Joe Keery’s Best Movies & TV Shows, Ranked (2024)

The popular Netflix show Stranger Things catapulted many young talents to worldwide fame. One of them is Joe Keery, the actor who plays the role of Steve Harrington, one of the crowd's favorites. Keery has been performing since he was very young, participating in different stage plays. However, he officially decided to pursue acting when he enrolled in The Theatre School at DePaul University, graduating in 2014. From then on, he set out on a challenging path to make a name for himself in the industry, auditioning for a large number of parts and landing his first opportunities in commercials and TV series. Meanwhile, he also pursued his other passion: music. For a few years, Keery served as both guitarist and drummer for the band Post Animal, eventually venturing out as a solo artist under the name Djo.

In 2016, Keery finally got his first major opportunity from the Duffer Brothers, and because of his talent and the audience's support, he went from recurring actor to main cast member on Stranger Things. As a result of his involvement in the Netflix original, he has been offered many roles in both mainstream and indie films. The future looks very bright for this young actor, who is expected to appear in two important projects this year: Fargo's fifth season and the Italian film Finalmente l'alba, starring alongside Lily James and Willem Dafoe. Here are the best movies and TV shows in which Joe Keery has starred so far.

10 The Charnel House

The Charnel House is a 2016 horror film directed by Craig Moss, featuring performances by Callum Blue, Nadine Velazquez, Makenzie Moss, and Erik LaRay Harvey, with Keery playing a minor supporting role as Scott. It introduces talented architect Alex Reaves as he takes on one of his most ambitious projects: turning an old abandoned slaughterhouse into a modern, luxurious loft complex in which many people are eager to live. This facility is fitted with state-of-the-art technology to make life easier for its tenants. However, this building harbors some very dark secrets that the architect ignored, and they are about to haunt the new residents of the place.

Related: Stranger Things Killed Off the Wrong Leading Man

9 Slice

One night, Perfect Pizza Place deliveryman Sean Hammerschmidt is found dead with his throat slit after delivering an order in the Ghost Town area of Kingfisher. Following this discovery, his friends and the town's inhabitants set out on a mission to uncover the truth about his death, but their quest proves to be tricky: some of the main suspects are ghosts, werewolves, and even drug dealers. Zazie Beetz and Chance Bennett star in Slice, a 2018 horror comedy film directed and written by Austin Vesely. In this production, Keery plays Jackson, the Kingfisher Chronicle photographer and a close friend of Sadie, the reporter in charge of the case.

8 Death to 2020

The year 2020 was scarred by the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that will be remembered forever. Therefore, in December 2020, Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, known for their work on the popular show Black Mirror, created Death to 2020, a Netflix mockumentary that aims to give a comic twist to that year's events through several interviews with fictional characters. Besides dealing with the pandemic, the production discusses events such as the United States presidential election and the inner problems of the British royal family, among many other topics. Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow, Leslie Jones, Kumail Nanjiani, and Tracey Ullman are some of the many actors who took part in this project. In Death to 2020, Keery plays Duke Goolies, a gig economy millennial and content creator.

7 Spree

Eugene Kotlyarenko's film Spree is Keery's first starring project, in which he plays Kurt, a young rideshare app Spree driver, who is desperate to go viral on social media. After a boy he used to babysit becomes popular on the internet, Kurt, driven by jealousy, devises a plan to become an even bigger sensation: murdering the passengers he picks up in his car and broadcasting it live, though, of course, he doesn't even think about the terrible consequences of his actions. This satirical horror film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, with Keery earning high praise for his acting skills. Joining him in this production are Sasheer Zamata, David Arquette, Kyle Mooney, and Mischa Barton.

6 Chicago Fire

Chicago Fire is a 2012 TV series that launched the Chicago franchise. It was created by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, and follows the day-to-day lives of the firefighters, paramedics, and other workers of the Chicago Fire Department. The show, which has now been on the air for 11 seasons, stars Jesse Spencer, Taylor Kinney, Monica Raymund, Charlie Barnett, David Eigenberg, Teri Reeves, Christian Stolte, and Eamonn Walker, although the cast has undergone some major changes over the seasons. Keery's role in this production was fairly minor, but he still made a big impact on the development of one of the main characters. For two episodes of the third season, the actor played Emmett, the alleged biological son of Mouch McHolland. Eventually, it is revealed that Emmett was actually trying to contact Mouch on behalf of his half-sister, who was indeed the firefighter's biological daughter.

5 Free Guy

In 2021, Shawn Levy, one of the main producers behind Stranger Things, directed and produced Free Guy, a film starring Ryan Reynolds alongside Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Joe Keery, and Taika Waititi. This production features Free City, a multiplayer online video game from Soonami Studios in which players coexist with non-player characters. Reynolds plays Guy, a non-player character who lives a very ordinary life until he meets a player who steals his heart and helps him discover that everything he has known so far is not real. This film's popularity with both critics and audiences led to the development of a sequel, which is currently in production. In Free Guy, Keery plays "Keys" McKey, a developer for Soonami Studios.

Related: Outer Banks Star Recalls Blowing Audition for Joe Keery's Stranger Things Role

4 No Activity

Patrick Brammall, Tim Meadows, Amy Sedaris, Sunita Mani, Jesse Plemons, Jason Mantzoukas and Cristin Milioti star in No Activity, the 2017 TV series based on Trent O'Donnell's Australian production of the same name. Created and directed by said filmmaker, the show features two mediocre cops, two criminals, two dispatch workers who don't get along too well and two Mexican tunnelers who don't even know each other, whose stories intertwine in the midst of a messy police operation to take down a dangerous drug cartel. No Activity has been on the air for four seasons, the last of which was computer-animated. In this TV series, which also features recurring performances by Will Ferrell, Bob Odenkirk, J.K. Simmons and Joe Manganiello, Keery plays Officer Ed Reinhardt.

3 After Everything

After Everything is a 2018 comedy drama written and directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power. It features Elliot, a 23-year-old whose life turns upside down after he gets a terrible medical diagnosis. Within the same week he meets Mia, a young woman who steals his heart and provides the comfort he's been looking for. Without even realizing it, the two become entangled in a fast-moving romance through which they keep each other company in the rough patches. Jeremy Allen White and Maika Monroe star in this acclaimed production, alongside DeRon Horton, Sasha Lane, Dean Winters, Marisa Tomei, Joe Keery and Gina Gershon.

2 Henry Gamble's Birthday Party

The 2015 film Henry Gamble's Birthday Party was written and directed by Stephen Cone, and features performances by Cole Doman, Pat Healy, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Daniel Kyri, and Joe Keery. It portrays Henry's 17th birthday pool party, a gathering of family members, church friends and college classmates, who are the only guests at the event who are non-religious. At the party, Henry, who has not yet figured out his sexual identity, struggles to balance his own desires with the moral values that his strict family expects him to have, unaware that the rest of the adults around him are confronted with the same dilemma. In this production, Keery plays Gabe, the main character's best friend.

1 Stranger Things

At the top of this ranking is, hands down, the best-known production in which Keery has starred so far: Stranger Things. This TV series, created by the Duffer Brothers, follows the mysterious events that sweep through the quiet town of Hawkins, Indiana, and stars Millie Bobby Brown, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, and Noah Schnapp, among many other actors. Keery plays Steve Harrington, one of the school's most popular students and also Nancy Wheeler's ex-boyfriend. Although his character was quite irritating at the beginning, Steve gradually modified his ways and became a dear friend of the main characters as well as one of the audience's all-time favorites. This award-winning Netflix series spans four seasons, with a fifth and final one due in 2024.