival, was released by Entertainment One.

Julia Garner co-starred in her second consecutive horror movie with Ashley Bell, Spencer Treat Clark, and Louis Herthum in the sequel, The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), directed/edited/co-written by Ed Gass-Donnelly (with Damien Chazelle), grossing a strong $25.4 million for CBS Films. Garner co-starred in director/writer Leah Meyerhoff’s coming-of-age drama, I Believe in Unicorns (2014), with Natalia Dyer, Peter Vack, and Amy Seimetz, released by Gravitas Ventures.

Garner appeared in a small supporting role in the sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), directed by writer Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, and then Garner gained greater recognition co-starring with Lily Tomlin in director/writer Paul Weitz’s comedy-drama, Grandma (2015), with Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox and Sam Elliott, and which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and earned over $7 million (against $600,000 costs) for Sony Pictures Classics. Garner co-starred in director/writer Chris McCoy’s comedy-drama, Good Kids (2016), with Nicholas Braun, Zoey Deutch, Mateo Arias, Israel Broussard, and Ashley Judd, released by Vertical Entertainment.

Julia Garner co-starred with Jake Weary in director/writer Juanita Wilson’s crime movie adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s novel, Tomato Red (2017), and then Garner co-starred with Juno Temple and Alessandro Nivola in director/writer Liz W. Garcia’s drama, One Percent More Humid (2017), which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Garner continued to co-star in American indie movies as co-star with Joseph Cross in the sci-fi fantasy, Everything Beautiful is Far Away (2017), co-directed by Andrea Sisson and Pete Ohs, who was also writer/producer/co-cinematographer/co-editor, and which was released by The Orchard.

Garner earned wide acclaim for her lead role in director/writer/producer/editor Kitty Green’s film industry drama, The Assistant (2019), with Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, and Makenzie Leigh, and which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival before a release by Bleecker Street, and which earned Garner a Best Actress nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. Garner’s next movie as the lead star also premiered at Telluride—and was her second in a row with director/co-writer Kitty Green, the Australian drama, The Royal Hotel (2023), with Jessica Henwick, Toby Wallace, and Hugo Weaving.

Julia Garner starred in the Rosemary’s Baby prequel, Apartment 7A (2024), directed and co-written by Natalie Erika James, and co-starring Dianne Wiest, Jim Sturgess, and Kevin McNally, and released by Paramount Pictures. Garner continued in the horror vein in a contemporary remake of Universal Pictures’ horror classic, The Wolf Man (2025), directed by Leigh Whannell, co-starring Christopher Abbott, and produced by Jason Blum and Ryan Gosling (whose idea this project originally was).

Garner—playing Silver Surfer— joined the large cast of the second reboot of Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four franchise, The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), co-starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bacharach, Ralph Ineson, Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, and Natasha Lyonne, and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Garner co-starred with Josh Brolin and Alden Ehrenreich in director/writer/producer Zach Cregger’s original horror movie, Weapons (2026), co-starring Benedict Wong, Austin Abrams, and Amy Madigan, produced by New Line Cinema/BoulderLight Pictures/Vertigo Entertainment and released by Warner Bros.