Jessica Lange movies: 12 greatest films from ‘Tootsie’ to ‘Cape Fear’ to ‘Big Fish’

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Jessica Lange

Jessica Lange
THE GAMBLER (2014)
BIG FISH (2003)
A THOUSAND ACRES (1997)
BLUE SKY (1994)
CAPE FEAR (1991)
MUSIC BOX (1989)
SWEET DREAMS (1985)
COUNTRY (1984)
TOOTSIE (1982)
FRANCES (1982)
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1981)
KING KONG (1976)

From her film debut more than 40 years ago in the splashy remake of “King Kong,” Jessica Lange has become one of our most distinguished and honored actresses. With her lengthy award-winning career continuing in 2017 as screen icon Joan Crawford in FX’s “Feud: Bette and Joan”, Lange returned to the Emmys once more, having already won three statues — as Big Edie in HBO’s 2009 remake of the Maysles Brothers’ classic documentary “Grey Gardens” and two Emmys for the FX anthology series “American Horror Story,” for its premiere 2011 season and for 2013’s “Coven.”

But the medium that gave Lange her illustrious start was film, and that’s where this photo gallery is focused — on the movies and the hard work (plus two Oscars for “Tootsie” and “Blue Sky”) that have helped to make Lange an icon on stage and on both film and television screen for the last four decades.  Let’s take a look at her 12 greatest film performances.

Although Rupert Wyatt’s remake of the 1974 film received mixed to negative reviews overall, Lange’s small but juicy part received the lion’s share of the good reviews that the film earned. As Roberta, the wealthy mother of Jim Bennett, the always-in-debt gambler played by Mark Wahlberg who’s begging for yet another bailout of his enormous gambling debts, Lange goes into ice-queen mode, and there are few actors who can give the cold shoulder as frigidly as Lange does here. But as with many of her performances, Lange created a subtext, suggesting (and only merely suggesting) that perhaps Roberta carries a bit of guilt over the mess that her son has made of his life. Great work.

If one of Lange’s enormous skills as an actress is projecting a kind of fearsome powerhouse of strength, she can also bring to the table a sense of vulnerability, which she amply demonstrates in director Tim Burton’s fantasy about an attempted reconciliation between dying tall tale-teller Edward (Albert Finney) and his estranged son Will (Billy Crudup). The meeting between father and son is brought together by Edward’s wife Sandra (Lange, and played as a young girl by Alison Lohman), and what could have been an unpleasant head-to-head between the men is saved by Lange, whose Sandra brings an uncommon grace note to the reunion that helps to keep the audience rapt.

In Laura Jones’ adaptation of Jane Smiley’s Pulitizer Prize-winning reworking of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” Larry Cook (Jason Robards), an Iowa farmer managing a thousand acres of farmland, determines that ownership of his farm be split among his three daughters, Ginny (Lange), Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Caroline declines the inheritance to work in the big city, so Ginny and Rose have to work together to keep the farm afloat. Needless to say, complications ensue. Pfeiffer is terrific, but Lange is in absolutely top form here, and for that she received her seventh Golden Globe film nomination.

“Blue Sky” had arguably one of the rockiest roads to release than any good film in recent history. Completed in 1991 and set for release by Orion Pictures, “Blue Sky” sat on the shelf because of Orion’s bankruptcy until 1994, usually a sign of a major dud. When in was finally released in September 1994, glowing reviews indicated that the film was anything but. Lange’s role as Carly, the mentally ill wife of a nuclear engineer (Tommy Lee Jones) in 1962, brought Lange her second Academy Award (and her first as Best Actress), as well as her third Golden Globe Award for film and her first Screen Actors Guild nomination.

In Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 1962 psychological thriller, Lange portrays Leigh Bowden, the wife of North Carolina lawyer Sam (Nick Nolte), who is being terrorized by former client Max Cady (Robert DeNiro), who correctly believes that Sam, who was conspicuously appalled at the crime of which his client was accused, buried crucial evidence that could have acquitted Cady or at least reduced his sentence. Among the prime targets of Cady’s terror campaign are Leigh and their teenage daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis), with whom Cady has a bit of a creepy bond. “Cape Fear” marked Lange’s sole collaboration (to date) with Scorsese.

Lange received her fifth Academy Award nomination as well as her fifth Golden Globe nod for her role in this Costa-Gavras film based on a script by Joe Eszterhas, portraying Ann Talbot, a successful defense attorney who learns that her father, Michael J. Laszlo (Armin Mueller-Stahl), an immigrant from Hungary, may lose his U.S. citizenship because he is accused of committing war crimes. Convinced that the charges are ridiculous, Ann plunges in to defend her father in court, but she is soon shocked when the truth begins to emerge. Lange expertly balances the yearnings of a daughter to exonerate her father with her duty as a lawyer to do what she can to get to the truth.

One of Lange’s most iconic roles was as legendary country singer Patsy Cline in this Robert Getchell-scripted film, directed by Karel Reisz. “Sweet Dreams” covers the span of Cline’s performing years and her relationship with her lover and (later) husband, the charismatic Charlie Dick (Ed Harris). When Charlie returns from the Army, he realizes that Patsy’s music success has turned his once-shy wife into a powerful performer onstage, with a self-confidence that does not please Charlie whatsoever. For the performing scenes, Lange lip-synced so convincingly that it only enhanced her performance for which Large received her fourth Oscar nomination.

The plight of the American farmer was a popular subject for films to tackle in the early 1980s, and Richard Pearce’s “Country,” written by William D. Wittliff, was one of the best. In this story of the Ivy family — a father (Wilford Brimley), his daughter Jewell (Lange in an Oscar and Globe-nominated performance) and her husband Gil (Sam Shepard) — “Country” focuses on their struggle to keep the family farm afloat while facing pending FHA loans and low crop prices. Oh yes, and a tornado. The film’s implication that the government was indifferent to the farmers’ plight was specifically condemned by President Ronald Reagan in his personal diary, while, on the other hand, Lange was brought to testify in front of a Congressional committee specifically to affirm the film’s pro-farmer message.

Arguably one of the great screen comedies of all time, “Tootsie” brought Lange her first Academy Award and second Golden Globe Award. As Julie Nichols, an actress who plays Nurse Charles on the daytime soap opera “Southwest General,” Lange sees Julie as lonely and shy, yet trapped in a hopeless relationship with the soap’s boorish director Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman). Her only confidant appears to be co-star Dorothy Michaels (Dustin Hoffman), who is actually male actor Michael Dorsey, so desperate for work that he nabbed this female role while dressed as a woman. Lange brings such a vulnerability and charm to the role that audiences were aching for Julie to find some happiness, and Julie continues to be one of Lange’s most beloved characters.

Lange’s immersive performance as film actress Frances Farmer, whose life included institutionalization for alleged mental illness in the 1940s, brought Lange an Oscar nomination and another from the Golden Globes. Under the direction of Graeme Clifford with a script written by Eric Bergren, Christopher DeVore and Nicholas Kazan, Lange delves into the meat of Farmer’s tragic life, from her early rise in movies despite the fact that she refused to play “the Hollywood game,” her detour into left-wing theatre, her descent into drugs and alcohol, and her eventual nervous breakdown. It’s a lot of material for an actor to chew on, and Lange made the most of it.

If there were still any doubters that Lange had the right stuff as an actress, they were likely converted with the release of Bob Rafelson’s remake of the 1946 film noir, “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” adapted now by David Mamet from the famed James Cain novel. Here Lange plays Cora Smith, operator of a roadside diner who attracts the attention of drifter Frank Chambers (Jack Nicholson) with whom she begins a torrid affair and eventually conspires to murder her husband, Greek immigrant Nick Papadakis (John Colicos). Up against the formidable Nicholson, Lange proved the she could go toe to toe with the screen legend, with several critics suggesting that she even got the better of him.

This contemporary remake of the 1933 classic was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., who is most famed for creating the campy 1960s TV remake of “Batman” as a series. That tone of action-plus-spoof was carried over here and garnered mixed reviews in this remake, in which Kong climbs to the top of the World Trade Center. Caught up in all of this was Lange’s film debut as Dwan, the iconic woman in the paw of the giant ape. Though Lange was roasted by some critics for her performance, Lange had an early defender in The New Yorker’s influential film critic Pauline Kael, a high regard that Kael maintained through much of her career. For her performance as Dwan, Lange received her first Golden Globe Award in the now-defunct category of “New Star of the Year.”

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