Nicole Kidman’s 10 Greatest Performances Ranked

Nicole Kidman is one of modern cinema’s great divas, a household name that is immediately recognizable and has quite the attraction power for audiences everywhere, even in an age when streaming services have left their undeniable impact on the movie-going experience. Born in Honolulu but raised mostly in Sydney, Kidman started her career in the Australian cinema industry in the Eighties.

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She made the definite move to Hollywood in 1990 when she starred alongside Tom Cruise in the sports drama Days of Thunder. From there, her career hasn’t shown signs of stopping. Throughout the years, as one of the industry’s top leading ladies, she has put together an enviable filmography filled with critical darlings, cult classics, and blockbuster successes, like her most recent work in Babygirl. Several of the titles in her filmography have also netted a considerable number of accolades, including five Oscar nominations, one of which resulted in a win, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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10

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Rebecca “Becca” Howard

Nicole Kidman’s performance in Rabbit Hole is one of the absolute best elements of this movie, directed by John Cameron Mitchell and based on the stage play of the same name by David Lindsay-Abaire, who also adapted it into a movie script. Kidman plays protagonist Becca, who, alongside her husband Howie, played by Aaron Eckhart, and her mother Nat, played by Dianne Wiest, goes through the terribly painful journey of grieving for her four-year-old son who tragically dies in a car accident.

Kidman’s performance as Becca is raw and moving, sitting with the audience long after the movie has ended. It earned her wide critical acclaim, even though it might not be one of the most famous ones of her career, as well as a nomination in all major awards for that season. That includes the Academy Awards, the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, the SAG Awards, and the Golden Globes Awards.

9

Dogville (2003)

Grace Margaret Mulligan

Dogville is quite the avant-garde movie, as one would expect from director Lars von Trier, with a dash of thriller undertones to make the plot that much more engaging. The story, divided into a prologue and nine chapters, follows Grace Mulligan, a woman who arrives in the titular town of Dogville, in Colorado, to hide from the mobsters that are hunting her. Her life, of course, soon becomes embroiled with that of Dogville’s citizens.

Dogville is almost stage-like in its set design, which is very minimal and relies heavily on its actors to truly convey all the emotions the story is meant to evoke.

Dogville is almost stage-like in its set design, which is very minimal and relies heavily on its actors to truly convey all the emotions the story is meant to evoke. Kidman definitely does so in her lead role as Grace in the year immediately after her first Oscar win, gaining universal praise even through the mixed reviews received by Dogville as a whole.

8

Lion (2016)

Sue Brierley

Lion earned Nicole Kidman yet another Academy Award nomination, the first in the Best Supporting Actress category and the fifth overall in her career so far—including the one that resulted in her bringing home the Oscar. The movie is based on the autobiography A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley and follows the fictional version of Saroo, played by Dev Patel, as he embarks on a journey to look for his birth family in India from which he was separated as a child.

Kidman stars as Saroo’s adoptive mother Sue, who adopted him when he was six years old and raised him in Tasmania. All throughout Saroo’s search for his family, Sue remains by his side even when emotions are running high. Kidman delivers a touching performance that perfectly accompanies the incredibly moving themes of the film, and her scenes with Patel are nothing short of brilliant.

7

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Alice Harford

Eyes Wide Shut is an absolute classic and the last of Stanley Kubrick’s works, released posthumously after the visionary director’s death in the first months of 1999. It’s based on a 1926 novella, Dream Story, by author Arthur Schnitzler, even though it moves events that originally happened in Vienna to New York City. Nicole Kidman stars alongside her then-husband Tom Cruise, the two of them playing married couple Bill and Alice Harford.

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The Harfords’ seemingly tranquil family life is shattered when Alice reveals that she had contemplated having an affair. From there, the movie devolves into an exploration of the couple’s desires and boundaries. Kidman’s performance as Alice, at times both vulnerable and cruel, exploring her deepest wants in a way that is not dissimilar to her most recent work in Babygirl, is a gem in an overall brilliant movie that is undoubtedly a masterpiece.

6

The Others (2001)

Grace Stewart

Truly great actors have no problems when it comes to showing their acting chops in every genre, and Nicole Kidman definitely proved she can also do more than convincing horror with her role in The Others, a Gothic tale written and directed by Chilean-Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar. Kidman stars as the main character Grace Stewart, a mother living on the island of Jersey in 1945 with her two young children, both of whom are sensitive to light.

Grace keeps the house dark at all times because of her children’s sensitivities, and in that darkness, she begins to be haunted by visions of supernatural entities that clash with her strict Catholic faith. The Others then breathlessly hurries towards its surprising finale. Kidman’s role in The Others was her second great performance of 2001, alongside the one that netted her the first Oscar nomination of her career—a true feat of acting ability, since the two roles couldn’t be more different.

5

Birth (2004)

Anna

Birth, directed by Jonathan Glazer, is an intense psychological drama that allows Nicole Kidman to truly stretch her acting muscles as main character Anna. The story follows her as she navigates life 10 years after her husband Sean’s sudden death, accepting a marriage proposal from her new fiancé, Joseph. Her life is thrown into disarray, however, when a young boy tells her he is the reincarnated version of her husband and suggests to her not to marry again.

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Birth is an intense psychological drama that allows Nicole Kidman to truly stretch her acting muscles.

Kidman’s performance is intense and engaging, and it truly serves as the main emotional lifeline of a movie that could otherwise potentially be confusing. Her performance, however, helps uplift Birth’s ethereal tone and make it the jewel that it is, so much so that it earned her a nomination at the Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

4

The Beguiled (2017)

Miss Martha Farnsworth

The Beguiled is the second adaptation of author Thomas P. Cullinan’s 1966 novel of the same name. The first adaptation was directed by Don Siegel in 1971, while this second one sees Sofia Coppola in the director’s chair—to great critical acclaim, since she won the Palme d’Or for her work on The Beguiled at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Nicole Kidman stars as Martha Farnsworth, the headmistress of a girls’ school in Virginia during the American Civil War. She has remained at the school together with a few of her students and teachers, but the women’s secluded lives are thrown into chaos when they take in injured Union Army corporal John McBurney. Kidman leads the almost all-female cast in a beautifully haunting Southern Gothic tale with deep undercurrents of desire that make The Beguiled an incredibly engaging watch.

3

Big Little Lies (2017-2019)

Celeste Wright

While Nicole Kidman’s career has been mostly in cinema, her work on television is also praise-worthy and yet another testament to her great acting talent. That is particularly true for her role as Celeste Wright in Big Little Lies, whose two seasons—even though a third one should be in development, as hinted at by Kidman herself—have received praise and accolades left and right and have garnered quite a dedicated fanbase.

Kidman stars as a relatively normal wife and mother in Monterey, California, who becomes involved in a homicide investigation alongside four of her neighbors, played by Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz. Kidman perfectly sells the role of a woman embroiled in something much bigger than her, so much so that her work on Big Little Lies netted her both a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a SAG Award among several others.

2

The Hours (2002)

Virginia Woolf

The Hours is based on Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel of the same name. The story develops over three different timelines, following the lives of three women, all connected in some way or another by Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. Kidman stars as Woolf herself, who has just settled down to writing said novel in the Twenties in London. The movie follows Woolf’s life, her history with mental illness, and her creative process all the way to her suicide in 1941.

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Kidman’s appearance is considerably different in The Hours, since she wears prosthetic make-up to resemble Virginia Woolf as closely as possible. Her performance truly shines, making it one of her most beloved and well-known roles, and also the one that gained her the first Academy Award of her career. She won in the Best Actress category at the 75th Academy Awards, bringing home also the only award won by The Hours as a whole.

1

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Satine

While Nicole Kidman’s work in Moulin Rouge! brought her “only” her first Academy Award nominee, her role as Satine in Baz Luhrmann’s jukebox musical extravaganza is undoubtedly her most iconic one and the one she is most widely known for. While the role initially worried Kidman, particularly because of the singing involved, she truly mastered it in the end with a performance that has by now gained a cult classic status and that has also spawned a Broadway musical inspired by the movie.

The story of Moulin Rouge! follows young idealistic poet Christian, played by Ewan McGregor, as he falls in love with the most famous courtesan of Paris’s notorious Moulin Rouge, Satine. The plot continues to be somewhat inspired by Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata, with the two falling in love but having to conceal it so that they don’t anger Satine’s wealthy patron, the Duke. Moulin Rouge!’s tragic ending also helped it gain a permanent spot in the hearts of audiences everywhere and become one of Baz Luhrmann’s and Nicole Kidman’s most famous movies.

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Moulin Rouge!

PG-13
MusicalDramaRomance

Release Date

June 1, 2001

Runtime

127 Minutes

Director

Baz Luhrmann

Writers

Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce

Cast

Nicole Kidman
Ewan McGregor
John Leguizamo
See All Cast & Crew

Moulin Rouge! follows Christian, a young writer in Paris, who falls in love with Satine, the star courtesan of the Moulin Rouge cabaret. As they begin a passionate affair, they must hide their love from the jealous Duke, who is funding Satine’s next show.

Main Genre

Musical

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Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment

10 Rabbit Hole (2010)

Rebecca “Becca” Howard

9 Dogville (2003)