After a strike-related delay pushed it into this year, director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is heating up the box office. Villeneuve clearly has an eye for talent, as this sci-fi epic boasts an all-star cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, and Javier Bardem. And those are just a few of the topline stars!
Fortunately, Dune: Part Two isn’t the only place to see these actors and actresses. All of the previously mentioned cast members have films that are readily available to stream. So, if you’re looking for five movies starring the cast of Dune: Part Two, then these are the films that you should watch right now.
Watch Timothée Chalamet in Wonka
An argument could be made for focusing on Timothée Chalamet’s performance in Call Me By Your Name, the coming-of-age gay romance that jumpstarted his career. Alternatively, we could have put the spotlight on a more recent flick, Bones and All, a cannibal love story that didn’t lure Chalamet’s disgraced Call Me By Your Name co-star, Armie Hammer, back from the Cayman Islands. Instead, we will go with Wonka, the first movie that established Chalamet as a box office draw. Dune: Part One was also a hit, but Chalamet was the main attraction in Wonka.
This movie is the previously unrevealed origin story of Willy Wonka (Chalamet) from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Chalamet gets to sing and be charming as Wonka lives out his dream of becoming a candy legend. And in a nice bit of timing, Wonka is scheduled to make its streaming debut on March 8th, which is right around the corner.
Watch Wonka on Max on March 8th.
Watch Zendaya in Malcolm & Marie
If you’re looking for the most compelling example of Zendaya’s talent, it’s her two-time Emmy-winning turn for Best Actress on HBO’s Euphoria. Conversely, most of Zendaya’s film roles to date have been supporting roles. She’s very good in the Dune and Spider-Man movies, but those are not the best showcases of what she can do as an actress.
That’s why we’ve chosen Malcolm & Marie, a character piece focusing solely on Marie Jones (Zendaya) and her boyfriend, Malcolm Elliott (Tenet‘s John David Washington). The movie takes place over a single night as the couple comes home from the premiere of Malcolm’s film, and Marie is fuming because he didn’t thank her in his speech. Marie’s an ex-actress who believes that Malcolm based his leading character on her life, while he dismisses her concerns as jealousy. It’s a rocky way to spend an evening, especially when their ongoing argument brings up grievances that the duo have with each other and with the choices they’ve made over the course of their lives.
Watch Malcolm & Marie on Netflix.
Watch Rebecca Ferguson in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
The thing about Rebecca Ferguson is that she tends to give great performances in bad movies. Case in point: The Girl on the Train. Ferguson is a terrific actress, and Dune: Part Two is yet another example of what she can do. But for this list, the film that made her an international star, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, is the best choice to go with. Ferguson was in both subsequent Mission: Impossible movies, but Rogue Nation is where she was absolutely the central performer alongside Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.
It’s impossible to take your eyes off Ferguson in this movie, as her character, Ilsa Faust, moves like a force of nature. Ferguson turns out to be a natural-born action star, and she even gets her own Honey Ryder rise-from-the-water moment that would make any Bond girl proud. The key difference between Ilsa and the Bond girls is that she isn’t waiting around for Ethan to save her. Ilsa is just as amazing as Ethan is, if not more so.
Watch Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation on Paramount+.
Watch Austin Butler in Elvis
If we hadn’t already seen Austin Butler in Elvis, it would be hard to believe that the same actor who could so menacingly portray Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two would be such a perfect fit for Elvis Presley. Butler went to great lengths to bring “the King” back to life in his performance, which spanned decades of Elvis’ life and rise to the top of the music industry before he suffered a public downfall.
One of the key reasons that director Baz Luhrmann cast Butler in this role is that he could sing in the style of Elvis. Everything else came after. Butler was nominated for Best Actor for his role in this film, and he won the same award from the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards. This movie established Butler as a potential megastar, and he’s only getting better with each project.
Watch Elvis on Netflix.
Watch Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men
Dune: Part Two features two of the leading men from 2007’s Best Picture winner, No Country For Old Men, which is arguably the greatest film by the Coen brothers. Brolin plays one of the three leading characters, Llewelyn Moss, a man who comes across the bloody scene of a drug deal gone wrong. Moss takes the money and runs, but he’s not so cold-blooded that he’s unmoved by a dying man’s request for water. That moment of charity when he returns hours later is one of the reasons why Moss’ life is on the line when the Mexican cartel comes looking for their lost money.
Brolin gives a commanding performance, and Moss is an unconventional antihero who is neither good nor bad. Moss is willing to kill to protect himself and his wife, and he doesn’t want to give up the drug money. But the odds are heavily stacked against him.
That’s where Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh, the best villain in modern movies, steps in. This living nightmare of a man is an assassin and fixer who has been called in to retrieve the drug money at all costs. Chigurh even delights in letting his unsuspecting victims flip a coin for their lives. Chigurh’s weapon of choice, a captive bolt pistol, is even more unsettling when he uses it on people.
Bardem was so frightening in this role that it catapulted him to greater stardom and earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Amazingly, Bardem and Brolin share very little screen time together in the film, but they and their co-headliner, Tommy Lee Jones, helped make No Country For Old Men a modern classic.
Watch No Country For Old Men on Paramount+.
