Rachel Weisz is the Oscar winner who has been very selective of her screen appearances of late, and it has certainly paid off. In 2018 alone, she co-starred in two highly-regarded films — “Disobedience” from Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio as the daughter of a late Orthodox rabbi who is romantically drawn to a female childhood friend, and Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “The Favourite,” in which she plays Lady Sarah Churchill, a noblewoman whose position in the court of Queen Anne is threatened by her upstart cousin. Her performance as Lady Sarah earned Weitz her first BAFTA Award.
In fact, in the course of her 30 year-long career in films, Weisz has amassed quite a collection of awards. She won an Academy Award for her performance in 2005’s “The Constant Gardener” and was Oscar-nominated again for “The Favourite.” She has garnered three Golden Globe noms, winning again for “Gardener,” and her “Favourite” win at the BAFTAs came on her second nomination. She has also received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, winning for “The Constant Gardener.”
So let’s raise a glass to this delightful Oscar winner and her distinguished legacy of performances by celebrating her 12 best films and ranking them. (A tough job.) Our photo gallery features her awards-related performances plus “The Lobster,” “About a Boy,” “The Mummy” and more.
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12. THE MUMMY (1999)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Stephen Sommers. Starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Arnold Vosloo, John Hannah.
Any one of us who suffered through the 2017 Tom Cruise remake of “The Mummy” can only come to appreciate the 1999 Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz version even more. In this version set in 1926, Weisz plays aspiring but clumsy Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan who is given a box and map to Hamunaptra, a legendary city of the dead (whose importance is explained in a ridiculously convoluted backstory) by her shady brother Jonathan (John Hannah). The problem is that he stole the items from American adventurer Rick O’Connell (Fraser), who offers to take Evelyn to Hamunaptra is she gets him out of prison. She obliges, and adventures & romance await. “The Mummy” showed us that Weisz had a flair for comedy that she had little chance to show until “The Favourite.” Both Fraser and Weisz returned for a 2001 sequel, “The Mummy Returns.”
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11. OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (2013)
Image Credit: Disney/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sam Raimi. Writers: Mitchell Kapner, David Lindsay-Abaire. Starring James Franco, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis.
Weisz made her single foray into the world of Disney in this 2013 fantasy adventure, set 20 years before “The Wizard of Oz,” when magician (and a bit of a cheat) Oscar Diggs (James Franco) arrives via hot-air balloon in Oz, where he must deal with a murdered king and three women — Glinda (Michelle Williams), the king’s daughter who wants to solve her father’s murder; Theodora (Mila Kunis) a good witch who foresees Oscar possibly becoming the new Wizard of Oz; and Evanora (Weisz), a hideous witch who assumes the visage of a beautiful young woman and has a few plans up her sleeve. Uncharacteristically, Weisz turns to villainy here, but unlike most of her very serious dramatic roles, here it’s mostly in the name of fun.
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10. THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Tony Gilroy. Writers: Tony Gilroy, Dan Gilroy. Starring Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney.
Just to be clear, this is the “Bourne” film without Matt Damon. Nonetheless, it does have Rachel Weisz (and, oh yes, Jeremy Renner) and continued the Bourne legacy quite nicely. Here Renner plays Aaron Cross, a Black Ops agent who is serving at the same time as Damon’s unseen Jason Bourne and whose mission is buffeted by Bourne’s actions. Weisz is Dr. Marta Shearing, a biochemist who is the sole survivor of an elaborate plot to wipe out her colleagues at her biogenetics company, and realizing Shearing’s value, Cross teams up with her to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. As an elaborately plot-driven film, “The Bourne Legacy” doesn’t give Weisz much of a chance to develop a complex characterization, but her chemistry with Renner is notable and gives the audience a rooting interest throughout the rest of the action.
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9. THE FOUNTAIN (2006)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis.
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” is a genre-defying film utilizing the talents of Weisz and Hugh Jackman in a romance with three different storylines with three different characters over three different timelines. Confused yet? You should be, but the attraction that Weisz’s characters (a Spanish queen destined for a bad end, an annoying woman named Izzi and a wife dying of a brain tumor, also improbably named Izzi) are intertwined with Jackman’s roles (a conquistador, a space traveler and a contemporary doctor respectively) to create a tapestry of mortality and everlasting love. Initially, many critics were baffled by the timelines, but Jackman & Weisz kept audiences involved, and “The Fountain” has become a huge cult favorite since its release.
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8. THE LOVELY BONES (2009)
Image Credit: Wingnut/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Peter Jackson. Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, based on the novel by Alice Sebold. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, Saoirse Ronan.
There was enormous anticipation for the film version of the Alice Sebold best-selling novel, which was directed by Peter Jackson. Who wouldn’t be excited? But if the film ultimately disappointed, it was not the fault of the enormously talented cast in Sebold’s tale of a murdered teen (Saoirse Ronan) looking over her family as they try to find her killer. Weisz is the murdered girl’s distressed mother Abigail, who joins the hunt at first but, seeing those around her becoming more obsessed with finding the killer — particularly her husband Jack (Mark Wahlberg) — Abigail can take no more and, abandoning the family, moves to California. It’s an unsympathetic role to pull off, but Weisz makes her motivations understandable.
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7. MY COUSIN RACHEL (2017)
Image Credit: Nicola Dove/Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Roger Michell, from the novel by Daphne du Maurier. Starring Rachel Weisz, Sam Claifin, Iain Glen.
Weisz took the lead in this Roger Michell film based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier as the title character who marries a man who soon mysteriously dies. When a cousin Philip (Sam Claifin) suspects that Rachel might be responsible, he ventures to Italy to find her, only to learn that she has disappeared. He returns to England, only to soon learn that she has returned as well, presumably to track him down. And track him down she does, determined to make him fall in love with her to offset any suspicion that she may be responsible for her husband’s death. Despite some somber moments, it’s a delicious performance by Weisz, nailing the essence of a schemer down to perfection.
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6. ABOUT A BOY (2002)
Image Credit: Laurie Sparham/Working Title/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directors: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz. Writers: Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz. Starring Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult.
In the Weitz brothers’ acclaimed romantic comedy/drama, Hugh Grant plays Will, a single man who decides to foster-parent young teen Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) whose mother Fiona (Toni Collette) is perpetually on the brink of suicide. Marcus shakes Will out of his complacency to the point that Will decides to reenter the dating world, setting his sights on businesswoman and single mom Rachel (Weisz). Although Rachel is clearly a supporting role for Weisz, the script by Peter Hedges and the Weitz brothers gives the actress enough room to add layers of characterization, which helps to make her Rachel a worthy catch for the insecure Will.
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5. THE LOBSTER (2016)
Image Credit: Despina Spyrou/Irish Film Board/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Yorgos Lanthimos. Writer: Efthymis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Colin Farrell. Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, John C. Reilly.
Weisz’s first collaboration with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos resulted in a film that raised Lanthimos’ profile in America from Greek eccentric to a director one needs to take seriously. And as darkly comic as the Oscar-nominated script by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou may be, it gives Weisz a jewel of a role as a shortsighted woman (not in life but in vision) who has escaped a hotel in which those who are still single at a certain age must, by order of the state, be transformed into an animal of their choice if they don’t find love within 45 days. Luckily, she does in the form of nerdy David (Colin Farrell) who himself suffers from shortsightedness, and they plan to escape together. It doesn’t quite work out that way, but Weisz is so good in the role that it is little wonder that Lanthimos wanted to cast her again.
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4. DISOBEDIENCE (2018)
Image Credit: Bleeker Street Media/Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sebastián Lelio. Writers: Sebastián Lelio, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Starring Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola.
Chilean director Sebastián Lelio followed up his Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman” with this English-language romance set in North London. Rav Krushka, who leads an Orthodox Jewish congregation suddenly dies while addressing his flock, and his estranged daughter Ronit (Weisz), a successful New York photographer, must fly back home to tend to his affairs. There she stays with her father’s follower Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola) and his wife Esti (Rachel McAdams), to whom Ronit is physically attracted. Weisz does a superb job of creating a complex character who was once part of the Orthodox world, left it for secular success and must temporarily return to it as a changed woman and one who now acts on her sexual impulses.
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3. THE DEEP BLUE SEA (2012)
Image Credit: Uk Film Council/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Writer/Director: Terence Davies, from the play by Terence Rattigan. Starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale.
Weisz finally got the chance to work with acclaimed British director Terence Davies in this screen adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play that focuses on Hester (Weisz), the wife of a prominent judge (Simon Russell Beale) who embarks on a romantic affair with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a former pilot in the RAF. The affair leaves Hester drained to the point of attempting suicide, and as she recovers, she is still in despair, torn between facing a life that is sexually stimulating but emotionally reckless and one which offers stability and love but lacks sexual passion. For her performance as Hester, Weisz won the Best Actress award from the New York Film Critics Circle and earned her second Golden Globe nomination.
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2. THE CONSTANT GARDENER (2005)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Fernando Meirelles. Writer: Jeffrey Caine, based on the novel by John le Carré. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston.
Weisz won her first Academy Award, her first Golden Globe and her first Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance as Tessa Abbott-Quayle, an activist for Amnesty International who is mysteriously murdered while stationed in Kenya. Tessa’s story is told in flashbacks through the memories of her husband Justin (Ralph Fiennes), a diplomat and gardening enthusiast who is resolved to find her murderer. While it’s not every day of the week that a performance only seen in flashbacks wins the Academy Award, but Weisz makes every moment count here. She makes us wonder about her character — who is Tessa, really? — but the palpable love that she has for Justin lingers over every frame. Even if we don’t see her, Weisz’s Tessa is always there. Beautiful work.
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1. THE FAVOURITE (2018)
Image Credit: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Director: Yorgos Lanthimos. Writers: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara. Starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Nicholas Hault.
Whose story is “The Favourite”? Is it Queen Anne’s (Oscar winner Olivia Colman), who is suddenly the object of affection by two worthy rivals? Is it Abigail’s (Oscar nominee Emma Stone), once a noblewoman laid low who must claw her way back to the top? Both worthy choices, but I would argue that the real protagonist is Lady Sarah Churchill (Weisz), who is the favourite of the queen, only to be shunted aside by her upstart cousin Abigail. Weisz’s line readings are hilarious, from “Harley is a fop and a prat and smells like a ninety-six year-old French whore’s vajuju” to “Sometimes a lady likes to have some fun.” And fun Weisz does have in this brilliant performance, for which she won her first BAFTA and earned her second Oscar nomination, her third Golden Globe nod and her second nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award.
