From Get Out to Nope, Jordan Peele's three horror films are filled with great performances, with each actor delivering career-defining work.

Jordan Peele's  Nope  has finally been released in theaters and already racked up $44 million at the domestic box office, becoming his best-performing film since  Us . Of course, Peele's third film featured many of his trademarks that fans have come to love, especially wildly entertaining horror/thrillers with strong social themes and occasionally comedic moments. 

As was true for  Get Out  and  Us ,  Nope  features top-notch performances from its main cast, including Peele's frequent collaborator, Daniel Kaluuya. From Keke Palmer to Lil Rel Howery, Peele's films have manifested strong and memorable performances from the cast, whether the comedic relief or horror facets. 

Following his Oscar-nominated performance in Minari, Steven Yeun appeared in Nope as Ricky "Jupe" Park, a former child actor who runs an amusement park years later. Park survived a brutal incident on a sitcom set, in which the show's chimpanzee lost control and terrorized the actors during filming.

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Yeun imbues his character with a combination of showmanship and greed. Park profits off of his own harrowing experience and continues to abuse animals at his park for his own personal gain. Yeun's performance, however, is far more subtle than sinister. Rather than playing a caricature, Steven Yeun opts for a more nuanced desperation in his performance.

The actors in Peele's haunting second motion picture, Us, were required to play two characters: their main role and the "tethered" one from underground - the latter which leads a parallel life to the central role. Winston Duke rose to the challenge, playing the patriarch of the Wilson family and his other tethered half.

Duke tends to provide some of the only comic relief in Us, while never running away from the sheer terror of the circumstances when the tethered family arrives at the Wilson's vacation home. Duke provides a fierce fatherly protection in his main role, while managing to also give the doppelgänger of himself an explosive rage.

Primarily known for her characters in Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale, Elisabeth Moss has delivered memorable characters on television for decades. Much of the success of The Handmaid's Tale hinges on Moss's powerful performance, and she equally translated her finesse for sheer terror in Us.

As the obnoxious Kitty in the real world, Moss brings an engaging jaded presence to her character, but when the tethered version of Kitty appears, Moss really shines. She is a natural at horror, and people can never forget the powerfully bizarre moment where her tethered character suddenly switches from hysterical crying to maniacal laughter.

One of the primary villains in Get Out is Missy Armitage, Rose's mysterious mother who is played with a quiet, sinister presence by Academy Award nominee, Catherine Keener. Keener, best known for her comedic work in Being John Malkovich, is anything but funny in this film.

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What Keener does best in Get Out is bring a steely intensity to the role. In a memorable scene, Missy hypnotizes the protagonist Chris by carefully stirring her tea. By the end of the scene, Keener orders Chris in the most matter-of-fact way to "sink into the floor," thereby sending him (and introducing the audience) to the Sunken Place.

Allison Williams as Rose Armitage was so tongue-in-cheek in its self-awareness that it deserves praise in and of itself. The actress made a name for herself by starring as the privileged and complicated Marnie in the HBO series Girls.

Williams brings believability to Rose's ignorance about her family's strange habits in the first half of the film. By the midpoint, however, she reveals her true colors as one of the evil masterminds behind Chris's undoing. Although Jordan Peele foreshadows this twist throughout the film, Williams masters this shocking moment and proves to be more than adept at the "going against" type.

Perhaps the greatest source of comedic relief out of all three Jordan Peele movies belongs to Lil Rel Howery, who plays Chris's skeptical and hilarious friend/TSA agent Rod. At times, Howery is a voice of reason for Chris; at others, he is a surrogate for the audience, piecing together the mystery of what has happened to his friend.

The audience ultimately roots for Howery almost as much as they root for Chris, which is a surefire sign of a crowd-pleasing supporting turn. Even when Rod is not believed by the police, his tenacity and refusal to give up becomes instrumental to Chris's survival at the end of the film. In a film full of despicable characters, Lil Rel Howery gave the audience someone to embrace.

Betty Gabriel is undoubtedly one of the unsung heroes of Get Out. Her performance as the Armitage family's housekeeper Georgina is actually a dual role, as she is later revealed to really be Rose's deceased grandmother.

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Gabriel's sudden appearances throughout the film provide some of the biggest thrills in Get Out. However, her most memorable moment - and one that demonstrates her impressive range - is the suspended beat in her private scene with Chris. The audiences get a glimpse at the real Georgina, independent of the Armitage grandmother controlling her mind before the latter takes over once more.

Having been in the film industry since she was a child,  Nope  will easily become  Keke Palmer's best movie  due to her portrayal of Emerald Haywood.  Nope  is also a considerable departure for Palmer as an actress, with a character diametrically opposed to her breakout role in  Akeelah and the Bee .

As Emerald, Palmer is magnetic and charismatic from the moment she steps on screen, delivering a speech about animal safety on a film set. There is an unmistakably unique energy that radiates throughout her performance, whether it is in more thrilling sequences like the climactic beats in the film or during small moments of joy, such as when she dances with abandon to a record.

Jordan Peele has clearly stated that Daniel Kaluuya is his "favorite actor in the world," per Variety. The Oscar-winning actor has worked with Peele twice: first, in Get Out as Chris Washington, a young black man in an interracial relationship who is subjected to horror by her racist family; second, in Nope, as OJ Haywood, a horse wrangler on film sets.

These two performances exemplify Kaluuya's range as a performer. In Get Out, he carries the film with leading man star power and charisma, whereas, in Nope, Kaluuya imbues OJ with quiet stoicism. Both feats are difficult to achieve, and the fact that Kaluuya is able to mold himself as an actor according to what Peele needs is a sign that he can be transformative and grounded.

Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o exploded onto the film scene with her tragic portrayal of Patsey in 12 Years a Slave. Since then, she has managed to pivot, from action films like Black Panther and the Star Wars universe to a Tony-nominated Broadway debut. However, Us was perhaps her greatest acting challenge so far.

Not only did Nyong'o have to play two characters, as did the majority of the cast of  Us , but she also had to carry the film, fight against herself in a thrilling climactic sequence, and infuse her performance with a mysterious quality that would allow for multiple interpretations. Per an interview with  The Hollywood Reporter ,  Nyong'o commented on how she needed to make these two characters both distinct and, ultimately, connected at the same time.

NEXT: Opening Scene And Every Title Card From Nope, Explained

Ben Weiss is a New York-based writer, who received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts as well as a BA from Northwestern University. He is an accomplished screenwriter and comedy writer, currently writing political sketch comedy for "Puppet Regime" on PBS. Ben has been passionate about awards shows and Nicole Kidman since he was a child.