BEST SISSY SPACEK MOVIES
“Badlands” (1973) Spacek largely had done television work when she drew attention as her boyfriend’s (Martin Sheen) accomplice on murder.
“Carrie” (1976) The true breakthrough role for Spacek was as Stephen King’s psychically gifted, much-maligned teen who turns a school prom into a literal bloodbath.
“Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980) Spacek gave a stunning performance vocally and dramatically, and earned an Oscar, as country-music icon Loretta Lynn.
“Raggedy Man” (1981) In a drama directed by her husband, Jack Fisk, Spacek plays a divorced mother who has a surprising affair.
“Missing” (1982) Spacek and Jack Lemmon make a potent team as the wife and father of a writer (John Shea) who disappears during a period of unrest in Chile.
“The River” (1984) Spacek and Mel Gibson play a couple facing all sorts of challenges, including some posed by nature, as they struggle to keep their farm.
“Marie” (1985) An excellent Spacek plays an unlikely parole board chief in this true story. Attorney Fred (Dalton) Thompson played himself in his first acting job. “‘night, Mother” (1986) Anne Bancroft and Spacek play a mother and daughter who share an emotionally grueling evening together in the screen version of Marsha Norman’s play.
“Crimes of the Heart” (1986) Spacek, Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange star in Marsha Norman’s play as sisters united by, among other things, a shared tragedy.
“The Long Walk Home” (1990) Whoopi Goldberg and Spacek do very fine work as women of very different stations impacted by the early years of the civil rights movement.
“JFK” (1991) In director Oliver Stone’s large cast, Spacek has sufficient time to make an impression as the wife of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), the district attorney probing the John F. Kennedy assassination.
“Affliction” (1997) Spacek lends first-rate support as the girlfriend of a troubled ex-cop (Nick Nolte) who sets out to redeem himself by probing a hunting trip that possibly involves a murder.
“Blast From the Past” (1998) Spacek and Christopher Walken get great comedic mileage out of playing the parents of a man (Brendan Fraser) who emerges from a nuclear shelter into a much different world.
“The Straight Story” (1999) In director David Lynch’s drama, Spacek is enormously moving as the daughter of a man (Richard Farnsworth) who decides to travel by lawnmower to visit his long-estranged brother.
“In the Bedroom” (2001) A wrenching Spacek plays the mother of a young man (Nick Stahl) whose fate is destined to color the lives of her and her husband (Tom Wilkinson) forever.
“Four Christmases” (2008) Spacek is part of a great cast of “relatives” in this satire about a couple reluctantly spending the holiday with various family members.
“The Help” (2011) The enormously impressive cast of this popular drama, about the roots of the civil rights era as seen through the eyes of families’ maids, includes Spacek.
“The Old Man & the Gun” (2018) Spacek has nice moments with Robert Redford in this saga of a convict who escapes and starts a new trail of crimes.