29 Biggest Meryl Streep Movies, Ranked Worst to Best

In this 2007 war drama focused on the U.S. involvement in Iraq, Streep plays TV journalist Janine Roth who interviews a U.S. senator played by Tom Cruise about his plan to win the war on terror.

In this social science fiction film, Streep plays the Chief Elder of a closed society in which pain, suffering, joy, love and other emotions have been removed from the human experience. Only one person holds memories of the past and now it’s time for those memories to be passed along to a younger person.

In this animated fantasy comedy, Streep voices the role of Queen, who rules an anthill that comes under attack by a little boy.

In this romantic comedy, Streep plays Lisa Metzger, the therapist for a divorced 37-year-old woman who is pursuing a career as a painter. Metzger encourages her patient to date a younger man until she finds out that the man in question is her son.

In an Academy Award-winning performance, Streep plays Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to be British prime minister. The biographical drama includes such events as the Brixton riot, the bombing of the Grand Hotel and the Falklands War.

In this adventure thriller, Streep plays Gail Hartman, who embarks on a river rafting trip with her husband and son. They encounter some strangers who seem friendly at first, before it becomes clear that they are violent criminals. Streep received Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for this role.

In this Stephen Sondheim musical, Streep plays a witch who forces a baker and his wife to embark on an unusual scavenger hunt to reverse a curse. Streep received Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role.

In this black comedy fantasy, Streep plays Madeline Ashton Menville, a narcissistic actress whose desire for eternal life leads to all sorts of bizarre events. Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for this role.

In this romantic comedy, Streep plays Jane Adler, a divorced bakery owner who falls into an affair with her ex-husband when they attend their son’s college graduation. This is problematic because the ex-husband is married to a younger woman. Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for this role.

In this boisterous musical built around the songs of ABBA, Streep plays Donna Sheridan, a single mother who is confronted with questions about her daughter’s paternity just as her daughter is about to get married on a Greek island. Streep received a Golden Globe nomination for this role.

In this romantic comedy, Streep plays Kay Soames, who books herself and her husband into a weeklong marriage retreat as a way to reignite the spark. Their efforts fail to immediately catch fire. Streep received a Golden Globe Award nomination for this role.

In this black comedy based on the “Lemony Snicket” book series, Streep plays Aunt Josephine, who for a period of time has to care for two nieces and a nephew after their parents are killed in a fire. Since no good deed goes unpunished, she finds herself in her own dire straits.

In this American tragicomedy based on the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Streep plays Violet Weston, a strong-willed Oklahoma woman who has oral cancer and is addicted to narcotics. Her sister and daughters gather around her after her husband, an alcoholic poet, disappears in a particularly hot August. Streep was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award in this role.

In this psychological political thriller, a remake of the 1962 film, Streep plays Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw, a manipulative, ruthless woman who pushes her son into running for vice president. Streep received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for this role.

In this sequel to the 2008 musical “Mamma Mia,” Streep reprises her role as Donna Sheridan, who has died since the first move, as her daughter prepares to reopen her hotel on a Greek island.

In this historical drama, Streep portrays women’s rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst in this fictional story about efforts of British women to secure the right to vote.

In this family drama, Streep plays Lee, a woman who severed ties 20 years earlier with her father, a stroke victim, and her sister, his caretaker. She is drawn back in when her sister finds out she has leukemia. Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in this role.

In a performance that won her a Golden Globe Award, Streep portrays chef Julia Child in the early part of her career. The comedy-drama contrasts Child with a New York blogger who sets out to cook every recipe in the chef’s cookbook.

In this romantic drama set in 20th-century colonial Kenya, Streep plays Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who owns a plantation in Africa. She encounters romance and the challenges of being a landowner. Streep received Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for this role.

In a performance that won her a Golden Globe Award, Streep portrays Miranda Priestly, the tough editor of a New York-based fashion magazine in this comedy based in part on Vogue.

In this biographical film, Streep portrays Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who pursued her dreams of a singing career despite her terrible voice. Streep was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award and a SAG Award for this role.

In this historical political thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, Streep portrays Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, as reporters and editors scramble to publish the Pentagon Papers, classified documents about the Vietnam War. Streep was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for this role.

In a role that won her a Screen Actors Guild Award, Streep portrays Sister Aloysius, the conservative principal at a Catholics school in the Bronx. She confronts a priest about concerns that he has an inappropriate relationship with one of the students, the only Black boy in the school.

Streep plays Clarissa Vaughan in this drama focused on how Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” has an impact on three generations of women, all who have been touched by suicide. Streep was nominated for a BAFTA Award and a SAG Award for this role.

In an Oscar-winning performance, Streep plays Sophie Zawistowska, a Polish immigrant living in Brooklyn who has a dark secret from the time she was interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Streep plays Francesca Johnson, a housewife in mid-1960s rural Iowa when a photographer shows up on her doorstep and causes her to rethink her life choices. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a SAG Award for this role.

In a performance that won her a Golden Globe Award, Streep portrays the journalist Susan Orlean in a comedy-drama about a writer’s struggles as he tries and fails to adapt Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief” into a screenplay.

In a performance that brought her first Academy Award, Streep plays Joanna Kramer, a woman who leaves her husband, a workaholic advertising executive played by Dustin Hoffman, and their young son only to return and pursue a fierce custody battle.

Streep voices the role of Mrs. Fox in this animated comedy that finds Mr. Fox struggling to give up his life as a barnyard thief for safer pursuits.