Angelina Jolie is the closest thing the twenty-first century has produced to an old Hollywood movie star, a performer whose talent, physical presence, and off-screen biography have combined into a cultural weight that very few actors of any generation have carried. She broke through with Girl, Interrupted (1999), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and went on to a career that includes Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005), Changeling (2008), and Maleficent (2014). Her parallel life as a filmmaker, humanitarian, and one of the most discussed public figures on the planet has run alongside her acting career without diminishing either, which is a feat of sustained attention management that belongs in a category of its own.

On screen, Jolie operates at a frequency that makes the camera feel like it is catching something it was not supposed to see, and directors have been pointing that quality at audiences since she was a teenager. The cheekbones, the eyes, and a physicality that shifts between predatory and wounded depending on what a scene demands give her a presence that lands at full force even in films that do not deserve it. She remains one of the most magnetically watchable actresses alive, and every new project arrives trailing the specific anticipation that only a genuine movie star generates.