Ellen Burstyn movies: 15 greatest films ranked from worst to best

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Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn
15. HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT (1995)
14. SILENCE OF THE NORTH (1981)
13. DYING YOUNG (1991)
12. ALEX IN WONDERLAND (1970)
11. THE KING OF MARVIN’S GARDENS (1970)
10. HARRY AND TONTO (1974)
9. W. (2008)
8. INTERSTELLAR (2014)
7. TWICE IN A LIFETIME (1985)
6. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)
5. SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR (1978)
4. RESURRECTION (1980)
3. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
2. ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)
1. THE EXORCIST (1973)

In celebration of Ellen Burstyn’s 86th birthday on December 7, 2018, let’s take a look back at the film career of the accomplished actress. She is one of the few actors to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, meaning she has won the Oscar, the Tony and the Emmy, all three of acting’s highest honors.

She won her Oscar as Best Actress for 1974’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” a change of pace type of film from Martin Scorsese’s usual milieu which depicts a young widow’s cross-country journey with her young son. Her Tony came shortly after for 1975’s Broadway play “Same Time, Next Year” which chronicled a long-term extramarital affair held over the course of 24 years. (Ironically, Burstyn missed accepting her Oscar in person because she chose to stay in New York and perform in the play on Oscar night.) She won two Emmys in recent years one for a guest appearance on “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” in 2009 and a second for a supporting role in the mini-series “Political Animals.”

Acclaim for her acting career actually came a bit late for Burstyn. In a business obsessed with youth, she was practically 40 when her film career took off. Prior to that she had worked in various areas of the entertainment industry including as a model and as a dancer on “The Jackie Gleason Show.” She then transitioned to acting doing work on episodic television and on soap operas. A pivotal moment in her career came when she began working with Lee Strasberg at The Actor’s Studio. Her work there deepened her skills and enabled her to launch her film career in the 1970s earning a remarkable five Oscar nominations in between the years of 1971 and 1980.

Take a photo gallery tour above of her 15 greatest films, ranked worst to best. In addition to the movies above, our choices include “Requiem for a Dream,” “Resurrection,” “The Last Picture Show” and more.

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse. Writer:Jane Anderson. Starring Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Alfree Woodard. 

Based on a best selling novel this film tells the story of a young woman (Winona Ryder) who is unsure if she is ready to get married. She visits her relatives to decide on the matter and sees they are making a quilt for her wedding. The older women including Burstyn proceed to tell Ryder stories in flashback about their own marriages and experiences with love.

Director: Allan King. Writer: Patricia Louisianna Knop. Starring Tom Skerritt, Gordon Pinsent. 

“Silence of the North” was kind of a lost film of Burstyn’s. She made the film under harsh conditions in the wilderness of Canada but then had to fight for the studio to release the film which it eventually did in only a small release. The film was better received in Canada and received nine nominations for their Genie Award. The film tells the story of a woman trying to raise her children in the harsh environment of the pioneer days of Alberta Canada.

Director: Joel Schumacher. Writer: Richard Friedenberg. Starring Julia Roberts, Campbell Scott, Vincent D’Onofrio. 

“Dying Young” has an odd place in film history in that it was the first time after she started starring in movies with “Pretty Woman” that Julia Roberts had a flop film. Roberts plays a woman who takes a job as a private nurse for a young man dying of leukemia. She proceeds to fall in love with the man despite his terminal diagnosis. Burstyn plays the mother of the dying man.

Director: Paul Mazursky. Writers: Paul Mazursky, Larry Tucker. Starring Donald Sutherland. 

This semi-autobiographical film from director Paul Mazursky tells the story of a young film director (Donald Sutherland) who has had his first successful film but is now confused as how to follow it up. Mazursky had recently had a big hit with “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” and seemed to make this film about his own confusion on how to follow up that hit. This film would mark Burstyn’s first time working with Mazursky whom she would return to later on in her career. 

Director: Bob Rafelson. Writer: Jacob Brackman. Starring Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Scatman Crothers. 

After a long time working on television and in theater it was two 1970 releases (the other was “Alex in Wonderland”) that established Burstyn in film and opened directors up to hiring her for what would be an incredible run of acclaimed films in the 70s. This film starring Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern as two brothers one an introvert, the other an extrovert provided Burstyn with a juicy role as the manic depressive wife of the extroverted character. 

Director:Paul Mazursky.  Writer: Paul Mazursky, Josh Greenfeld. Starring Art Carney, Melanie Mayron, Geraldine Fitzgerald. 

Art Carney won the 1974 Best Actor Oscar for this film about an elderly widower who is evicted from his home so he decides to take a cross country trip to visit his adult children. Burstyn plays one of those children. This was an unusual year for the Oscars in that Burstyn was the main costar of the film that won the Best Actor Oscar while she also won the Best Actress award herself for her starring role in Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” 

Director: Oliver Stone. Writer: Stanley Weiser. Starring Josh Brolin, Richard Dreyfuss, James Cromwell. 

Oliver Stone often known for his inflammatory political films such as “JFK” took a look at the presidency of  George W. Bush in this biopic starring Josh Brolin as the former president. Burstyn plays Barbara Bush the former first lady and mother of George W. Bush . While Burstyn doesn’t really do an exact impression of the very familiar personality of Barbara Bush she does manage to capture her essence in the performance.

Director: Christopher Nolan. Writer: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan. Starring Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine. 

“Interstellar” comes from the typically complex mind of Christopher Nolan. The film is about a man who goes into space to help fight an extinction level event that the world is facing. In the process of leaving he must leave behind a young daughter. When he finally returns to this dimension his daughter has become an old woman (played by Burstyn) who has accomplished an outstanding fete of her own to help same humanity.

Director: Bud Yorkin. Writer: Colin Welland. Starring Gene Hackman, Ann-Margret, Amy Madigan. 

Burstyn has an emotional role in this film about a married man (Gene Hackman) who falls in love with another woman (Ann-Margret) and leaves Burstyn’s character after many years of marriage. The film examines the effects the divorce has on all the parties involved including the couple’s adult children. Amy Madigan received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role as one of the couples daughter who feels overwhelming rage at her father for leaving her mother.

Director: Peter Bogdanovitch. Writers: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry. Starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman.

“The Last Picture Show” was one of the landmark films of the seventies and launched Peter Bogdanovich into a status as a boy wonder filmmaker. Burstyn plays the mother of the flighty and promiscuous young Cybil Shepherd who has to deal with her daughter’s antics. There were three roles in the film for woman Burstyn’s age. The others were the Cloris Leachman role of  the lonely football coaches wife who has an affair with the young student played by Timothy Bottoms and the waitress of the cafe played by Eileen Brennan. Burstyn was given the choice of which role she wanted only to see the Oscar go to Cloris Leachman for the role Burstyn turned down.

Director: Robert Mulligan. Writer: Bernard Slade. Starring Alan Alda. 

Burstyn originated this role in the long running hit Broadway play of the same name. The story chronicles a couple who meet at a country inn and have an extramarital affair. Though each are married to other people the two decide to meet once a year at the same inn to continue their affair. They continue to do so for 25 years as they world changes and the country goes thru such events as the Vietnam War and Watergate. Burstyn won a Tony as Best Actress in a Play for the play on Broadway. Ironically when Burstyn won her Oscar for “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” she didn’t attend the ceremony since she was committed to doing this play on the night of the Oscar telecast. She would also go on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for the film.

Director: Daniel Petrie. Writer:  Lewis John Carlino. Starring Sam Shepard, Richard Farnsworth, Roberts Blossom. 

“Resurrection” came and went pretty quickly at movie theaters but the Academy remembered the film and enough to reward it with two acting Oscar nominations: Best Actress for Burstyn and Best Supporting Actress for Eva Le Gallienne. The unique film portrays a woman who survives a near fatal car accident and after her recovery she finds she has the power to heal other people with the touch of her hand. This causes great controversy as some think she is a snake oil salesman and others are threatened by her power fearing it is evil.

Director: Darren Aronofsky. Writers: Hubert Selby Jr.,Darren Aronofsky. Starring Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans. 

Innovative and controversial filmmaker Darren Aronofsky broke through to main stream film making with this dark story of drug addiction in its various forms. Burstyn’s son and his girlfriend are addicted to street drugs and often plague Burstyn with their requests for money. Burstyn herself experiences her own addiction when she starts taking a diet drug in a quest to lose weight because she hopes to appear as a contestant on one of her favorite game shows. Burstyn won the New York Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress for the film and probably would have won the Oscar had she remained in the supporting category. Instead she was campaigned as lead and ended up losing the Best Actress award to Julia Roberts for “Erin Brockovitch.”

Director: Martin Scorsese. Writer: Robert Getchell. Starring Kris Kristofferson, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd. 

After coming close to Oscar glory twice before in the three years prior to 1974 Burstyn finally took home the statuette for this story of a suddenly widowed woman who decides to drive across country one summer to return to Monterrey, California where she was happy in her youth. She aspires to be a professional singer but ends up having to wait tables in a greasy spoon dinner as she tries to raise enough money to get herself and her son the rest of the way across country after they run out of money in Arizona. The film was eventually made into the long running TV series “Alice” starring Linda Lavin.

Director: William Friedkin. Writer: William Peter Blatty. Starring Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow. 

“The Exorcist” is probably best remembered for its graphic special effects and tale of demonic possession that so terrified audiences in 1973 that there were reports of people actually passing out and screaming at the horror they witnessed on screen. The movie became a bit of a national sensation at the time of its release. What sometimes gets lost in the remembrances of the film is the high quality of the acting by all the principle performers in the film and especially from Burstyn. She plays a famous movie star whose daughter starts displaying odd mental and physical symptoms which doctors can’t explain. They recommend Burstyn seek an exorcist to help her child. As the increasingly frantic mother Burstyn is nothing short of spectacular. From her tender scenes with the daughter at the beginning of the film to her shouting down a plethora of doctors she feels aren’t helping Burstyn, has many moments that she is operating at the top of her craft.  A particularly beautiful scene in the film occurs right after one of the film’s best remembered gross out moments, the green vomit the possessed girl shoots at the priest investigating the case. As Burstyn launders the priest’s clothes she quietly begins to explain how she would be able to recognize her daughter even if she were presented an exact double. She then with increasing grief and desperation exclaims that the thing upstairs is not her daughter. Burstyn’s complete transition from quiet pleading to out and out hysteria all in the matter of a few minutes is just one of the tremendous acting achievements Burstyn displayed in this film.

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