Cate Blanchett's 16 best performances, ranked

Critics and fans routinely refer to Cate Blanchett as chameleon-like, but few have actually seen the movie that best exemplifies Blanchett’s innate ability to transform into anybody. That would be German director Julian Rosefeldt’s drama . Blanchett assumes 13 unique looks and accents to portray an angry punk, a black-veiled funeral orator, a conservative mother with a husband and three kids (played by Blanchett’s real-life husband and children), a reporter and a news anchor (in the same segment), a raving homeless man, a puppeteer, a slick Wall Street banker, etc.The characters quote everyone from Werner Herzog, Karl Marx, Sol LeWitt, Lars Von Trier, and Yvonne Rainer, to Claes Oldenburg, Jim Jarmusch, Guillaume Apollinaire, Vicente Huidobro, and Olga Rozanova. And each character recites real tracts, spanning such topics as Vortism/Blue Rider/Expressionism, Fluxus/Merz/Performance, Architecture, Situationism, Stridentism/Creationism, Pop Art, Dadaism, and Surrealism/Spatialism.Rosefeldt launched Manifesto as a multi-screen art installation, with the vignettes appearing on separate screens. It took about two hours to complete the full experience. For the film, he trimmed the footage to 95 minutes, which for the most part plays out sequentially, one vignette after the other, though several are broken up across its running time. Either way, Blanchett—in her blur of wigs, contact lenses, and speech patterns—is peerless. [Ian Spelling]

Sometimes, a great performance feels like a team effort: between script, staging, and sheer acting skill, that team creates something indelible. But in some cases—like Blanchett’s work in David Fincher’s 2008 drama —great acting happens in spite of a cumbersome, sometimes flat role. Tasked with playing Daisy, the lifelong love interest of the titular reverse-aging man played by Brad Pitt, Blanchett could’ve leaned into love-lorn obsession, and let Daisy simply exist on the whims of her passions for the strange man she met as a teenager. But Blanchett imbues the free-spirited dancer with a sense of self; even as she ages into oblivion in the opposite direction as Benjamin, Daisy still finds elegance and strength in the process. Although the film hones its focus on Benjamin’s otherworldly transition, it’s Blanchett’s own journey through time that makes this movie memorable. Even her most subtle moments—a beautifully subdued scene where Daisy watches another woman swim at their local pool comes to mind—demonstrate Blanchett’s ability to convey a character’s inner life (and turmoil) through just a glance. Everyone grapples with getting old. Blanchett unsparingly puts the struggle to record. [Hattie Lindert]

After decades of wonderful Cate Blanchett performances, it’s hard to imagine anything she can’t overcome. Her mastery can invite viewers into Middle-earth or 1960s New York with ease and grace. So how come 2000’s is such a whiff? On paper, it certainly sounds like a good idea. Blanchett as a Southern fortune teller investigating the murder of Katie Holmes? Yes, please. Unfortunately, this proved a mismatch of filmmaker and material. Director Sam Raimi’s devilish sense of humor didn’t play well with subplots about incest, rape, and child molestation, making the movie’s treatment of the topics feel glib. He can never get a firm grasp on the material, leaving it to Blanchett to ground the thing in reality. Although the ghostly special effects and array of Georgian accents that range between subtle and Looney Tunes undermine the movie’s tone, Blanchett, of course, keeps us balanced and admiring of her innate skill. [Matthew Schimkowitz]

  was supposed to be the first in another trilogy for Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski, similar to his Three Colors trilogy. That cinematic triptych consisted of Blue, White, and Red, representing the ideals of the French republic: liberty, equality, and fraternity. The films provided showcase roles for three acclaimed actresses; Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, and Irene Jacob, respectively. Heaven does the same for Cate Blanchett. Kieślowski died before he could film the trilogy and German director Tom Tykwer took over, though only one film was made. Blanchett is an Italian teacher who, after students die of drug overdoses, decides to take matters into her own hands and plants a bomb in the drug dealer’s office. Unfortunately, her vigilante justice goes awry, and four innocent people perish instead of the person intended. When she’s arrested, she confesses not knowing what happened. When the police interrogators reveal to her the extent of the damage she’s done, Blanchett nails the character’s conflicting emotions. The scene (which you can watch in the clip above) is played entirely on her face, flickering devastatingly from poised sang-froid to disbelief to utter heartbreak in a matter of seconds. It’s as if she was asked to demonstrate the totality of the human experience in short form. [Murtada Elfadl]

In 2003, having already been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for 1998’s Elizabeth, Blanchett tackled the difficult title role in . Guerin was an Irish journalist who led a one-woman crusade to expose the criminal lowlifes responsible for Dublin’s drug trade, for which she was assassinated in 1996. If Guerin’s fight is against wealthy drug lords and mid-level informants (like a terrific Ciarán Hinds), Blanchett’s battle is against a script that is rich in dramatic moments but lacking in character depth, which can happen when your movie is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Armed with a power suit, a severe haircut, and a bottomless supply of chutzpah, Guerin is willing to confront any dealer anywhere and ignore threats to her and her son that would scare anyone else away. As a result, the film is too prone to hero worship to work as anything but melodrama. Thankfully, Blanchett makes it all worthwhile, easily carrying the movie and making plausible Guerin’s unshakable resolve to change a system that, she argues with fatal consequences, favors the criminals. She’s a bulldozer of righteous determination and her drive to do the right thing sweeps us along, even as we question whether director Joel Schumacher realizes that Guerin’s single-mindedness would be interpreted by many as needlessly reckless. Either way, Blanchett, who earned a Golden Globe nod for her performance, honored the memory of the real Guerin, a tireless crusader and loving wife and mother whose efforts to clean up a drug-infested city made the wrong people very angry. [Mark Keizer]

There are few performers able to play regal better than Cate Blanchett, and exemplifies that. As the Elvish queen Galadriel, Blanchett exudes born-and-bred pedigree—she’s coiffed, spiritually attuned, and speaks with a voice so soft and lilting that every word could be a lullaby. When the Fellowship encounters her, they’re mesmerized, the young Hobbits especially. And that’s when Galadriel turns fabulously fearsome and, faced with the One Ring, reveals a voracious quest for power. Shifting on a dime from being effortlessly collected to literally glowing with rage, Blanchett makes high fantasy high art, too (even with less than 15 minutes of screen time). Today, the role feels even more consequential amidst a competitive fantasy landscape onscreen—beyond Tolkien’s original material, Blanchett’s monumental performance paves the way for Morfydd Clark’s young Galadriel on , a character quickly becoming one of television’s most celebrated new heroines. It goes without saying that nobody is actually from Middle-earth—it’s a made-up place—but Blanchett is so good, she’ll make you believe she was not only born there, but belongs there. Oh, to eat a chunk of Elven lembas bread from her hand… [Hattie Lindert]

Every lauded actor who’s had to upgrade to a bigger trophy mantel can pinpoint the one character who made their prolific career inevitable. For Blanchett, the role that launched her to international recognition was Elizabeth. But the only reason she booked that part was because of , a quirky yet heartfelt adaptation of a Peter Carey novel. Directed by Gillian Armstrong, scripted by Laura Jones, and co-starring Ralph Fiennes, the film gave Blanchett the coveted “… and introducing” line in its trailers, signaling to audiences that this is a breakout star-in-the-making. And her work in that role convinced Elizabeth filmmaker Shekhar Kapur that Blanchett had to be his queen of England. In Oscar And Lucinda, Blanchett delights as an obsessive heiress who develops a passion for gambling because of, rather than in spite of, her practice of faith. Lucinda has many of the qualities that would eventually become Blanchett’s hallmarks: cheeky wit, from-the-gut spontaneity, and—especially when it comes to societal expectations regarding her gender—a stirring defiance. And, again as with many of our most celebrated actors, she established herself as an astute listener and stalwart co-star, balancing with Fiennes the bitter and the sweet that Oscar And Lucinda requires. [Jack Smart]

Movie marketing always proclaims stuff like “So and so as you’ve never seen them before,” to varying degrees of truthfulness. However, Cate Blanchett in is truly like you’ve never seen her before. At the height of her Hollywood success, immediately following her first Oscar win for The Aviator, she returned to Australia to make a small indie film. She’s a heroin addict struggling to remain clean while pursuing a last-ditch attempt at a better life by seeking a loan for opening a video store. This is grittier, simpler character work than we are used to from Blanchett. There are no period costumes or outsize personalities here, just a natural and very modern intensity. She also has an easy chemistry with Dustin Nguyen, who plays her drug-addicted boyfriend. Blanchett always seems smarter and more sophisticated than her male co-stars, as if they don’t deserve her; she fits more intrinsically with her female co-stars as lovers (Rooney Mara in Carol), friends (Sandra Bullock in ), or even antagonists (Judi Dench in Notes On A Scandal). But in Little Fish, she and Nguyen find a way to make these ne’er-do-wells’ bond believable. [Murtada Elfadl]

The film that announced Cate Blanchett’s international arrival as a fully formed actress able to carry a project on her talent alone was 1998’s . Nine years later, she of perhaps England’s most famous monarch, and with the same director, Shekhar Kapoor (and became the fifth performer and first woman to be Oscar-nominated for playing the same character in two films). The critical and audience consensus was that this amounted to diminishing returns. But look closer: the film might be a bit camp or maximalist, but Blanchett’s performance is never less than utterly captivating. She is acting at the highest decibels. After all, she’s playing a larger-than-life icon. Monarchs were once looked upon as deities and Blanchett as Elizabeth I is utterly convincing as that. The centerpiece of the performance is the “I too can command the wind, sir” scene. It’s a famous Oscar clip that’s on regular rotation on social media as an example of “over-the-top” acting. Let’s be clear: Everyone is wrong about that. Blanchett delivers exactly what was asked of her, nothing less, nothing more. She takes it so high and makes it so loud while remaining true to the character, proving that she’s an actor who’s not afraid to act. Subtlety is not always the goal; when a film calls for it, she can show you the technique and stylize it to the max too. Biographical re-creation is an approximation of the truth and monarchs are not regular people. So naturally, Blanchett goes big but remains wildly entertaining. [Murtada Elfadl]

The 2006 two-hander pits two screen powerhouses against each other: Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. They both deliver top-tier career performances as women on the verge, rightfully landing accolades aplenty for their work. But we’re here to talk specifically about Blanchett’s towering achievement. She delivers a master class of simmering tension as a teacher who’s caught between an illicit affair with a student and the veteran teacher (Dench) who uses it as blackmail against her.Without Blanchett at the film’s center, the plot could teeter into soapy territory. But the actor matches the height of the melodrama on display while also being completely tuned into the honest emotions of her character. With Blanchett navigating the difficult situation she finds her character in, Notes On A Scandal is elevated—in what could’ve devolved into shlock in the hands of another. The fact that Blanchett goes toe-to-toe with Dench and finds an equal sparring partner proves just how talented she is. Not many can share a lens with a Dame without being shown up. Dench and Blanchett’s scenes together pop and sizzle with an anxious, paranoid energy where what goes unsaid is more powerful than the words exchanged; at any given moment, one slip of a glance or a phrase could cause secrets to come spilling out. [Brandon Kirby]

As a brassy, red-headed, forward-thinking actress herself, Cate Blanchett was ideally suited to step into the shoes of Hollywood iconoclast Katharine Hepburn. But in , Martin Scorsese’s impressionistic biography of filmmaker and noted eccentric of yesteryear Howard Hughes, the award-winning Blanchett delivers something deeper and more interesting than simply a great imitation of her actress forebear’s Mid-Atlantic accent—though she does that as well. Her Hepburn has all of the qualities that made the star so beloved—her outspokenness, her intellect, her playfulness—but she also possesses a wonderful, if uneven, self-awareness that’s crucial when she becomes romantically involved with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hughes, empathizing with and even alleviating his obsessive-compulsive disorder even as she recognizes that their paths were meant to cross only temporarily. Even the headstrong Hepburn could have simply become another notch in his celebrity-encrusted bedpost, but Blanchett reminds audiences that she was a person with enough substance to be a true companion to him, rather than simply one of Hughes’ many lovers. [Todd Gilchrist]

For his 2007 super-cool and experimental film , director Todd Haynes enlisted six very different actors to portray the enigmatic Bob Dylan on screen: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, and Cate Blanchett. While one can debate which actor and vignette was “the best,” it’s hard to argue that Blanchett’s turn as Dylan, fresh off his infamous Newport Folk Festival appearance in 1965 where he was booed for having dared to plug in his electric guitar, is the most memorable. In fact, it earned Blanchett an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress (the same year she became the 11th performer to earn double acting nods in the same year, alongside leading Elizabeth: The Golden Age).While there’s no doubting Blanchett is one of the greatest actors working right now, she also lucked out a bit in her I’m Not There role; she plays Dylan in one of his most recognizable phases, that of the truculent hippy troubadour who was already tiring of the press at the ripe old age of 24. Blanchett crushes her scene because she seemingly channels Dylan rather than simply doing an impression. Such is the apparent effortlessness of her performance that one forgets we’re not actually seeing Bob Dylan himself. [Don Lewis]

Woody Allen often asks moviegoers to care for, relate to, and sympathize with upscale characters. But few such figures have been as self-destructive and unlikable as Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine French in arguably Allen’s last great film, . Jasmine is a New York socialite accustomed to the finer things in life. Her world comes crashing down thanks to the Bernie Madoff-esque machinations of her husband (Alec Baldwin). Still guzzling booze and popping Xanax following a nervous breakdown, Jasmine heads out to San Francisco to live with Ginger (Sally Hawkins), her less well-off sister, and encounters Ginger’s ex (a shockingly effective Andrew Dice Clay) and current boyfriend (the always dependable Bobby Cannavale), and meets a potential Mr. Right (Peter Sarsgaard, sadly wasted). Blanchett brilliantly ticks all the boxes: anger, frustration, fear, haughtiness, embarrassment, desperation, gallows humor, pride, self-doubt, hope, jealousy, and mania. She makes you feel for Jasmine against every fiber of your being, and that’s a remarkable feat. How magnificent was Blanchett in Blue Jasmine? She won her first, and likely not last, Oscar in the Best Actress category, after taking home a Supporting Actress statuette for The Aviator nearly a decade earlier. [Ian Spelling]

One of the tricks an actor must pull off is playing uncertainty with certainty. Cate Blanchett’s BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated breakout, 1998’s , may be one of cinema’s best examples of this phenomenon. You get the sense watching director Shekhar Kapur’s royal drama that, despite only a handful of onscreen credits to her name, Blanchett is already a performer who knows herself, her actorly arsenal, the way she appears on camera. Yet she’s playing a young woman thrust onto the world’s highest throne, barely keeping her head above water—or keeping her head at all. Michael Hirst’s screenplay, which of course takes liberties with historical details around Elizabeth I’s early reign in mid-16th-century England, has no shortage of political twists and turns for this young queen to navigate. So it’s a glowing testament to Blanchett’s talent that she can balance naivete with surety, showing us how Elizabeth’s self-awareness as a woman begins to trump her doubts as a ruler. From Elizabeth onward, audiences watching Blanchett onscreen instinctively know they’re in good hands. There’s even a point in the movie where Queen Mary I (Kathy Burke) says to her ascendant half-sister, “I see you are still a consummate actress.” I daresay truer words have ne’er been spoke. [Jack Smart]

Cate Blanchett has played privileged women before (Carol, Blue Jasmine). She has played exceptional genius artists (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, ). But she has never combined the two and added in a hefty dose of narcissism until Todd Field’s . In this fictional character study about how power corrupts, she’s Lydia Tár, a conductor and composer in freefall after revelations about her indiscretions with subordinates at the Berlin Philharmonic become public.You expect nothing less than a wholly immersive performance from Blanchett when the task is this huge. This is physically and emotionally explosive material. The actor changed her gait and movement to be more butch, as Tár describes herself as “a U-Haul .” Her movements when conducting look and feel authentic, but as a performer who’s always cognizant of how she’s framed, they also flow rhythmically, pleasing the eye. And psychologically, she charts this downward spiral with restraint while never sanding off the less pleasant aspects of this character, from her menacing seductiveness as a mentor to her brusque dismissal of anyone who disagrees with her. Tár may be drunk on power, but Blanchett is note-perfect. [Murtada Elfadl]