Nicole Kidman’s 30 Best Film and TV Performances, Ranked
[Editor’s note: this list was originally published in April 2024. It has since been updated with new performances from Kidman.]
Nicole Kidman is the rare actress in the 21st century who, like the stars of Hollywood’s golden years, doesn’t disappear into roles so much as elevate films by her mere presence.
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She’s certainly swung big at mainstream blockbusters (think: the “Aquaman” films) that might feel out of her step with her character-driven work elsewhere (like most of the films on the list that follows). But that’s because the Australian icon is unafraid of any role, whether stripping down her post-Oscar, A-lister veneer to film Lars von Trier’s Brechtian “Dogville” in Sweden, slipping into a bathtub with the 10-year-old possible reincarnation of her dead husband in Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth,” or, yes, donning a fake nose to play a suicidal Virginia Woolf for her Oscar-winning turn in “The Hours.”
On April 27 in Los Angeles, Nicole Kidman received the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award, joining the ranks of Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Julie Andrews, Diane Keaton, Morgan Freeman, Shirley MacLaine, Alfred Hitchcock, and Mike Nichols. She’s the first Australian to take the prestigious honor, and certainly one of the youngest recipients. But Kidman has beyond proven herself in recent years with a steady stream of projects on screens big and small. And don’t forget her beloved AMC ads, which have now made her into a theater-championing icon.
Surely, the five-time Oscar nominee (most recently as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos”) has one of the most tireless work ethics of any screen star. She most recently wowed on Amazon Prime Video with her performance as a wealthy American expatriate in Hong Kong looking for her missing son in “Expats.” She’s soon back on screens in A24’s “Babygirl” as a corporate CEO embroiled in an affair with a much younger charge. And she has at least four more movies in post-production right now, often shepherding them through her production company Blossom Films. Kidman figured out the only way to get women’s roles right onscreen was to make them for herself, and set a standard for up-and-comers after her.
Below, in honor of Kidman’s AFI tribute, IndieWire picks 30 (30! and that hardly scratches the surface!) of her best film and TV roles and ranks them.
Samantha Bergeson, Christian Blauvelt, Wilson Chapman, Kate Erbland, Jim Hemphill, Mark Peikert, Sarah Shachat, Erin Strecker, and Ben Travers contributed to this story.
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