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For decades, Native American characters in popular films have been stuck in stereotypes or simply excluded. But in the subtly revolutionary rise of Lily Gladstone, fans are seeing something new. With a unique talent for expressing deep feeling through silence, cultural specificity, and inner toughness, Gladstone has created a new niche in Hollywood—a one where Native American stories are being told with empathy, depth, and integrity.
Born on the Blackfeet Nation Reservation in Montana, Lily Gladstone is of Blackfeet and Nimíipuu descent. She apprenticed at the University of Montana and came up not from the familiar red carpets of Los Angeles but from the raw, poetic realms of American independent film. She is today at the lead of a new generation of representation, with casting that breaks down the industry’s long-standing blind spots and opening up what Native acting can do on screen. This article follows five career-altering Lily Gladstone films which not only fashioned her impressive trajectory but also shifted the cultural and critical landscape around Native American presence in cinema.
“Certain Women” (2016): The breakout performance that captivated indie cinema
Plot summary and Lily’s role
In Kelly Reichardt’s contemplative triptych Certain Women, Lily Gladstone plays a quiet, unnamed rancher in rural Montana who forms an intense emotional bond with a young lawyer (Kristen Stewart) teaching night classes. In a film dominated by minimal dialogue and subtle character work, Gladstone delivers a performance of astonishing depth with barely a word.
Critical and audience reception
Critics immediately took notice. The New York Times’ A.O. Scott described her performance as “the most memorable and mysterious” in the film. IndieWire hailed her as the emotional anchor of the entire story. Her restrained expressions, longing glances, and understated physicality earned her Best Supporting Actress nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Gotham Awards.
Awards or nominations
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress (Winner)
- Independent Spirit Award nomination
- Gotham Independent Film Award nomination
Cultural significance
This role wasn’t just a breakout for Gladstone—it was a quiet revolution. Playing a Native American character whose identity is never made the focal point, she broke the mold of tokenistic representation. Her character is defined by her humanity, not by cultural tropes. In doing so, Certain Women became a landmark in Lily Gladstone’s filmography and a milestone in Indigenous performance analysis.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023): The historical epic that earned her Oscar buzz
Plot summary and Lily’s role
In Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann’s bestselling nonfiction book, Gladstone portrays Mollie Burkhart, a wealthy Osage woman whose family becomes the target of a conspiracy to steal oil rights during the Osage Reign of Terror. As Mollie, Gladstone grounds the film in quiet dignity, grief, and strength opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
Critical and audience reception
Gladstone’s performance was immediately hailed as the emotional core of the film. Variety called it “transfixing,” while The Guardian noted that she “commands the screen with breathtaking restraint.” Audiences unfamiliar with her earlier work were captivated by the gravitas she brought to the screen, often outshining even her A-list co-stars.
Awards or nominations
- Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (first Native American woman in history)
- Golden Globe nomination
- Critics’ Choice Award nomination
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (Winner)
Cultural significance
This was more than an award-winning performance—it was a cultural flashpoint. By centering a Native woman’s perspective in a film about systemic genocide, Scorsese’s film, anchored by Gladstone, disrupted decades of narrative framing in American cinema. The Killers of the Flower Moon actress became the face of a turning point: Hollywood was finally recognizing Indigenous excellence not as niche, but as central to its storytelling power.
“The Unknown Country” (2022): A personal and poetic meditation on grief and belonging
Plot summary and Lily’s role
In Morrisa Maltz’s The Unknown Country, Lily Gladstone plays Tana, a woman reeling from personal loss who embarks on a solitary road trip across the American Midwest to attend a family wedding. Along the way, she navigates landscapes both physical and emotional, encountering strangers who gently reorient her path.
Critical and audience reception
Though quieter in scale than her larger studio projects, the film became a festival favorite. Critics praised its lyrical pacing and naturalistic performances. The Hollywood Reporter lauded Gladstone’s performance as “hauntingly real,” and RogerEbert.com described her as “magnetic in every frame.”
Awards or nominations
- SXSW 2022 Narrative Feature Special Jury Recognition
- Inclusion in multiple year-end critic lists for indie performances
Cultural significance
Here, Gladstone isn’t portraying a character created solely for drama or conflict—she is embodying real-life nuance and emotional recovery. The Unknown Country is essential viewing in the Lily Gladstone filmography for its intimacy and authenticity. It’s also one of the rare contemporary films where Native American identity is treated as lived reality, not historical artifact.
“First Cow” (2020): A minor role with major impact in a revisionist western
Plot summary and Lily’s role
Also directed by Kelly Reichardt, First Cow is a quiet tale of friendship and capitalism in 1820s Oregon. Gladstone appears in a small but symbolically rich role as a member of the Chinook community, whose presence in the film offers a subtle counterpoint to the colonialist forces at work.
Critical and audience reception
While her screen time is brief, film critics noted the deliberate casting of Gladstone and praised the film for its resistance to Western genre clichés. Reichardt’s approach, coupled with Gladstone’s grace and presence, offered a decolonized cinematic lens—an anti-Western in which Native people aren’t mere backdrops but integral to the narrative ecosystem.
Awards or nominations
While not a central character, Gladstone’s participation in the film further solidified her partnership with one of America’s most thoughtful auteurs and helped shape her indie prestige.
Cultural significance
In a genre historically hostile to Native representation, First Cow is a quiet reclamation. Including Gladstone in such a narrative doesn’t just lend credibility—it reshapes the form. For viewers tracking Native American representation in film, her presence in First Cow is a lesson in how small roles can yield profound meaning.
“Fancy Dance” (2023): A Sundance standout exploring kinship and survival
Plot summary and Lily’s role
In Fancy Dance, directed by Erica Tremblay, Lily Gladstone stars as Jax, a queer Indigenous woman raising her niece after her sister goes missing. As they prepare for a powwow and simultaneously navigate law enforcement scrutiny, the film unfolds as a tense, tender, and timely drama.
Critical and audience reception
Premiering at Sundance, the film received rave reviews. IndieWire praised it for “confronting the trauma of MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls) with compassion and fury.” Gladstone’s portrayal of Jax is raw, complex, and brimming with lived experience. Her performance received a standing ovation and positioned her as a champion for stories grounded in present-day Indigenous struggles.
Awards or nominations
- Sundance Film Festival: Grand Jury Prize Nomination
- Audience Choice accolades in various regional festivals
Cultural significance
Perhaps the most activist-oriented entry in the Lily Gladstone movies canon, Fancy Dance confronts modern injustices head-on. This is Indigenous cinema rooted in urgency, activism, and maternal love. It’s not just a performance—it’s a protest, and Gladstone’s voice rings louder than ever.
Lily Gladstone’s impact on cinema and what’s next
Lily Gladstone is a breakout star in more ways than one—she’s a force of culture remaking the way Indigenous characters are viewed and heard. From her Certain Women Lily Gladstone acting that shook up the indie scene to her Killers of the Flower Moon performance that earned her Oscar buzz, she’s demonstrated that representation does not need to be loud to be revolutionary, but simply need to be authentic.
What’s most interesting is that her performances aren’t bound up in trauma for spectacle or locked into period roles. Rather, they examine grief, love, resistance, and joy through indigenous eyes, declining the binaries that Hollywood has previously insisted upon. Gladstone also works to help Native filmmakers, mentor young Native actors, and advocate for Native voices in writers’ rooms and on production crews.
As of the beginning of 2025, Lily Gladstone has several projects attached to her name, including a leading role in Echo Canyon, a new psychological drama from Navajo director Blackhorse Lowe. She is also said to be again teaming with Kelly Reichardt on a mystery set in contemporary Montana. There are rumors of a limited series about the life of Native writer Zitkála-Šá with Gladstone possibly starring as well as producing.
Conclusion: A legacy in motion
Lily Gladstone’s body of work is greater than a roster of credits—it’s a living manifesto of cinematic subversion and cultural recovery. With every role, she enlarges the lexicon of Indigenous narrative, moving past invisibility and into the bright center of contemporary cinema. And in doing that, she presents both mirror and map: showing us the lives of Native people now and mapping the way for what Hollywood can be when it’s listening.
For those who value equity, artistry, and authenticity on screen, Lily Gladstone is not merely an actress to be watched—she’s a revolution in slow motion.