Eight great Kate Winslet performances . . .
Since she first grabbed audiences’ attention in a Kiwi movie more than 25 years ago, Kate Winslet has been one of the most critically acclaimed, versatile, brave and beloved actors of her generation.
Ahead of her long-overdue return to the small screen later this month in Mare of Easttown, Stuff picked out what we believe are the best turns of the now 45-year-old British star’s stellar career so far.
Contagion (Netflix)
Almost a decade after its release, Steven Soderbergh’s thriller has gained notoriety in the past 12 months for its prescient prediction about how the world might handle a pandemic. Winslet does an impressive job as Dr Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer who works tirelessly to trace contacts in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.
The Dressmaker (YouTube, iTunes)
Revelling in a deliciously acerbic
part, Winslet also rocks a succession of eye-catching and heart-stopping frocks in this deliciously dark 2015 Aussie black comedy. She plays Myrtle ‘‘Tilly’’ Dunnage, a woman who has returned to the small town that once shunned her, armed with impressive dressmaking credentials and with designs on revenge.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(Aro/Alice’s) Criminally overlooked at the Oscars in 2005, Winslet is at her charismatic best as the unforgettable, multi-coloured Clementine in Michel Gondry’s bizarre non-linear and fractured romance. Although the premise now sounds like Total Recallmeets-(500) Days of Summer, this is a haunting and heartbreaking account of love gone awry.
Extras (TVNZ OnDemand) Of all the galaxy of stars who grace Ricky Gervais’ noughties sitcom, Winslet was certainly one of the most memorable. Playing a heightened version of herself, she stole the show by dispensing ‘‘extremely candid’’ relationship advice while dressed as a nun for a Holocaust movie.
Heavenly Creatures
(Aro Video/Alice’s)
This 1994 Kiwi movie made her a star and helped launch the career of our own Sir Peter Jackson and his special-effects wizards Weta. Winslet plays real-life troubled teen Juliet Hulme, who together with Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) plotted to murder the latter’s mother in 1954.
Mildred Pearce (Neon) Ten years before Mare of Easttown, Winslet’s last TV miniseries turn earned her a Golden
Globe and Emmy. She played the self-sacrificing mother of the title in this sumptuous and emotionally fraught adaptation of James M Cain’s Great Depression-set 1941 novel.
Revolutionary Road
(Netflix)
Forget The Reader, this is the 2008 romantic-drama Winslet should have won the Oscar for. Reuniting with her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, she’s luminous and heartbreaking as April Wheeler, a wife and mother-of-two suffocating in mid-1950s suburbia. Based on Richard Yates’ 1961 debut novel.
Titanic
(Disney+) DiCaprio might have claimed to have been King of the World, but Winslet is the real star of James Cameron’s blockbusting 1997 romantic epic. She is the heart and soul of this disaster movie, a young society woman smitten by the life of adventure third-class offers, only to find her world falling apart.