Amber Midthunder’s 10 Best Movies And TV Shows

Both of Amber Midthunder’s
parents have worked in the entertainment industry, so some might have believed acting was in her blood, and her best movies and TV shows prove that she is a born storyteller. Though Midthunder got her first acting roles over 20 years ago, working in front of the screen was never a foregone conclusion for her. She also worked in the makeup industry and became a Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainer at one point (via Empire).

Midthunder has built an impressive acting career though. While she started off in mostly uncredited small parts, she has appeared in a huge variety of projects. Midthunder has appeared in everything from revenge thrillers to romantic dramas to science fiction series. Midthunder is best-known for a trio of projects that fall under that science fiction umbrella, and while those do happen to be her best movies and tv shows, she has many more as well.

Amber Midthunder MCU

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Only Mine (2019)

As Julie

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Only Mine

TV-14
ThrillerDramaTV Movie

Release Date

January 15, 2019

Runtime

87 minutes

Director

Michael Civille

Writers

Matt Young

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Only Mine is a great hint at the performer Midthunder becomes.

Amber Midthunder has been in a lot of movies throughout her acting career over the last 20 years. However, most of those movies involve her playing unnamed roles and even completely uncredited roles. Lead roles were few and far between in the early part of her career. Only Mine is one of the few she has had.

Only Mine follows a woman named Julie who is left for dead by a former romantic partner. Julie, however, comes back from the experience stronger and bent on revenge. Julie forms a violent plan to get it.

Though there have been a lot of revenge thrillers, Midthunder makes for a compelling protagonist here. The movie did not have a theatrical release, so a lot of the fans she has accumulated in recent years might not have seen it. If they give the movie a chance, they will see shades of the anger that she showcases in some of her better known roles in Prey and Roswell, New Mexico. Only Mine is a great hint at the performer Midthunder becomes.

9

Banshee (2014)

As Lana Cleary

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Banshee

DramaCrimeAction

Release Date

2013 – 2015

Showrunner

Jonathan Tropper

Directors

Jonathan Tropper

Writers

Jonathan Tropper

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Banshee is one of the first television roles Midthunder took on. She only appears in two episodes of the series, and even then, not in very many scenes in the episodes, but they center entirely around her character.

Banshee is a series in which an ex-convict (played by The Boys’ Anthony Starr) assumes a new identity. He becomes the sheriff of a small town and takes the opportunity to run things his way. In season 2, Lana is a member of the Kinaho tribe who is murdered.

Midthunder’s Lana becomes the mystery at the center of the two episodes in which she appears as her death is investigated. Though Lana might not get a lot of screen time, what she does get showcases Midthunder’s ability to play both charming and naive incredibly well.

8

The Originals (2016)

As Kayla McInnis

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The Originals

HorrorFantasyDrama

Release Date

2013 – 2017

Network

The CW

Showrunner

Julie Plec

Directors

Julie Plec

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The Originals is a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries. Set primarily in New Orleans, it focuses on the first family of vampires and their history with the city. It also expands the universe’s lore about witches, werewolves, and hybrids. Much of the story focuses on The Mikealson family’s protection of Hope, the first tribrid in the supernatural community. With werewolf, vampire, and witch bloodlines, she is the rare person able to access all of them. Hope also provides the protagonist for the sequel series Legacies.

Amber Midthunder does not play a huge role in the franchise, or even in the single episode of The Originals in which she appears. She plays a young werewolf who has her abilities triggered when she kills a human being. Her role in the episode is an emotional one, and not far removed from the character she plays in Roswell, New Mexico.

In fact, it’s likely Midthunder’s role here put her on the radar of those working behind the scenes on Roswell, New Mexico. Carina Adly Mackenzie, the showrunner for the first three seasons, was also a writer on The Originals.

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Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024)

As Princess Yue

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Avatar: The Last Airbender

TV-PG
ActionAdventureFantasy

Release Date

February 22, 2024

Directors

Michael Goi, Roseanne Liang, Jabbar Raisani, Jet Wilkinson

Writers

Albert Kim, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko

Franchise(s)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

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…it’s a shame Yue is not a character that gets more time in the Avatar’s story.

Fans of the Avatar franchise had a lot of doubts about the live-action series adaptation, especially after the attempt to make a live-action movie years earlier did not go well. The Netflix series has largely been a success so far.

The first season of the series introduces the audience to the world of the Avatar. Only one is born every generation, a person who can access all elemental power to bend instead of just one as most people are able to do. In the first “book” of his journey to stop the Fire Lord, the audience spends most of their time among the water tribes as the Avatar and his allies are on the run.

One of the people they meet along the way is Princess Yue. She is the daughter of the water tribe’s leader, but she is also the spiritual leader of her people. She is deeply in tune with the spiritual world after an illness she had as a child that left her connected to the moon itself. Midthunder plays Yue as someone confident, playful, and intuitive. She is fantastic in the role, and it’s a shame Yue is not a character that gets more time in the Avatar’s story. Her role is a sacrificial one, however, which saves waterbending for all of her people.

A composite image of Aang looking determined and Ozai standing in front of flames from Avatar The Last Airbender

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The Ice Road (2021)

As Tantoo

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The Ice Road

PG-13
ThrillerAction

Release Date

June 25, 2021

Director

Jonathan Hensleigh

Writers

Jonathan Hensleigh

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Since appearing in the first Taken movie, Liam Neeson has become the go-to actor for a very specific type of action movie. This is not that exact kind of action movie, but it does share some similarities.

Here, a truck driver (Neeson) has to take a treacherous road through what is essentially frozen tundra to get to a point to rescue a group of diamond miners, It’s the journey that is the dangerous part rather than the confrontations with criminals along the way to a rescue like in the Taken movies.

Midthunder stars as Tantoo, a young woman hired by the truck driver as part of the rescue effort. Though the movie might not be as good as some of Neeson’s other action flicks, Midthunder is capable, offering the audience the appropriate amount of tension and anxiety the part demands. She helps to sell the more thrilling aspects of the movie. It’s certainly the kind of movie that would make it clear she is more than capable of being the one in the driver’s seat for an action movie.

5

The Wheel (2021)

As Albee

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The Wheel

Drama

Release Date

July 22, 2022

Runtime

83 minutes

Director

Steve Pink

Writers

Trent Atkinson

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The Wheel is an interesting project for Amber Midthunder because it breaks from the projects audiences might be the most used to seeing her in. While she has been in a lot of action and genre projects in a short time, The Wheel is different. It’s a raw look at a romance that might be running its course.

The movie sees a young married couple as their relationship has begun to fall apart. While one member of the couple has begun to take a more cynical approach to their union, the other is trying to prevent it from completely crumbling. A weekend trip to the mountains sees them cross paths with an older couple who is actually about to get married themselves, and The Wheel then delves into the emotional complexities of relationships.

While the first half of the movie does not allow the audience to get to know the characters very well, it is the second half that begins peeling back the layers of just why they are the way they are. Midthunder’s Albee, in particular, is afraid of appearing weak and vulnerable, but when she begins to reveal the truth of her feelings, Midthunder gives a raw and honest portrayal of a young woman who has been through trauma and heartbreak.

ScreenRant’s own review praises Midthunder’s performance:

Considering the writing sets her up to be a standoffish, stereotypical mean girl at first, Midthunder rises to the challenge to turn Albee into a three-dimensional character with scars, a fear of letting go, and sitting in the emotions she’s so scared to face.

4

Rez Ball (2024)

As Dezbah Weaver

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Rez Ball

PG-13
Drama

Release Date

September 27, 2024

Runtime

113 Minutes

Director

Sydney Freeland

Writers

Sydney Freeland, Sterlin Harjo, Michael Powell

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Rez Ball is a unique piece of media. There are a lot of movies that focus on down-and-out sports teams overcoming seemingly impossible odds. Rez Ball is the only one that primarily takes place on Navajo lands about a high school basketball team made up of Navajo teens.

The Warriors lose their star player just as their basketball season begins. They have to find a way to stop blaming one another for the team’s mistakes and move on with their season without him. They bond by embracing their heritage, practicing the “old ways” as their assistant coach calls them. They also begin to show a united front by calling their plays in Navajo.

Amber Midthunder is a small part of a much larger ensemble. She is a female basketball player who can go toe-to-toe with the boys. She is also a teen mom with the father of her child playing for the boys’ team. She gives a portrait of what it is like to be a young woman growing up on a reservation in the modern day.

What Rez Ball does so well is blending the social issues so many experience on tribal lands (like the high numbers of alcoholism and suicide) with the uplifting drama of a teen sports movie. No character in the movie is a stereotype. While some might be more fleshed out than others, and Midthunder’s is one that does not get the spotlight often, all of the performers bring them to life with light and enthusiasm.

Rez Ball is available with Navajo subtitles on Netflix, a rarity for modern movies.

3

Roswell, New Mexico (2019-2022)

As Rosa Ortecho

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Roswell, New Mexico (2019)

Roswell, New Mexico

TV-14
Sci-FiDramaRomance

Release Date

2019 – 2021

Showrunner

Carina Adly MacKenzie

Writers

Carina Adly MacKenzie

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Roswell, New Mexico adapts the early 2000s young adult series of the same name. The source material was previously adapted as the WB series Roswell, but the 2019 show takes a slightly different approach, aging the characters up out of high school and bringing more modern social issues into the storyline to give the sci-fi a more realistic feel.

The story centers on Liz Ortecho (Jeanine Mason), who returns to her hometown of Roswell. She has a degree in biomedical engineering, undocumented parents, and still harbors a crush on the guy she was interested in while she was in high school. He happens to work at the sheriff’s office now and is actually an alien being. Liz’s world crosses with his and his friend and sister, who are also aliens.

Midthunder stars as Liz’s older sister. When the series begins, Rosa primarily appears in flashbacks, photographs, and dreams, and Midthunder recurs in the role. She was killed in a car accident, supposedly because of her own use of drugs, when she was in high school. As Liz discovers, however, that is not true, and the aliens actually have a connection to what happened to Rosa. When she is upped to a series regular in season 2, Midthunder gets to really explore the character.

Rosa has a healthy dose of teen angst and anger in her, which Midthunder gets to play with very well. She also gets the chance to play some horror-like scenes when it is revealed another alien has been obsessed with her. Midthunder gets her own coming-of-age story as the character – the one she has played the longest in her career so far – since Rosa is a teenage girl out of her own time and forced to grow up under unusual circumstances.

Roswell New Mexico Alex Michael And Maria

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Legion (2017-2019)

As Kerry Loudermilk

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Legion

TV-MA
Drama Sci-FiSupernaturalThriller

Release Date

2017 – 2018

Network

FX

Showrunner

Noah Hawley

Directors

Noah Hawley

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Legion is one of the most underrated Marvel television shows of recent years. It spun out of the FOX X-Men movies, but it does not rely on viewers having seen the movies or read the comics to understand it.

Legion centers on the mutant David Haller (Dan Stevens). David, diagnosed with schizophrenia as a kid, does not initially realize that he has a parasitic mutant using him or that he has mutant abilities himself. That mutant, known as the Shadow King, is the one responsible for some of the unexplained problems in his life. When David meets his “perfect woman” in a mental health facility, and she happens to be a mutant, his world starts to change. He learns of secret organizations and begins to battle the Shadow King.

Legion has been praised by critics as one of the most visually stunning of the Marvel shows because it relies on a lot of visual cues to make it clear that certain scenes are hallucinations or disorienting for the main character. That includes many of Midthunder’s scenes as she ends up trapped in nightmares and even in alternate realities.

Midthunder’s Kerry is a mutant who usually lives in the body of another mutant, Cary. They’ve been sharing the same body since birth but can separate at will. She only ages when emerging from his body. While Cary is more into research and the theories of being a mutant, Kerry is much more physical in her approach. This series allows Midthunder to be brash and less restrained than her other roles. She also gets to show of her fight skills since Midthunder has actually trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other martial arts.

Legion was nominated for two Saturn Awards and a Peabody Award during its run.

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Prey (2022)

As Naru

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Prey

R
HorrorDramaAction

Release Date

August 5, 2022

Runtime

1h 40m

Director

Dan Trachtenberg

Writers

Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg

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Though Prey premiered in 2022, two decades after Midthunder had her first credited acting role, it is considered her breakout role. Though she had leading roles in movies before it, no other movies made the same level of impact, turning Amber Midthunder into a household name as part of the Predator franchise.

Prey is a prequel to the original Predator movie, and Prey is also considered the best in the franchise since that first movie. The story is set in the 1700s in the Great Plains, centering on Naru and her Comanche tribe. While she is trained as a healer, she dreams of becoming a hunter like her brother and even joins hunting parties despite objections. On one trip, she finds a new animal, which she dubs Mupitsi after a Comanche story. Naru grows into the warrior she has dreamed of being because of her battle with Mupitsi.

Amber Midthunder was nominated for a Critics Choice Award and received a Breakthrough Performance Award from the Saturn Awards for Prey. She was also nominated for her work by several critics’ associations.

Prey is one of Midthunder’s most critically lauded works. It is undoubtedly her best movie so far. That it just so happens to be part of the Predator franchise is mostly an afterthought. She is fantastic in the role as someone who is both fierce and vulnerable, giving her all in every scene she is in. It’s really a character-driven tale of survival, and Amber Midthunder deserves all of the praise for carrying the movie’s narrative forward.