The moment his Twilight years ended, Robert Pattinson decided to get weird. Once he hung up the Edward fangs, the actor teamed up with auteur directors, plunged himself into arthouse fare, and put his A-list profile aside to make all kinds of weird and wonderful movies. It’s already been a banner Pattinson year with The Drama and The Odyssey – and as he returns to cinemas with Primetime, there’s a treasure trove of great, unexpected, oddball Robert Pattinson performances you can watch on streaming too.
From interstellar existential odysseys, to car-set Cronenberg collaborations, to talking birds, here are three excellent, weird Robert Pattinson movies to watch at home, picked by Empire’s movie experts.
Cosmopolis (2012)
Cosmopolis © TMDB films 49014
Director: David Cronenberg | Runtime: 1hr 49m | Streaming on: BFI Player
In 2026, Cronenberg and a going-viral-for-all-his-wacky-interviews Pattinson seem like a match made in heaven. But back in 2012, this was a big move for an actor fresh from the Twilight saga. Set over a single day in NYC, much of Cosmopolis is spent with Pattinson’s cold and calculating billionaire, who gives us one of his first truly great performances, fully committing to every bizarre line delivery and ambiguous monologue that Cronenberg throws his way. Mostly set inside the claustrophobic and sterile walls of a limo, Cronenberg’s late-stage-capitalism tale only makes those walls feel like they’re getting tighter and tighter as it ramps up towards its rather explosive conclusion. We’ve seen R-Pattz shine in plenty more dramatic roles in recent years, but it’s never a bad time to revisit one of his first — and best. HS
Read Empire’s review of Cosmopolis.
High Life (2018)
Director: Claire Denis | Runtime: 1hr 53m | Streaming on: Tubi
If you ever watched Interstellar and thought, “Hmm, this is pretty good, but it would be better with a few gallons more semen, a Juliette Binoche manned ‘Fuck Box’, and some lactation-based leakage sequences,” then boy do we have the Robert Pattinson movie for you! Long before Mickey 17, R-Pattz’s first sci-fi suicide mission came in the form of High Life, Claire Denis’ fluid-filled first English-language film. But in a movie that’s nutty in more ways than one, Pattinson is on mercurial form as the monk-like Monte, a Death Row prisoner and doting father stuck on a one-way trip to extract energy from a black hole. Like his abstinent character, Pattinson keeps his spunk to himself here, opting instead for a low-key but subtly strange turn that plays out often in silence, often in close-up, making a movie ostensibly centred on a sperm-obsessed mad scientist something far more profound and meaningful than that sounds.
Read Empire’s review of High Life.
The Boy And The Heron (2023)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Runtime: 2hrs 4m | Streaming on: Netflix
The American dubs for Studio Ghibli films are always a real cut above – there’s no shame in watching these not in the Japanese language. And Hayao Miyazaki’s most recent masterpiece brought Pattinson on in a particularly surprising capacity. He voices the heron of The Boy And The Heron – a talking supernatural bird-man with a squawky, gravelly voice that you would never in a million years guess was the man behind Edward Cullen. The character is so expressively animated, and Pattinson matches its unhinged tenor in a voice performance for the ages. BT
Read Empire’s review of The Boy And The Heron.
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All up to date on your Pattinson pictures now? Why not take a deep-dive into Jacob Elordi’s best projects next? Or some underrated Tom Holland movies? If you’re feeling even more adventurous, then our list of the 100 best movies ever made is always there for a mega movie marathon, and our rundown of the greatest TV shows of all time has those who prefer their storytelling serialised covered.
