Best Carice Van Houten Performances, Ranked
The beautiful and talented Carice van Houten is a Dutch actress and singer. While she most notably came to the international public’s attention after starring in Game of Thrones she’s been around the acting world, both in the Netherlands and Hollywood, since the late ’90s.
Since then, she’s starred in multiple televisions shows and has appeared in over 35 movies, racking up 18 awards, and almost twice as many award nominations along the way. While she’s certainly proved herself a highly capable addition to our screens over the years (and was even considered as a Bond Girl at one point), she’s publicly spoken out about not liking the lifestyle in Hollywood and, therefore, prefers to live in Europe.
She’s been in a long term relationship with veteran actor Guy Pearce and, in addition to English, speaks Dutch, French, and German. In homage of her wealth of talent, here’s a list of Carice van Houten’s best performances.
20 Suzy Q
As her first leading role, van Houten played a lovelorn teenager in the Dutch made-for-TV film, Suzy Q. Despite being a TV film, it still became the most decorated Dutch film of 1999. The plot revolved around a tragic teenager from an uncaring and abusive home. Being a huge fan of rock, she gains access to the hotel where The Rolling Stones are staying while on a tour in Amsterdam. After managing to sneak into Mick Jagger’s room, she has a romantic encounter with him but no one cares or even believes her after.
For her great performance in the film, van Houtenwon various awards for the role, including a Gouden Kalf (Golden Calf) for Best Actress, which is the most prestigious acting award in the Netherlands.
19 Miss Minoes
Based on a popular children’s book, Miss Minoes was a quirky and lovable story about a cat that is transformed into a woman after drinking a chemical liquid. She goes on to help a struggling journalist since she can stay up to date with a lot of the interesting news by communicating with the town cats who witness a lot of things first-hand.
Her role in Miss Minoes earned van Houten another Best Actress award, this time for the International Children’s Film’s Festival. The film also displayed her range as an actress, with The New York Times having this to say about her performance:
«Yes, the film is silly and light as a feather, but who doesn’t love gossiping cats? Ms. van Houten is charming, and the blossoming cross-species romance, rather than seeming creepy, makes the story all the sweeter.»
18 Temple
As a reluctant helper in an underworld operation show, van Houten took on the role of a medical researcher named Anna Willems in the gritty medical show, Temple. Showing some great layers to her character, the role was one that van Houten owned among a show with some very dark and questionable takes on morality.
The show itself was a very different take from the usual medical shows that care more about intertwining relationships between the hot doctors than they do about the medical aspects. Van Houten’s performance in it was definitely one that stood out. Anthony Morris of SBS had this to say about it:
«Yes, it’s over-the-top gothic. Deliciously so: the idea of a doctor turning to crime to fund research that could save a loved one is basically the same origin story as Batman villain Mr Freeze, which should give you some idea of the level we’re working at here. But the gloomy gothic side of things is mostly backdrop. The focus here is on characters forced to live a lie, keeping secrets that could get them killed while walking ever closer to a line that, once crossed, will leave them different people forever.»
17 Repo Men
While playing a relatively minor role as Carol in the 2010 Sci-Fi film Repo Men, van Houten showed early on that she could hold the screen with some truly great actors. In this case, paired alongside Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, she played the disgruntled wife of a very unusual type of repo man. In this film, the job was to repossess human organs from people who were unable to pay the evil corporation that sold it to them on credit.
16 The Simpsons
Van Houten has previously done a turn as a narrator for the acclaimed British environmental docuseries Human Planet. She would later also voice a character in the dark, adult stop-motion sketch show, Robot Chicken.
Between these two roles, In the 20th episode of the 26th season of the wildly popular animated series, The Simpsons,Van Houten brought her voice over talents to bear once again. Playing a Dutch relative of Milhouse, she enamors Bart Simpson and gets him into all kinds of shenanigans because of it.
15 The Happy Housewife
People might describe this one as an erotic comedy, but it certainly also has a dark and dramatic twist. Playing Lea in The Happy Housewife, a Dutch film, van Houten brought some great depth to a somewhat complex character. Lea is a happily married woman that enjoys sex, even more than her husband at times. When he shocks her by wanting a child, after their baby is conceived, Lea struggles with issues of post-partum depression, and whether she is fit to be a mother.
With some truly raunchy and sexy scenes, fans of van Houten’s who aren’t familiar with this one but love her dark sex appeal in later performances, are sure to enjoy it. Aside from this appeal, the film was highly rated and earned her yet another Golden Calf for Best Actress.
14 Jackie
Playing one of two sisters in the leading roles, van Houten actually teamed up with her real life sister, Jelka van Houten, in the 2012 comedy-drama, Jackie. Another great Dutch film starring Carice, it had some unique plot details.
Chief among these is the fact that the sisters are raised by two gay fathers who conceived them through IVF with an American hippie being their mom. When they’re both called to the States to help their mom, whom neither has ever met before, the sisters’ lives are forever changed after the time they spend with her there.
13 Family Way
In another Dutch hit film, this time a comedy, van Houten played the lead in Family Way. Marking the second time she teamed up with Dutch director Joram Lürsen after they worked together on another hit comedy film called Love is All, van Houten played Winnie De Roover in this one.
While it featured a lot of the same comedic elements as Love Is All, van Houten’s performance in Family Way was even more widely acclaimed — although she did win the Rembrandt Award for Best Actress in both films. Family Way featured a little more drama, which probably helped its cause too.
12 Incarnate
While the 2016 supernatural horror film Incarnate was critically panned, Carice van Houten’s performance in it couldn’t be faulted. She played the mother of a child who’s possessed by a demon named «Maggie.»
The film may not have been a huge hit but van Houten’s part in it showed her acting versatility. After excelling in many dramatic roles, voice-overs, comedies, and various other parts, van Houten showed she could be just as comfortable in a horror film too.
11 Black Swans
Van Houten certainly seems to have an affinity for starring in films with the word ‘black’ in it. Aside from Black Death, Black Book, and Black Butterflies, she also starred in a 2005 Dutch drama film titled Black Swans.
These movies do seem to be a good luck charm for her, though, since she’s been nominated for or won awards for all of them. In the case of Black Swans, she was nominated for another Golden Calf for best actress but didn’t win it this time. Nevertheless, it was still a great performance as she played Marleen, who is drawn into a tumultuous love affair with a tragic twist.
10 Race
In probably one of her most controversial roles, van Houten played the infamous Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in Race. The film was a biopic of the racism and discrimination faced by the African-American star athlete Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympic Games, which was held in Berlin.
While much was made of van Houten’s character, she herself expressed that she wanted the role to focus on Leni’s talent as a filmmaker and not just for her role in perpetuating Nazi propaganda in Germany at the time.
9 Lost Girls & Love Hotels
Van Houten played a relatively minor part in this film, but it was certainly one to add to her collection of erotically charged films. Although the main eroticism in this film was taken on by Alexandra Daddario, van Houten’s part in the film once again displayed her propensity for being unafraid to work on such projects.
Lost Girls & Love Hotelswas an unsettling erotic thriller in a way since it strung together tons of eroticism with a deep and thought-provoking character development. Van Houten’s own penchant for starring in films with an erotic edge was well known by this point, so the fact that she was on board here wasn’t altogether unsurprising.
8 Instinct
Van Houten took the lead again in this Dutch film which was an entrant at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and was the Dutch entry for the international film of the year. While the film, Instinct, wasn’t nominated in that category, it was still a great one that featured a riveting performance from van Houten. Guy Lodge, writing for Variety, described the film as follows:
«Intelligently sensational adult fare, crafted with paper-cut precision on all fronts, it stars van Houten as a prison psychologist who finds herself locked in a who-blinks-first game of sexual suppression with a convicted serial rapist…»
While also adding of van Houten’s performance in it:
«Perhaps van Houten just responds best to the care of a confident provocateur. It’s apt that her strongest big-screen showcase since “Black Book” is the kind of hot, confrontational psychodrama you can imagine Verhoeven himself dreaming up, albeit with a frank view of gendered desire and power play that clearly establishes a woman’s perspective behind the camera.»
7 Red Light
Aside from her acting chops, van Houten also co-owns a production company known as Manup with close friend and frequent collaborator, Halina Reijn. She used it to good effect in the 2020 TV series Red Light. Co-created by herself and Reijn (who also directed her in Instinct), Red Light was yet another powerfully provocative project that Carice was a part off.
Taking place in Antwerp, Belgium, van Houten plays the madam of a brothel from the red-light district there and has to contend with the intricate relationships she shares with two other female leads (one of whom is played by Reijn). In an interview with Variety, Reijn described the show as:
«Female-driven drama that would bring to light subjects that normally stay hidden. Sex, power, control, addiction and female rage are themes we want to address with our projects.
6 Black Death
In the 2010 adventure-horror film Black Death, van Houten was cast alongside the very talented Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne. Despite being in the presence of such illustrious actors, Van Houten more than held her own. Effectively playing a kind of witch in the film, she showed a talent for that sort of role that would later famously serve her well and rocket her to her highest levels of fame yet.
5 Valkyrie
In the 2008 historical war film, Valkyrie, van Houten played Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, the wife of a German Army Colonel who played a huge part in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The role was one she excelled in, seemingly unfazed by her more illustrious co-stars Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh. Her brilliant performance in the often suspenseful film earned her the nomination for best supporting actress at the 2008 Saturn Awards.
4 Black Butterflies
Given her Dutch heritage, van Houten was a perfect choice to play a famous South African poet (South Africa was previously colonized by the Dutch and shares a long history with them). Black Butterflies was a fascinating biopic of Ingrid Jonker’s life, both as a poet, and later as an anti-apartheid activist and political dissident.
Swimming against the current at the time, Jonker was an inspiration to many as she forewent her own privilege as a white Afrikaner to fight against the apartheid regime at one of the most turbulent and fractious periods in South African history — an even more astounding stance for Jonker to take when you consider that her own father was a member of South Africa’s apartheid-controlled parliament at the time. Van Houten’s role as Jonker deservedly earned her another Golden Calf for Best Actress.
3 Brimstone
A 2017 film described as a psychological Western horror, Brimstone saw van Houten starring alongside Guy Pearce, whom she would go on to date and start a family with. It revolves around a woman who is wrongly accused of a crime and then hunted by a preacher. Featuring a stellar cast, van Houten’s performance was definitely one that stuck out as it earned her a Golden Calf nomination for best supporting actress. The movie was shot during the height of her fame, and this definitely added to the intrigue surrounding the film.
2 Black Book
In 2006, van Houten won her second of five Golden Calf awards as the lead in Black Book. The film was a war drama and was met with much acclaim. The film was directed by famed European filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. US audiences will know him as the director of films like Basic Instinct, Hollow Man, and of course, the legendary first RoboCop film back in 1987.
With her rousing performance in it, van Houten showed once again why she was one of the best up-and-coming actresses in Europe.
1 Game of Thrones
That fame came most strikingly between 2011 and 2019, when Carice Van Houten became something of a household name around the world. In surely what was one of, if not her best performance to date, she played the character Melisandre in Game of Thrones (also known as The Red Woman) due to her flaming red hair and the fact that she always dressed in red.
The character was something of a mysterious, supernatural figure. While she became one of the most seductively beautiful and desired characters in Game of Thrones, her transformation towards the end of her time on it was so jarring that it forever cemented her as one of the most memorable characters from the show too.
For the role, In 2015, van Houten was nominated for a Screen Actor’s Guild Award and in 2017 she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for best Guest Actress in a Drama Series. While she won neither of these awards, Hollywood was finally standing up and taking notice of what the Netherlands had known for a long time. Carice Van Houten had now truly arrived as a mainstream actress and fully deserved her place in what became one of the most highly rated TV shows in history, smashing many records along the way.
