Even before I knew that she was Hollywood royalty, I had a feeling that actor and musician Maya Hawke was destined to be one the industry’s sharpest and most sought-after stars. The multi-talented daughter of Academy Award nominees Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman has already managed to achieve a pretty stellar career so far and in such a short time. The key, in addition to her proven skill, is the variety found in the best Maya Hawke movies and TV shows, which we have assembled below.
Maestro (2023)
A portrait of the loving, but complicated relationship between legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and actor Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan).
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Seven 2024 Academy Award nominations — including Best Picture — went to writer and director Cooper's Netflix original biopic, Maestro, which also stars Hawke as Leonard and Felicia's daughter, Jamie Bernstein.
Stranger Things (2016-Present)
A group of average, close-knit people from a small, Midwestern community are forced to contend with extraordinary circumstances that continue to follow them for years throughout the 1980s.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke TV shows: The moment Maya Hawke became a household name was the day she joined the Stranger Things cast in Season 3 in the scene-stealing role of Robin Buckley. She immediately became a fan-favorite character in The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix original sci-fi hit, which has a fifth and final season in the works.
Little Women (2017)
Romance, poverty, personal tragedy, and other life-changing moments of four sisters (played by Maya Hawke, Kathryn Newton, Willa Fitzgerald, Annes Elwy) in Civil War-era America are recalled by the second eldest sibling, a writer.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke TV shows: For her screen acting debut, Hawke had the honor of the playing Jo March — the primary character of Louisa May Alcott’s seminal novel, Little Women — in this three-part limited series adaptation produced as part of PBS’s Masterpiece that also stars legends like Emily Watson, Angela Lansbury, and Michael Gambon.
- Stream Little Women on Amazon Prime
- Stream Little Women on Peacock
- Stream Little Women on Tubi
- Stream Little Women on Plex
- Buy Little Women on DVD on Amazon
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
As a former Western TV show star (Academy Award winner Leonardo DiCaprio) contemplates the uncertain future of his career, his best friend and longtime stunt double (Academy Award winner Brad Pitt) has a foreboding encounter with a bizarre group of people in late 1960s Los Angeles.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: In one of Maya Hawke’s first feature-length gigs — also her first collaboration with one of her mother’s most frequent collaborators — she briefly appears in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood cast as a real-life Manson Family member known as “Flowerchild” in writer and director Quentin Tarantino’s dark, but dazzling, love letter to cinema’s silver age.
- Stream Once Upon A Time In Hollywood on Hulu
- Rent or buy Once Upon A Time In Hollywood on Amazon
- Buy Once Upon A Time In Hollywood on Blu-ray on Amazon
Human Capital (2019)
The lives of two suburban families clash when the teenage daughter from one (Maya Hawke) and the son from the other (Fred Hechinger) start a relationship that eventually proves to lead to tragic circumstances.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Hawke also appeared in another star-studded thriller from 2019 called Human Capital — director Marc Meyers and writer Oren Moverman’s adaptation of Stephen Amidon’s novel — which also stars Liev Schreiber, Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, Peter Sarsgaard, and Alex Wolff in its stellar ensemble.
Mainstream (2020)
A young, struggling filmmaker from West Hollywood (Maya Hawke) finds the unlikely success she has been striving toward when her video featuring a random man she met on the street (Academy Award nominee Andrew Garfield) surprisingly becomes a viral sensation.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Co-writer and director Gia Coppola captures the manic, self-absorbed, and self-destructive world of Internet fame in her bold satire, Mainstream, which actually features digital influencers like Jake Paul and Juanpa Zurita among the cast.
Italian Studies (2021)
An English woman (played by Vanessa Kirby) realizes that she has lost her memory and lives adrift among a group of New York City teens as she struggles to uncover who she is.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Maya Hawke appears in Italian Studies — writer and director Adam Leon’s strange, mysterious drama — as one of the young New Yorkers Kirby’s amnesia-stricken protagonist becomes acquainted with.
Fear Street: Part One - 1994 (2021)
A group of teens struggle to survive against a band of seemingly unstoppable killers while attempting to break a curse that has plagued their town for centuries.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: In a clear homage to Scream — one of its many classic horror movie references — Maya Hawke (one of the most famous faces in the Fear Street movies cast) appears in the intense opening scene of the first installment of Netflix’s fun, freaky trilogy of slashers inspired by Goosebumps author R.L. Stine’s more mature horror novel series.
Do Revenge (2022)
Hawke plays an introverted preparatory high school transfer who meets a popular preparatory student (played by Camilla Mendes) by chance and both agree to help each other get back at the people who ruined their lives.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Hawke and Mendes make a great team leading the Do Revenge cast in this crowd-pleasing modern take on an Alfred Hitchcock classic (Strangers on a Train) with a coming-of-age twist, a la Heathers or Mean Girls.
Asteroid City (2023)
A group of people from various walks of life gather in a rural, desert town for an event for young astronomy enthusiasts in the 1950s, only to find themselves trapped after a life-changing event.
Why it is one of the best Maya Hawke movies: Continuing her streak of being a part of acclaimed A-list ensembles in movies, Maya Hawke starred in the Asteroid City cast as an elementary school teacher in one of the strangest Wes Anderson movies yet, which is really saying something.
- Stream Asteroid City on Peacock
- Rent or buy Asteroid City on Amazon
- Buy Asteroid City on Blu-ray on Amazon
While we never covered any of Maya Hawke’s collaborations with her parents in the list above, she would appear in one episode of her father’s limited series western The Good Lord Bird in 2020, shows up in a 2023 comedic thriller called The Kill Room alongside her mother Uma Thurman and was directed by Ethan Hawke as the lead of a Flannery O’Connor biopic called Wildcat, which he also wrote. Maya is also set to star alongside Ethan in Andrew Stanton’s Revolver and, according to Quentin Tarantino, there is little chance of her appearing in a third Kill Bill movie as The Bride’s daughter but one can dream.
