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Every Julia Roberts Performance, Ranked

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Julia Roberts co-stars in Wonder, which opens this week. Simply Wonder isn't really a Julia Roberts Movie, and that'southward still a weird concept to grasp for some u.s.a.. For many who came of age in the 1990s, Julia Roberts was more than a movie star; she was an existential fact. From her star-making turn in Pretty Woman in 1990 through the early 2000s (when she took a step dorsum from her whirlwind career to kickoff a family), she was a dominant cultural force. Fifty-fifty when she failed — equally in that cursory period in the mid-1990s when she attempted more ostensibly serious fare — somehow we all felt embroiled in the fate of career.

The all-consuming totality of the Julia Roberts miracle was well-earned. Moving-picture show stars might have talent and range, but that's not what makes them stars; what makes them stars is, ironically, a limitation: The one (or sometimes two) things everyone knows them for, the qualities that define their presence. And Julia Roberts has (has – she still does) more presence than about big actors combined. Information technology'southward a presence that encompasses her smile and her express joy (of course), but also her quick-witted delivery, and her warmth — the sense that there'due south a real, caring human existence up there on the screen.

Just presence tin exist a double-edged sword, too. Julia Roberts somewhen proved to be one of the finest performers of her generation, but she never could quite escape beingness Julia Roberts. Hence, the awesome number of films in which she's asked to riff on variations of her own persona — a subgenre (or is information technology a sub-subgenre?) nosotros could call Julia Roberts Plays Herself.

Anyway, it's a slap-up filmography — amend than many would take anticipated. Here are all of Julia Roberts's performances, ranked.

Thud. Outfitted with a gruesome pageboy wig, Roberts plays a famous Home Shopping Network guru seemingly admired by everyone in this remorselessly dumb ensemble comedy about a cross-section of Atlanta moms — a shallow, offensive follow-up to manager Garry Marshall's only marginally less shallow and offensive Valentine's Mean solar day and New Twelvemonth'due south Eve films. Presumably, Roberts made this one (and Valentine's Twenty-four hour period) as a favor to the late Marshall, who after all directed her in Pretty Woman, the moving picture that fabricated her a star. Either that, or he had some dirt on her …

… Like, serious dirt. At the time, Garry Marshall's star-studded roundelay of couples and non-couples making their way through Valentine'south Day was compared to Love, Really, which had a similarly intercutting, multicharacter construction. But before long information technology became clear that Marshall had a whole franchise in mind, with more of these vacation-romance cluster bombs on the way. Roberts gets one of the more interesting just less adult characters hither, as a soldier on leave seated next to Bradley Cooper on an airplane. What is interesting are the film's many references to Pretty Woman – interesting, but also distressing.

Roberts gets almost no dialogue and precious little screen time in this hilariously over-the-summit epic almost Sicilian immigrants in America — starring her blood brother, Eric, who was a much bigger star at the time. She smiles, she broods, she dances. Fabricated at the very beginning of her career (it wouldn't exist released for several years), this is a far cry from the actress nosotros'd get to know in after films. She pretty much completely disappears into the groundwork.

Hey, isn't it cool how these ranked countdowns of great performers' careers e'er start out with a deluge of amazingly bad movies? This awkward family drama, somehow both simplistic and convoluted, was recut for U.S. release, though apparently the earlier version wasn't whatever meliorate. Ryan Reynolds plays a author who comes dwelling house for his mom'due south (Roberts) belated graduation, but to wind up having to deal with the tragedy of her expiry in a motorcar blow. Memories are unearthed, resentments are shared, emotions are felt — and very petty of it rings true. Roberts doesn't get to practise much, simply when she's onscreen, she mostly just plays a one-note portrait of a caring mother. We're constantly reminded that she'southward being thoroughly wasted.

This dreadful, family-friendly underdog story nearly a young widow, her kids, and their prize steer was shot past Roberts's husband Danny Moder and co-stars her niece Emma Roberts, which may explicate why Julia shows upward very briefly equally a pregnant ticket-taker at a livestock bear witness and exchanges something like four brief lines of dialogue with the leads. She'south in that location to exist a familiar face and to lend the movie some credibility — you can see pretty much half her functioning in the film'south trailer — but her brief, winning appearance serves more than to remind you of how lacking the flick is.

Expect, a movie about an all-girl band (well, an all-girl-and-one-guy band) starring Justine Bateman, Liam Neeson, Trini Alvarado, and Julia Roberts should have been way, way better than this. But this mess, almost a garage band that starts to run across a hint of success and is immediately torn autonomously by the usual rock-movie clichés, never really gets going. As the band'south patrician, political party-animal bassist, however, Roberts is quite lively, though her subplot takes a backseat to the motion-picture show's other story lines.

It pains me tremendously to say that a Neil Jordan moving-picture show contains 1 of Julia Roberts'southward worst performances, but one must never flee from the truth. The legendary author-manager'southward ambitious epic nearly the life and career of the Irish gaelic revolutionary and political leader is overbaked to an near comical degree: Everybody shouts and gestures and runs effectually like they're worried the audition might go bored if they ho-hum down. As Kitty Kiernan, the woman loved past both Liam Neeson'south Collins and Aidan Quinn's Harry Boland, Roberts seems adrift: Everybody overacts, while she underacts — as if she understands the value of restraint only hasn't yet figured out how all-time to exercise it. Also, she attempts yet some other Irish accent, and fails yet again. At to the lowest degree she was given some things to do in Mary Reilly.

Subsequently his umpteenth comeback, manager Robert Altman almost immediately ruined his career over again with this tepid, unwieldy multicharacter satire of the manner world. Roberts and Tim Robbins play American journalists in Paris who lose their luggage and bicker over a hotel room and then wind up in bed together. They don't really do much else, nor do they seem to have any chemistry. One wonders what exactly their story is even doing in this film, aside from helping secure financing.

This largely dreadful comedy had Billy Crystal as a PR flack trying to manage the fallout from megastars Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack's high-profile breakup, while trying to promote their disastrous upcoming film. But it was really almost Zeta-Jones'south much-trod-upon, confidence-defective wallflower sister Julia Roberts coming into her own. So you can sort of see the problem here. Julia Roberts doesn't really take a backseat to anybody — not in 2001, at any rate. She'southward charming, to exist sure, but it'due south difficult to buy the motion picture's conceit that she'southward always been the disregarded sister.

Sorry, revisionists — this is not a good moving picture. It's annoyingly stylized hokum from Joel Schumacher, about a group of med students who allow themselves "flatline" and and so are brought back to life, all in an effort to empathise the nature of death. Or something. True, information technology's cocky-aware enough to allow its cast to plough their performances upwards to eleven, but it nevertheless doesn't work; it wants to be elegant trash, but in truth it's just trashy trash. As the more earnest of the group of med students who impale themselves for science and sport, Roberts actually makes it out okay from the cinematic wreckage — she has a no-nonsense sweetness that serves her well.

Roberts and Nick Nolte famously did not go along on the set of this Nancy Meyers–scripted romantic one-act virtually rival Chicago reporters who are forced together while uncovering a sinister bovine hormone conspiracy (no, really). Their offscreen tension makes it onscreen, which actually works sometimes — specifically, in those moments when Roberts'south dogged cub reporter is weirded out past (the fantastically miscast) Nolte's weathered and womanizing newspaper veteran. But she can only do then much, and the unwieldy and overlong film eventually loses any inspiration or energy information technology might have in one case had equally it lumbers to its belabored decision.

Made at the height of her fame, this attempt at more dramatic material – the Jekyll-and-Hyde tale told from the perspective of the skillful doctor'southward Irish maid, who begins to discover his undercover — almost killed Roberts'south career. Stephen Frears's Gothic drama is, to be fair, rather watchable — atmospheric and melancholic, with John Malkovich clearly getting a kicking out of chewing whatsoever and all available scenery. And Roberts isn't bad, actually: Her character's queasiness and fear comes through vividly. She just has a terrible emphasis, and the moving-picture show does her very few favors by making her character and then passive. Funny how this was considered "serious" while something similar Steel Magnolias was not.

This shameless Joel Schumacher (him again) tearjerker might have started out as a story about a man with leukemia, just it sort of becomes Pretty Woman all over again — as young, recently separated and vibrantly attired Julia Roberts finds herself answering an ad to assistance take care of a very ill, very rich Campbell Scott. He's given up on life, just with her around, he starts to fall in beloved — and so, then does she. Equally is his wont, Schumacher leans into the emotional manipulation — heaven forbid the man should e'er restrain himself — which actually undercuts the emotions on display. But Roberts does bring sensitivity and range to her part, as she goes from repulsion to attraction to heartbreak to endurance.

Sporting a rare pixie-cut (what else?), Roberts brought an most pathological joviality to tiny, glowing Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg's star-studded, much-reviled sequel to Peter Pan. Which might have been annoying, were it non for the fact that her devotion to Peter (now all grown-up and played by Robin Williams) felt so full. Hook is a strange film – bloated, to exist sure, only also filled with lots of emotional dynamite that'due south clearly coming from a very personal place for the managing director. In the moments when she connects with the flick's pathos, Roberts'southward cheerful fairy is quite affecting.

Mike Nichols's precise, dank adaptation of Patrick Marber'due south savagely spinous play about two men and 2 women who engage in an elaborate series of meet-cutes and infidelities doesn't look, at first, like Julia Roberts material: What would her buoyant energy do with Marber'southward combination of fell efficiency and philosophical reflection? So how odd that she comes off better than some of her esteemed co-stars (Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen – the latter 2 were nominated for Oscars), largely by underplaying her part. Through her restraint, Roberts provokes in us some semblance of empathy for her graphic symbol – in a motion-picture show where everyone else is basically monstrous.

Possibly because she achieved such massive fame at a relatively young age, and so perfectly embodied the ideal ideal of a Movie Star, Julia Roberts has made a rather shocking number of films in which she appears as a meta-textual variation on herself. Several of these films are directed by Steven Soderbergh. In this digital-video-shot, largely improvised, no-upkeep ensemble lark, the director demanded (amongst other things) that his star-studded cast have fun. Did they, though? Roberts pokes sly fun at her image, playing an actress playing in a movie about journalists who autumn in love while pursuing a conspiracy (which itself is a riff on her role in The Pelican Cursory), simply the movie's drab expect and frantic energies make it feel like a fleck of a chore.

In Jodie Foster's satire-cum-thriller, George Clooney plays a Jim Cramer-ish Goggle box finance guru whose bullish promotion of one stock has led drastic prole Jack O'Connell to lose his life savings, leading to a hostage collision in the Tv studio. Roberts plays Clooney's producer, stuck in the product berth making life or death decisions and trying to save her beleaguered host. The movie'south tone is all over the place, only Roberts and Clooney'due south chemistry helps ground it; their low-key banter eventually leads to tenser and tenser exchanges. The dialogue is predictable, simply the duo get in convincing.

This computing, frightful rom-com reunited the principals of Pretty Woman — Roberts, Richard Gere, and manager Garry Marshall — and scored a huge box-part success, but information technology leaves a sour aftertaste. Roberts is a woman who keeps leaving men at the altar, Gere is the cynical, know-information technology-all journalist who "figures her out," as information technology were — right equally they fall for each other. It's a screwball concept given a soft-focus treatment, with an even-more than-predictable-than-usual plot and very little graphic symbol shading. Gone, besides, is the volcanic chemistry the ii stars had in Pretty Woman. Somehow, though, Roberts manages to exist her usual likable self in the flick, which probably helps account for its success. Maybe this is a Julia Roberts Plays Herself movie in embryonic form; she conspicuously identified with elements of this character.

In the wake of a messy divorce, a writer wanders the world in search of meaning and passion in this loose adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's popular memoir. Interesting casting, to be sure: Though in no way anything like Gilbert, Roberts was one of the few stars big enough to get a project like this off the ground. But the movie requires her to be very much non the center of attention and to focus on the people effectually her. Despite the fact that she seems to be searching for herself, this characters is a listener, and so Roberts cedes the spotlight to her co-stars — especially James Franco, Richard Jenkins, and Javier Bardem. The movie doesn't really state emotionally — it feels more like a mediocre TV series — but the actress's generous operation leads to moments of occasional sincerity.

Woody Allen in one case made an honest-to-god musical, and it was really pretty good — with the awkwardly performed (on purpose) songs lending a pleasantly Brechtian quality to the largely plotless multicharacter romance. Roberts plays an unhappy American in Venice who is wooed by depressed, divorced, and done-with-love Allen in a variety of vaguely dishonest ways. Of course, every bit with many Woody Allen scenarios, what in one case seemed lite every bit a plumage at present feels a little creepy. But Roberts is certainly radiant, even if she'south not chosen on to practise all that much.

Hot take: Though acclaimed, this flick is basically terrible — a shrill but too lifeless variant of Tracy Letts's extraordinary play about a dysfunctional family reunited nether tragic circumstances. And one of the reasons the moving-picture show doesn't succeed is Meryl Streep's grotesque performance as the filterless, domineering matriarch. Roberts plays her daughter — always at odds with mom but likewise coming to realize that she'southward turning into her in certain ways. And as she is in then many other not-very-good films, Roberts is a jiff of fresh air — without an attachment to the stage, she'southward able to bring a dose of naturalism to her part, which helps get us on her side. (Perchance that's why she was nominated for an Oscar. Merely then once more, so was Streep.)

Roberts is accordingly mysterious and alluring — merely nevertheless in a very Julia Roberts way — playing a shady agent in this demented biopic about The Gong Prove host Chuck Barris and his purported side gig as a CIA assassin. As written by Charlie Kaufman and directed past George Clooney, the film is a tight little, wink-flash puzzle box of metaphor and shifting realities, which can constrain the performers sometimes; they don't really await like they're enjoying themselves, merely mayhap that'southward the bespeak. But Roberts eases into her back up role — she'due south one-dimensional on purpose, her very presence given a postmodern kick by the fact that she is, after all, Julia Roberts. (Here we get again.)

Near the end of Robert Altman'southward savage showbiz satire, Roberts appears briefly as herself, playing a part in a movie-within-a-movie near a woman on decease row. Information technology seems like a nothing role, simply it's actually crucial to the film's vision of the manufacture as a identify where the noblest of purposes is flattened and rendered superficial by the demands of ego and profit: The film the characters are watching is meant to exist compromised because it now has Julia Roberts in it. Is this the beginning of the Julia Roberts Plays Herself subgenre? At the very least, this was one of the kickoff signs that the actress would be a good sport about all this. Her willingness to undercut her prototype is refreshing — especially because this was correct around the time that she was looking to branch out into more serious roles.

There'southward decent chemistry between Roberts and Mel Gibson in this schlocky but slick paranoid thriller. He'due south a crackpot New York cabbie who spends much of his time spinning elaborate and unlikely theories about everything under the sun; she's the Justice Department lawyer who he's smitten with, and who keeps rejecting his attempts to relay his ideas to her. Needless to say, they wind up in the heart of a full-fledged, murderous conspiracy, which is sort of a dream come up true for him. This is a pure movie star vehicle. Gibson makes for an constructive motormouthed crazy person — this was earlier the world realized that he basically was one — and Roberts is elegant and sensitive and beautiful in all the usual Hollywoodized means.

In this Tom Hanks–directed comedy-drama about a middle-aged homo (Tom Hanks) whose life is upended when he's laid off from his honey chore at a Walmart-style megastore and enrolls in community higher, Roberts plays a perpetually unhappy (and vaguely alcoholic) teacher. Her course is "The Art of Informal Remarks" — something that speaks to the modesty of the characters and their milieu — and she and he are sort of meant to be together, even though she's married to a rather gross Bryan Cranston. The romance is pointless, the film overlong and unfocused — but it's really quite entertaining to watch Julia Roberts play someone who is constantly pissed at the world. "Watch her face equally she enters her first form and sees nine — not the state-mandated minimum of x — students," wrote David Edelstein at the time. "It's the relief of a sourpuss who truly would rather not deal with other homo beings, especially in the forenoon with a hangover."

As a brilliant constabulary-schoolhouse student who accidentally discovers a huge government conspiracy, Roberts has to play a character who slowly comes to sympathise her unsafe predicament in Alan J. Pakula's film version of John Grisham's hit legal thriller. It'due south a relatively absorbing suspense drama — and the actress deserves credit for keeping us interested, since the plot itself is quite convoluted. But the highlight hither is Roberts'due south chemistry with Denzel Washington, playing a cynical D.C. reporter who takes an involvement in her story, and finds himself slowly condign enamored with her.

Brad Pitt is a klutzy errand boy for the mob sent to Mexico to think a priceless pistol with a magical backstory; Julia Roberts is his long-suffering girlfriend who angrily dumps him upon hearing the news. Gore Verbinski's strange activeness comedy romance follows their seemingly opposing trajectories: Pitt has a mythical, twisty-turny journey south of the edge, while she hooks up with sensitive striking man James Gandolfini and goes from vengeful ex to communicative, introspective soul. Gandolfini gets the best moments in the moving-picture show, and Roberts'due south interactions are marked by her openness. Meanwhile, the romance stuff is largely idiotic: She and Pitt are presumably kept apart for most of the movie so they tin be emotionally reunited, but their chemistry is negligible; they should take stayed separated. In fact, the whole movie should have just been nearly Roberts and Gandolfini.

It near goes without saying that Roberts brings plenty of sensitivity to her office as the devoted mother of a 10-year-old with craniofacial disorder; there'd be no point for her to do this family picture otherwise. But what makes this performance special are the added notes of fearfulness and impatience and distractedness that she layers on top of that. Her graphic symbol is dedicated to her son — to a fault. She doesn't meet the other problems growing around her. It's a very thoughtful and true delineation of how one'south life can exist consumed by being a parent, and of the difficulties of letting go. The actress manages to pull this off with subtlety and grace in a movie that could accept hands gone directly for the emotional jugular.

This drama — a remake of an Oscar-winning Argentine film — flopped mightily upon release, but Roberts was quite compelling in it. She plays a Los Angeles DA investigator whose teenage daughter is raped and killed, and whose desire for revenge fuels much of the story. The plot really focuses on the efforts of fellow investigator Chiwetel Ejiofor'due south pursuit of the culprit, and of his affection for assistant DA Nicole Kidman. But the grief Roberts brings to her part is almost unspeakably raw — which is critical for understanding some of the directions the motion picture somewhen takes.

Steven Soderbergh's informal, nonsensical follow-up to his 2001 heist hit might be the all-time of the Ocean'due south trilogy, thanks in part to the fact that it takes itself even less seriously than the other two films. And Roberts embodies the film's nutty playfulness in the unforgettable scene where she goes into a museum posing every bit Julia Roberts, and is promptly recognized past Bruce Willis (playing himself). She doesn't have to practise all that much acting, of form — but her appearance in this movie offers a fine new twist in her ongoing deconstruction of her ain glory.

The principal allure in this riff on the Snow White fable is director Tarsem Singh's first-class knack for surreal, centre-popping imagery; every frame of this fantasy adventure is stunning. Only Julia Roberts, playing the Evil Queen, also has a lot to do with that: She looks fantastic in costume genius Eiko Ishioka'southward out-of-this-world designs, and she clearly relishes the over-the-tiptop nature of her graphic symbol. This is a office that calls for a existent motion picture star: Someone who can totally command the screen while also having fun with the Queen'due south desperate attempts to preserve her beauty. Resolved: Julia Roberts should play villains more often.

Fleeing from her abusive, control-freak hubby Patrick Bergin, Roberts fakes her death in a boating blow and heads to the heartland, where she tries to rebuild her life and keep a low profile, hoping he doesn't find her ruse and track her down. This was seen as a chip of star-vehicle shlock at the time — reviews were apathetic, just box-office was gilded, cementing Roberts's infallibility every bit a draw — only rewatching it now, I'k struck by how effectively and poignantly Roberts conveys her character's trauma and inability to motion on. (This comes through particularly in the sequences when she responds to the largely harmless, but weirdly triggering, advances of a potential new suitor.) The movie is a predictable genre piece — with a doozy of an ending — merely Roberts is so haunted throughout that she gives it complication and nuance.

At the fourth dimension, this film was marketed as a kind of modern-day one-act of remarriage, in which on-the-outs small-town hubby-and-wife Dennis Quaid and Roberts got back together. Just it'south actually a far darker picture than that. Await beyond some of its more than zany contrivances (after discovering her husband'south affair, Roberts lays blank the whole town'southward hypocrisy and infidelity at a women'southward league coming together) and you see a motion picture about the difficulty of rebuilding trust, and the ways in which domesticity can thwart women's dreams. The plot is a little all over the place — it'southward a comedy! a drama! a romance! an anti-romance! a melodrama! with horse-racing! — but Roberts touchingly conveys the film'due south many moods.

Susan Sarandon got much of the acclaim for this sentimental drama about a divorced mother whose rivalry with ex-husband Ed Harris'southward younger new girlfriend begins to change when she discovers she'south dying of cancer. Both actresses are terrific — bringing depth to the film's high-concept logline — and Sarandon does arguably have the showier function, every bit the older woman who doesn't think this young, fabled creature is worthy of taking care of her children. Simply await closer and you lot realize Roberts has to practise and so much more: She's a confident and loftier-powered professional lensman who finds herself at an utter loss when trying just to be a mom to these kids, and the actress balances these extremes beautifully. And she gets the motion picture's true emotional highpoint, with a speech at the end about all the things she fears about her future equally a stepmom.

Steven Soderbergh's revamp of the infamous Rat Pack offense caper is far more assured than the original, which was purely a goofy lark; here, at that place's really some intendance given to things like grapheme motivation and the dynamics of the primal Vegas heist. Simply it's still bubbly and delightful, and one of its true pleasures is the wonderfully biting and fast-paced repartee between ex-con and super-thief Danny Body of water (George Clooney) and his ex-wife Tess (Roberts), who now appears to be going with his main nemesis (Andy Garcia). Many movies might seek to judge a character like Roberts'south. In this i, she gives equally practiced every bit she gets — she's able to pierce Bounding main'south armor of cool better than anyone else — and she's a joy to watch.

Much dismissed at the time as an inferior, female person version of Dead Poets Guild, Mike Newell's period drama almost an inspirational, free-spirited fine art teacher (Roberts) trying to convince a group of Wellesley students that in that location's more to life than spousal relationship has aged a lot better than you'd expect. Roberts is admirably restrained throughout, giving a sense of tedious-boiling frustration at the administration and the lodge around her, simply her operation is as well filled with love and concern for the young women around her — even for the marvelously caustic Kirsten Dunst, playing a bourgeois educatee perpetually at odds with our heroine. The cast of then-stars and future-stars (Dominic W! John Slattery!) is also quite something. The critical and financial disappointment of this film in 2003 seemed, at the time, similar a dagger in the heart of Roberts's career: She had been paid a and so-astronomical $25 one thousand thousand for it. Yeah, the flick is predictable and "rubber" in all the usual means, but frankly, it deserved meliorate.

In this enchanting romantic comedy about three waitresses at a pizza shop in Mystic looking for love, Roberts plays the sassy, fun-loving one who falls for a wealthy blue claret, played by Adam Storke. (The other two girls are played by Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor.) Her vitality contrasts interestingly with his reserve — which could make for prissy chemical science, just instead results in united states largely ignoring him and focusing our attentions on her. Of class, that's partly the entreatment of this movie: The men wind up disappearing into the groundwork, and we're left with three girls and their moving and close-knit friendship with one some other.

Well, here it is: the rom-com neutron bomb — virtually the world's sweetest prostitute and her whirlwind romance with a Wall Street takeover specialist played by Richard Gere — that turned Julia Roberts into a household name. Seriously, how foreign is information technology that, after so many years of beingness a huge star and starring in endless megahits and winning all sorts of awards, this is still the motion picture with which Roberts is identified by then many? That speaks to her irresistibly effervescent operation — that laugh — and the chemistry between her and Gere. Merely the movie is … well, it's kind of icky. In retrospect, it'southward non hard to see that it started life equally a grittier, darker motion picture, and was but subsequently turned into a breezy rom-com. Y'all can meet it in some of its rougher spots, which expose the saccharine script and plotting. But that'south no knock on Roberts: She is the opposite of saccharine. If Pretty Adult female had to be the vessel that would introduce her to the wider world, so be it.

Roberts garnered her starting time Oscar nomination for this tender, episodic comedy-drama about several generations of women in a modest Louisiana boondocks, bonding around a local beauty parlor run by Dolly Parton. Roberts is quite good equally an energetic immature woman adamant non to allow her control-freak mom (Emerge Field) or a debilitating medical condition get the best of her. Of grade, the film is well-nigh notable for — spoiler — Roberts's death at the finish, and her palpable absence in the final scenes speaks to the effulgence of her presence in the moving-picture show'southward earlier parts. Simply let'south face it: The person who possibly should have gotten that Oscar nomination (and probably the win) was Field, whose profound, inconsolable grief at the cease is one of the most shattering things you'll ever see, like, anywhere.

In Mike Nichols's based-on-fact political satire, Roberts plays the real-life right-wing Texas socialite who used her precipitous wit and feminine wiles to engineer womanizing congressman Charlie Wilson's (Tom Hanks) efforts to illegally arm the Afghan mujaheddin in the 1980s. The actress is clearly relishing the opportunity to evangelize Aaron Sorkin's barbed dialogue (though perhaps non as much every bit Philip Seymour Hoffman, who steals the show as an explosive CIA functionary). Shot after she got married and started a family, this film represented Roberts's return of sorts to loftier-contour acting; she had spent several years doing cameo parts and song performances. Seeing her again in a compact role was a delight, even if the pic is sometimes a little too calorie-free for its own skilful.

Tony Gilroy's breezily clear con-artist romance features two electrifying performances from Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, as onetime flames and ex-intelligence operatives (she for the CIA, he for MI6) who wind up working in corporate espionage in the private sector and plunge several double-crosses deep. In that location'south backstabbing and betrayal galore, simply thanks to Gilroy's deft touch and the winning bandage, information technology's all ruthlessly entertaining. And if there'due south one matter that Roberts and Owen clearly enjoy fifty-fifty more than the moving-picture show'southward fast-paced repartee, it's the devastatingly well-timed silences. Also of annotation: Unlike in many other stories of romance and deception, the adult female is clearly having as much fun as the man. "Both actors seem to be channeling Cary Grant," Roger Ebert wrote at the time.

Believe it or non, this rom-com was seen every bit a comeback of sorts for Roberts, after her brief, by and large failed dalliance with more serious cloth in the mid-'90s. Only mayhap her foray into drama wasn't for nada, for she brings a surprising amount of dedication to this high-concept tale of a driven food writer who sets out to ruin her best male friend Dermot Mulroney'due south wedding to Cameron Diaz. Roberts is terrifically scheming and relentless and sexy, and gets to flex her slapstick chops as well — but she also makes us believe the character's desperation, which in plough serves her well when the motion-picture show gets more hostage in its later on scenes.

He's a mopey West London bookstore possessor who doesn't actually have much that excites him in life. She's a huge American motion-picture show star, in boondocks to promote a picture. This is the pinnacle of two particular types of rom-coms that dominated the 1990s: tales of contemptuous (usually male) protagonists who urgently need to find something or someone to care about, but don't realize information technology, and tales of attractive but unlucky-in-love (commonly female) protagonists finding The One in the unlikeliest places. Notting Hill likewise represents the meeting of the two stars that most came to ascertain these subgenres: Hugh Grant and our Julia. (Seriously, this is like Pacino and De Niro finally facing off in Heat.) The constellation of so many elements at the time looked to some critics like evidence that the film was just a tired slog through the usual clichés. ("Can the moviegoing public fall for the same old crap over again?" mused the Hamlet Voice'due south Dennis Lim.) Simply this motion picture perfected the clichés, while offering a unified field theory of the modern romantic one-act in the process. Worth noting: Notting Loma is also i of the high points of the Julia Roberts Plays Herself subgenre, toying with the sheer magnitude of her distinction by straight-upward making information technology a plot point. Plus, information technology'due south genuinely hilarious: Its depictions of the inanity of junket interviews and the absurdity of the Hollywood machine clearly come up from a place of deep knowledge.

Believe it or non, there were some of us who thought Julia Roberts was trying a footling as well difficult with this, the (based-on-real-life) moving-picture show that won her an Oscar. Playing a decidedly unglamorous, in-no-mode-bubbly, and twice-divorced single mom who takes a job as a legal secretary and winds upwards uncovering Pacific Gas & Electric'southward poisoning of Hinkley, California's drinking water, she was and then thoroughly un-Julia that it somehow made us keep thinking of, well, Julia. But that'due south part of the problem with movie stars, isn't information technology? They never quite end being themselves, through no real fault of their own. (If anything, this is our problem as viewers.) Watching the motion picture at present, however, her performance gains depth, and one can see how Roberts has immersed herself in the office, fifty-fifty as she brings sure elements to go far her own.

Erin Brockovich is a dramatic story — a very deplorable ane, at times — only information technology has comic moves. It has one-liners and come across-cutes and ironic coincidences and a jaunty footstep. That'southward why Roberts, who spent then much of her career trying to reconcile her comic persona with her desire to do dramatic work, is so perfect for it. Plus, she brings a real undercurrent of tenderness to her character's stridency and persistence. It's an incredibly empathetic film, and she is its beating heart.

Every Julia Roberts Moving picture, Ranked