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Emma Stone’s Breakout Role Sees Streaming Resurgence 15 Years Later As She Gears Up For Oscars Race

December 30, 2025

One of Emma Stone’s early major roles, in the movie Easy A, is seeing a resurgence on streaming ahead of the 2026 awards season. The La La Land, Poor Things, and Bugonia star is now an Academy darling, but she was once best known for teen comedies such as this, which launched her into Hollywood and allowed her to start working to become a certified A-lister.

Stone broke out with 2007’s Superbad, quickly followed by two more movies essential to her career, 2009’s Zombieland and 2010’s Easy A. The latter is a modern take on The Scarlett Letter, following a high school student who lies about losing her virginity, accidentally starting wildfire gossip about herself. Easy A also stars Amanda Bynes, Penn Badgley, Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, and Stanley Tucci.

As of today (December 30), Easy A is the No. 5 movie in the world on HBO Max, per FlixPatrol. 2025’s critical smash hit One Battle After Another is still the No. 1 movie on streaming, followed by Hell of a Summer at No. 2, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey at No. 3, and Due Date at No. 4. Easy A currently ranks above Get Smart and The Polar Express in the top 10 HBO Max movies.

Easy A is, however, not available on HBO Max in the United States, where audiences can watch it on Pluto TV. Shortly after this comedy, Stone starred in the then-Academy-favorite (but now more controversial) period drama The Help, before landing the major role of Gwen Stacy, opposite Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, in The Amazing Spider-Man.

After The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was when Stone started to truly make a name for herself in prestige cinema, earning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in 2014’s Birdmanor (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Birdman went on to win Best Picture, while Stone returned in 2016, starring in La La Land, and won the Oscar for Best Actress.

After this is when she starred in The Favourite, her first movie directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. She went on to reunite with the director for Poor Things (for which she won another Oscar), Kinds of Kindness, and Bugonia. Stone may be about to get her fifth Oscar acting nomination for Bugonia, which is still a possible 2026 Best Picture nominee.

Stone isn’t necessarily one of the guaranteed Best Actress nominees and seems to be competing for one of the final spots with One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti and Wicked: For Good‘s Cynthia Erivo. All three have already been nominated by the Golden Globes for their performances.

Fans of Emma Stone may be rooting for her this awards season, but they can also revisit her early career hits, such as Easy A, and see how her performances have evolved over time.