The 10 Best Alison Brie Movies & TV Shows (Besides Community), in Order

Two years before landing the role of Annie on Community, Brie first popped up on most peoples’ radars with her chirpy, WASPy appearances as Trudy — Pete Campbell’s better (and far wealthier) half — in Mad Men. 

In case you’ve not seen it, the series follows the goings-on of an advertising company on Madison avenue from the beginning to the end of the 1960s. The production design is to die for, the dialogue is flawless, the cast is even better, and while Brie only appears every now and then she steals pretty much every scene.

Off the top of my head, I’d probably say that prior to this year’s 7th instalment (the less said about the better), the most forgettable Scream so far was the 2011 relaunch starring the late Hayden Panettiere, Emma Roberts, and Rory Culkin, in which Alison Brie appeared in a few scenes as Sydney Prescott’s publicist.

This is weird to admit, as the movie boasts not only the franchise’s central trio of stars as well as Kevin Williamson (who wrote the first two movies and the original I Know What You Did Last Summer), it also has Wes Craven in the director’s chair. Whatever, it’s still more than worth a watch for any slasher fans out there.

In 2012, Brie began to make inroads into Judd Apatow’s comedy universe with a supporting turn in The Five Year Engagement — in which she gave an almost uncanny performance as the sister to Emily Blunt’s protagonist.

The story centers on Blunt’s Violet and Jason Segal’s Tom (Forgetting Sarah Marshall fans take note), a long-term couple whose plans to marry are forever being derailed by outside forces. The first of these comes courtesy of Brie’s Suzie — who beats them to the punch after getting knocked up at their engagement party by Tom’s best friend. Brie is typically delightful in the role and probably should have gone on to bigger things with Apatow, but unfortunately (both for her and us) she arrived just as Apatow’s generational run of hits was coming to an end.

It might only be a voice role, but Brie’s turn as Diane Nguyen in BoJack Horseman really is one of the most iconic and beloved parts in both the series itself and her career. Hired to ghostwrite the semi-washed-up sitcom star’s biography, Diane ends up becoming an unlikely confidant and friend, even though her millennial idiosyncrasies rarely blend with BoJack’s fatalistic and self-sabotaging approach to life. 

The series itself is, I think, one of the best things that Netflix has ever produced — a truly original, inventive, funny and thought-provoking animation with a voice cast so stacked that even Paul McCartney pops up in one of the episodes. 

In 2015, Brie finally landed the comedy leading role her fans had been waiting for in Sleeping with Other People, an unconventional rom com (written and directed by Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland) about two chronically-single New Yorkers who randomly meet 12 years after a hookup and agree to give monogamy a try.

Brie and Jason Sudeikis star as the central pairing in a cast that also features Adam Scott, Natasha Lyonne, and Adam Brody. Released a few years after movies like No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits, it never quite got the audience it deserved. 

After Mad Men and Community wrapped in 2015, Brie dove straight into two of the busiest years of her career. In 2016, she popped in a bunch of comedies and indies in supporting roles, but 2017 saw a notable rise into the big leagues. The first of these was Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a newsroom drama about the nervy days leading up to the Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971 — and yes, if you like All the President’s Men you will probably like this one, too.

As with any Spielberg ensemble, The Post is utterly stacked: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk and Carrie Coon all feature, but Brie more than holds her own as the daughter of the post’s then-publisher, Katherine Graham (Streep).

The next biggie on this new phase of Brie’s career was The Disaster Artist, a hilarious and skillfully put together retelling of how Tommy Wiseau made The Room — a movie that’s now about as beloved as it is widely considered to be the worst ever made.

The Disaster Artist was directed by James Franco (who also stars as Wiseau), but the movie is more notable for featuring Franco’s younger brother, Dave, who plays Tommy’s acting class friend, Greg Sestero. Brie appears as Greg’s girlfriend, Amber — making this the first time that Franco and Brie (who started dating each other in 2011) appeared together in a movie. Less than 24 hours after the movie premiered at SXSW, they were married — how sweet.

For all her delightful performances across mainstream and independent movies over the years, Brie’s talents have always seemed to lend themself most to episodic TV; and two years on from seeing her first major shows end, she finally had the lead in her own series when GLOW premiered on Netflix in 2017.

Set in Los Angeles in the 1980s, GLOW (or “The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”) follows the rise of Women’s professional wrestling through the eyes of Brie’s Ruth “Zoya the Destroya” Wilder — a Stanislavski Method-trained actor who never quite made it in the movie business and so decides to use those fancy skills in the ring. Marc Maron, Gayle Rankin and Kate Nash round out the hilarious supporting cast.

After acting in two of the late Jeff Baena’s movies (Joshy in 2016 and The Little Hours, with Franco, in 2017), Brie made the jump to writing with Horse Girl, Baena’s fourth film as director, and a movie in which Brie got to not only write the dialogue but deliver it.

The story follows her reclusive, socially awkward protagonist as she starts to suspect that some things in the outside world are not quite what they seem. If you’re a fan of surreal, psychological thrillers like Swallow or If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, this one should be right up your street.

Brie’s biggest starring role in a movie to date, and her most prominent double act with Franco, came in Together last year — a supernatural horror film about the dangers of co-dependency that centers on a couple who are on the verge of a messy breakup. 

Of course, this being an elevated horror, there’s actually a whole lot to it: think body horror (The Substance) and finely calibrated gross-out moments (The Monkey), but also plenty of subtext and humour — it’s actually kind of a hoot.