Well, Joker: Folie à Deux has come and already gone, according to box office numbers. The film will likely drop 70% in viewership in its second weekend, and an indie horror sequel about a silent psychopathic clown will probably trounce it. Meanwhile, Joker 2 is also sitting at 33% and 31% at Rotten Tomatoes with critics and audiences, respectively. Yikes! Even as a Gaga fan, I can’t condone such choices for her. On the one hand, I do have two new original Gaga songs to enjoy thanks to this movie. On the other hand, her next album had better be a banger because she’s going to need a comeback after this overly serious disaster of a bad romance. In the meantime, let’s look at her best and worst acting roles to figure out how she can get on the right track, baby.

3 Worst

Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)

It bears mentioning again. Though Gaga sings and acts her heart out in this movie, she never rises above the listless script and joyless direction. She doesn’t even have much of a purpose in this film, let alone juicy dialogue to bite into. Why did the director Todd Phillips Judas her like that? At least give her some more bombastic dance scenes; this is a musical, after all. Even in the otherwise poker-faced House of Gucci, Gaga got to break out a campy Donatella Versace accent. Anyway, I’m going to blame all this on director Todd Phillips, because he clearly wasn’t prepared to harness the warrior queen that is Lady Gaga at her most unhinged.

Machete Kills (2013)

This 2013 Robert Rodriguez movie got more buzz for being Lady Gaga’s acting debut than for actually being good. Unfortunately, Rodriguez just couldn’t draw out the kind of Gaga performance that would make her later movies so iconic. It didn’t help that the movie itself was an uninspired sequel that didn’t match the campy heights of Rodriguez’s other creations. This was the cinematic equivalent of the Gaga lyric, “I want your whiskey mouth all over my blonde south.”

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

Robert Rodriguez must have gotten on hands and knees to beg Gaga’s forgiveness, because he somehow won her back for this film – even after Machete Kills earned her a Razzie nomination. (Not that Razzie nominations should be given any weight, but still.) But Rodriguez somehow failed Gaga a second time with this 2014 sequel, which sank Gaga in yet another shapeless and uninspired role. Thankfully, Hollywood still had a million reasons to make a Gaga vehicle work, so Gaga rose above the lack of buzz from A Dame to Kill For and moved on to her first truly iconic acting gig. (See below.)

3 Best

American Horror Story: Hotel (2015 – 2016)

This 2015 Ryan Murphy curio turned Gaga from a retro dance freak into a sexy vampire with a taste for bad girl meat. (Those are Gaga references, not cringey figurative language.) As the sinuous and illustrious Countess, Gaga drank her tears as well as human blood, and fully embodied the “free bitch” mentality that Little Monsters had come to know her for. Of course, this was a Ryan Murphy show, so it went off the rails after Episode 5; however, Gaga nevertheless won a Golden Globe for her role, earning her an eternal seat in Hollywood.

House of Gaga (2021)

My sources at Wikipedia tell me that this 2021 movie was actually called “House of Gucci,” but I think those sources were wrong. As Patrizia Reggiani, Gaga was this movie. I even forgot that Adam Driver, one of the best actors of his generation, was in this. Al Pacino, too! They just couldn’t attain the same camp perfection as Gaga, I guess. Chewing through scenery like a fame monster, she made every scene into a masterclass in melodrama. 

A Star is Born

Haters gonna hate, but Stefani Germanotta was excellent in this movie. Drawing upon her humble upper-middle-class beginnings, she nails both the pre-fame and post-fame versions of Ally, rocketing audiences to the edge of glory and making them cry all the while. The only reason she didn’t win the Oscar for this movie is because she was up against Glenn Close and Olivia Colman, both respected actresses who were more than due for an award (though Close more than Colman, indubitably). Gaga, for her part, is well connected and ambitious, and will of course find another role that sings to her. In the meantime, her new album due in 2025 will hopefully leave us speechless.