Laura Dern has been turning in phenomenal performances since the mid-1980s, beginning with the fantastic three-movie run of Mask, Smooth Talk, and Blue Velvet. She got more adventurous in the ’90s, appearing in Wild at Heart, another David Lynch gem, as well as Rambling Rose, Jurassic Park, and Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth. If anything, her work in the 2000s and 2010 was even stronger, including notable collaborations with Noah Baumbach, Edward Zwick, and Greta Gerwig, plus even a small appearance in Star Wars.
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Acting is in Dern’s genes: her parents are performers Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern. Nevertheless, her success also clearly owes much to hard work and a willingness to push herself out of her comfort zone. Dern’s range has expanded dramatically as a result. She can pivot between realistic and larger-than-life, though her specialty is three-dimensional, grounded characters like those in Certain Women and 99 Homes. Despite dozens of acclaimed performances under her belt, Dern shows no signs of slowing down. “I feel I want to tackle anything,” she says. “Now there’s just a longing to explore more, dive deeper, find things that scare me. And go towards them.”
10 ‘Rambling Rose’ (1991)
Director: Martha Coolidge
Dern received her first Oscar nomination for her lead performance in this coming-of-age drama. She plays Rose, an orphaned young woman struggling to get by in the American South during the Great Depression. She starts working as a domestic servant for the eccentric Hillyer family, and immediately charms 13-year-old Buddy Hillyer (Lukas Haas). He falls head over heels for her, but Rose develops feelings for his dad Mr. Hillyer (Robert Duvall).
Rambling Rose is a moving exploration of youthful yearning. The plot here is secondary to mood and rich characterization courtesy of Calder Willingham’s screenplay and the talented lead actors. They’re all fantastic (Dern’s mother Diane Ladd is also charming as Mrs. Hillyer), but Dern steals the show. Rose is a complex character to play, and even a few wrong steps would’ve broken the spell. But Dern handles every scene with grace, more than rising to the occasion.
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9 ‘The Tale’ (2018)
Director: Jennifer Fox
The Tale is an emotionally charged drama that delves into the complexities of memory and trauma, drawing on writer-director Jennifer Fox’s own life. Dern plays Jennifer herself, a documentary filmmaker who is forced to confront her past when her mother discovers a story she wrote as a 13-year-old about a relationship with Bill (Jason Ritter), her coach at a horse training camp. At first, Jennifer recalls these experiences in a positive light, before slowly realizing that she was raped.
The film is all about how we remember the past and construct our life stories. In one scene, Jennifer refers to the Joan Didion quote “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”, which could be The Tale’s thesis statement. The movie also emphasizes the workings of memory with its nonlinear structure, pivoting between past and present, and how our understanding of the past can change radically. It’s a powerful, devastating project, one of the most vulnerable movies of the last decade. Fox bares her soul here, and Dern embodies her struggles.
The Tale
Runtime 114
Genres Drama
Release Date January 20, 2018
Rating R
Watch on Max
8 ‘Little Women’ (2019)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of the classic coming-of-age novel centers on the March sisters, Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Meg (Emma Watson), Amy (Florence Pugh), and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) as they navigate the challenges and joys of womanhood in 19th-century New England. Dern plays Marmee, the March sisters’ compassionate, wise, and self-sacrificing mother. The character radiates warmth and strength, serving as the emotional anchor for her daughters in the midst of the Civil War’s hardships.
However, Dern also does a solid job of hinting at Marmee’s complexity and rough edges. For example, there’s one strong scene where she reveals to Jo, “I am angry nearly every day of my life.” She implies that she has learned to check her words and keep these feelings concealed. It’s a peek into a side of the character that the film adaptations usually ignore. Even Gerwig’s version declines to grant us full access to Marmee’s mind, but Dern does a lot with what she’s given to work with.
Little Women
Rating PG
Runtime 135
Genres Drama
Rent on Amazon
7 ‘Marriage Story’ (2019)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach had already been crafting cinematic gems for over a decade when he made Marriage Story, but it brought him to new levels of mainstream acclaim. The film sees Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson playing Charlie and Nicole Barber, a warring couple in the midst of a messy divorce. Dern won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance here as Nora Fanshaw, the divorce lawyer who represents Nicole. Initially, Charlie and Nicole have agreed to split everything 50/50, but after Nicole enters the picture, the situation descends into an ugly battle.
Fanshaw is a high-powered figure, but surprisingly empathetic for a top attorney. She alternates between providing kind advice to Nicole and tearing into opposition counsel. Dern has a litany of great scenes, including her entertaining exchanges with opposing lawyer Charlie (Ray Liotta) and, of course, her famous monologue about inequality in the ways men and women are portrayed during a divorce.
Marriage Story
Release Date September 28, 2019
Director Noah Baumbach
Rating R
Runtime 136
Watch on Netflix
6 ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986)
Director: David Lynch
“In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren’t any robins and the robins represented love.” This surreal mystery follows Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a young man who discovers a severed ear in a field, leading him into a twisted world of crime and corruption. He becomes obsessed with untangling the backstory behind the ear, which he learns is linked to a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). Assisting him is Sandy Williams (Dern), with whom he begins a romance.
Sandy is prim, proper, and honest; in many ways the film’s moral center. She’s the complete inverse of the violent, sexualized Dorothy, who seems like a femme fatal who escaped from a hard-boiled noir film. Dern’s performance may be overshadowed by the more intense characters, but she plays a key role in keeping the film grounded. Her sturdy, dependable presence complements the movie’s darker, more absurd moments.
Blue Velvet
Release Date October 3, 1986
Director David Lynch
Rating R
Runtime 120 minutes
Rent on Amazon
5 ‘Smooth Talk’ (1985)
Director: Joyce Chopra
15-year-old Connie is a bored, frustrated teenager. She frequently gets into fights with her mother (Mary Kay Place), who openly prefers Connie’s older sister June (Elizabeth Berridge). A recurring theme in their arguments is the time Connie spends going out with her friends, flirting with boys, and drawing all kinds of attention. Her mother’s concerns become reality when Connie, fundamentally innocent and still a child, crosses paths with the unpredictable Arnold Friend (Treat Williams).
Although Friend talks and acts like a teenager, dressing like James Dean, he appears to be in his thirties. He’s predatory, alternating between seductive and aggressive, and the situation quickly becomes dangerous. Smooth Talk is heartbreaking and finely crafted, in large part thanks to Dern’s full-hearted performance. It culminates in an ending that is crushing but amazingly well told, with just a handful of ambiguous shots conveying so much. Be sure to check out the 4K restoration released by Criterion in 2020.
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4 ‘Mask’ (1985)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
“Rocky, let me feel you.” Mask is a biographical drama based on the story of Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz), a young man with a severe facial deformity. Rocky has a rich inner life and is accepted unquestioningly by his family, most of all his mother Rusty (Cher), but many people in the wider world react to him with fear and misunderstanding. Dern plays Diana, a blind girl with whom Rocky forms a close relationship.
Rocky and Diana have some beautiful, tender moments together, ranking among the best ’80s depictions of young love. Here, Dern is pure light, treating Rocky with kindness despite resistance from her parents. Playing someone who can’t see is a challenge, but Dern is believable. Nevertheless, the film’s real acting highlight is Cher as Rocky’s depressed, drug-addicted mother. It’s a remarkably complex and intriguing role, which elevates the movie above most other stories like it.
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3 ’99 Homes’ (2014)
Director: Ramin Bahrani
“Don’t get emotional about real estate.” 99 Homes is a drama about the pursuit of the American Dream in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Andrew Garfield stars as Dennis Nash, a struggling single father who, after being evicted from his home, reluctantly begins working for the ruthless real estate broker Rick Carver (Michael Shannon in an amazingly loathsome performance). Dennis lives with his young son Connor (Noah Lomax) and his widowed mother Lynn (Dern), a hairdresser.
Dern is quiet and understated, which goes a long way toward establishing the film’s immersive, realistic feel. Her best moment might be the scene where the cops arrive to remove them from their home, and both she and Dennis begin hyperventilating with panic. In another cutting scene, she confronts Dennis about his business activities, telling him that he’s becoming like the man who evicted them. When Dennis buys Lynn a nice new property with his ill-gotten gains, she says she wants their old home back, a statement that isn’t simply literal.
99 Homes
Release Date October 9, 2014
Director Ramin Bahrani
Rating R
Runtime 112
Watch on Netflix
2 ‘Certain Women’ (2016)
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Dern, Michelle Williams, and Kristen Stewart lead this drama about the intersecting lives of three women in rural Montana. Dern is Laura Wells, a lawyer dealing with a disgruntled client named Fuller (Jared Harris) who refuses to accept the outcome of his workplace injury case. When Fuller enters his former workplace and takes a security guard hostage, the police enlist Laura to go into the building and talk to him so that they can arrest him. It’s a tense sequence that both actors absolutely nail.
Laura makes for an interesting parallel to Dern’s character in Marriage Story. It’s one of her most restrained roles, quiet and inward-facing. Dern called the character “differently challenging,” saying, “I love the challenge of playing people who feel everything and are enormous personalities and a lot to take, and this is the polar opposite […] In terms of Kelly [Reichardt] herself, it’s rare that filmmakers are interested in the study of what happens in the pauses between the actions of someone’s life.”
Certain Women
Release Date October 14, 2014
Rating R
Runtime 107
Watch on Criterion
1 ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
The Jurassic World movies may be grander in spectacle and special effects, but the best movie about dinosaurs remains Spielberg’s wondrous opening chapter. An infectious sense of fun runs through Jurassic Park, as well as awe: the scene where they first lay eyes on the Brachiosaurus herd, for instance, is pure magic. Dern plays Dr. Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist who is in a relationship with Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill).
Ellie is intelligent, kind, and courageous, willing to risk her life to protect her loved ones. Ellie is not one of Dern’s most complex or challenging roles, but it’s sure to be one of her most timeless. Jurassic Park will be watched for decades to come and is sure to be many viewers’ introduction to Dern. The scene where she is attacked by a raptor by itself ensures her place in movie history, though it merely scratches the surface of her terrific, wide-ranging filmography.
Jurassic Park
Release Date June 11, 1993
Rating PG-13
Runtime 127
Watch on Netflix
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