Holly Hunter has had a highly successful career on the screen, stage and television earning an Oscar and two Emmys for her efforts.
Born in rural Georgia, Hunter developed an interest in acting at a young age. It would lead her to attend college at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the countries most respected drama programs. While some thought her deep southern accent would hinder her career and options for roles, Hunter chose to embrace her accent and rose to fame playing a variety of southern characters.
A chance meeting while being stuck in an elevator with playwright Beth Henley would lead to Hunter’s Broadway debut. Henley had just won the Pulitzer Prize for her play “Crimes of the Heart,” a story of three eccentric sisters. When Mary Beth Hurt vacated one of the roles, Henley cast Hunter, and it would also lead to the next two plays: the Broadway flop “The Wake of Jamey Foster” and the off-Broadway hit “The Miss Firecracker Contest.”
Those stage successes brought notice by Hollywood, where after a series of small roles she was cast in two acclaimed comedies in 1987, “Raising Arizona” (opposite Nicolas Cage) and “Broadcast News” (with William Hurt and Albert Brooks). Despite being a virtual unknown Hunter proved a strong contender in the 1987 Best Actress race winning a number of critic’s prizes before losing to Cher in “Moonstruck” for the Oscar.
Six years later Hunter would win the Oscar as Best Actress for “The Piano.” In between those years she would twice win the Emmy for Best Movie/Mini Actress for her work in “Roe vs. Wade” and “The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom.”
Tour our photo gallery of her 15 greatest film performances, ranked from worst to best.
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15. SWING SHIFT (1984)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Jonathan Demme. Writer: Rob Morton. Starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Christine Lahti.
After finding success on the New York stage Hunter began appearing in small roles in films and television. “Swing Shift” would mark her first appearance in a major film. She has a small role in this film about women going to work in factories during WWII while all the young men were away fighting in the war. Hunter has a key scene where she learns she has been widowed. The film was the subject of a huge dispute over final cut between Goldie Hawn and Jonathan Demme resulting in two versions existing. Some of Hunter’s best work was supposedly cut out of the theatrical released version that Hawn wanted.
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14. JESUS’ SON (1999)
Image Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate Director: Allison MacLean. Writers: Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia, Oren Moverman. Starring Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Dennis Hopper.
Hunter was among the starry supporting cast in this film that episodically follows the life of a young man (Billy Crudup) who is strung out on various drugs. Set in the 1970s the film depicts Crudup’s sad attempts to keep his life going while obsessively in love with a young woman (Samatha Morton.) Hunter plays another girlfriend Crudup has towards the end of the film when he is trying to live a normal life by working in a nursing home.
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13. ALWAYS (1989)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Steven Spielberg. Writers: Jerry Belson. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, John Goodman, Audrey Hepburn.
“Always” seemed like it was destined for Oscar glory what with its reuniting director Steven Spielberg with his “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” star Richard Dreyfuss and being the first big budget film Hunter took after her breakout year in 1987 which included her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The film was a remake of “A Guy Named Joe,” a Spencer Tracey film directed by Victor Fleming who had also directed “The Wizard of Oz.” Critics found the film a bit underwhelming and it didn’t become the Oscar bait it had been planned as.
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12. CRASH (1996)
Image Credit: Columbia Tri Star/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: David Cronenberg. Starring James Spader, Elias Koteas, Rosanna Arquette.
Nine years before another film named “Crash” won a surprising Best Picture Oscar in 2005 there was this film with the same title written and directed by David Cronenberg. The film explores a rather unique topic in that examines the lives of people who are sexually aroused by automobile accidents. The characters seek each other out and bond over there unique sexual proclivity.
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11. O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? (2000)
Image Credit: Courtesy of Buena Vista Pictures Director: Joel Coen. Writers: Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring George Clooney, John Turturro, John Goodman.
Based on Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey” the Coen brothers brought their typical unique vision to this film about three convicts who escape from a chain gang. Hunter plays George Clooney’s wife who begins to grow tired of her husbands schemes and problems with the law but ultimately remains loyal to him. George Clooney won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for this film.
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10. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1995)
Image Credit: Bob Marshak/Polygram/Egg/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Jodie Foster. Writer: W.D. Richter. Starring Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey Jr., Claire Danes.
Jodie Foster’s second film as a director starred Hunter as single mother who returns to her parents home for Thanksgiving in the midst of a period of her life where everything seems to be going wrong. Hunter gets to use her comic abilities as her character suffers one humiliation after another including being fired from her job, losing control of her teenage daughter and the general stress that comes from dealing with her eccentric family.
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9. ONCE AROUND (1991)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Lasse Hallstrom. Writer: Malia Scotch Marmo. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Aeillo, Gena Rowlands.
Hunter reunited with Richard Dreyfuss for this film from acclaimed director Lasse Hallstrom (“Reversal of Fortune”, “My Life as a Dog.”) Hunter plays a depressed woman who can’t find success in love or career until she meets an older successful real estate salesman. The film then explores how the Dreyfuss’ lovable but somewhat abrasive character slowly gains acceptance from Hunter’s family. An interesting aspect of the film is that it is one of the rare times that Hunter chose to use a different accent on film and not her native heavy Georgia normal speaking voice.
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8. MISS FIRECRACKER (1989)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Thomas Schlamme. Writer: Beth Henley. Starring Mary Steenburgen, Tim Robbins, Alfree Woodard.
A chance meeting with playwright Beth Henley while the two were stuck in an elevator is pretty much responsible for the start of Hunter’s career as an actress. After the two were stuck together for about 10 minutes alone in the elevator Henley took an interest in the aspiring actress and cast her as a replacement in her long running Broadway play “Crimes of the Heart.” Hunter would then go on to star in Henley’s next two plays in New York including this story which as a play was entitled “The Miss Firecracker Contest.” Hunter plays a young woman who dreams of winning a local beauty pageant. Hunter’s choice for the talent portion where she twirls a rifle is an ingenious piece of physical comedy.
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7. THE FIRM (1993)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock Director: Sydney Pollack. Writers: David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel. Starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman.
“The Firm” was the first of John Grisham’s books to make it to the screen. Hunter plays a somewhat goofy secretary to a private investigator who helps Tom Cruise’s character in the case he is investigating. Hunter earned a surprise Best Supporting Actress nomination for this film the same year she had earned a Best Actress nomination for “The Piano.” Emma Thompson also earned double nominations that year for Best Actress in “The Remains of the Day” and Best Supporting Actress for “In the Name of the Father.” Hunter was quite shocked at the double nomination and said that she saw her and Thompson’s supporting nominations more as a case of name checking of familiar actresses due to the lack of good roles for women on screen. Interestingly Hunter would lose the supporting award to her young co-star of “The Piano,” Anna Paquin.
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6. COPYCAT (1995)
Image Credit: New Regency/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Jon Amiel. Writers: Ann Biderman, David Madsen. Starring Sigourney Weaver, Dermot Mulroney, Will Patton.
The success of “The Silence of the Lambs” in the nineties spawned many films about serial killers. This was one of the better ones. Hunter plays a police inspector investigating a series of murders. She teams with Sigourney Weaver as a criminal psychologist who has become agoraphobic after being attacked by one of her subjects. Weaver and Hunter slowly figure out that they are dealing with a copycat killer who is committing his murders in the style of famous murders of the past.
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5. THE BIG SICK (2017)
Image Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate Director: Michael Showalter. Writers: Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani. Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano.
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon wrote this autobiographical story of an aspiring stand up comic and the woman he falls in love with. Nanjiani fears being disinherited if he doesn’t marry a Pakistani woman like his parents expect. He realizes his true love for the white woman he has met (based on Gordon) after she suffers a near fatal disease. Hunter plays the woman’s mother and did pretty well in the awards derby of that year earning Golden Globe and SAG nominations as Best Supporting Actress but fell short of earning an Oscar nomination.
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4. THIRTEEN (2003)
Image Credit: Anne Marie Fox/20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Catherine Hardwicke. Writers: Catherine Hardwicke, Nikki Reed. Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed.
Hunter did receive her fourth Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) as a mother trying to deal with her rebellious daughter who starts to dabble in sex, drugs and crime after she becomes friends with the wrong crowd. Nikki Reed who co-stars as the friend who leads Hunter’s daughter down the wrong path co-wrote the screenplay based on experiences from her own life.
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3. RAISING ARIZONA (1987)
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Joel Coen. Writers: Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring Nicolas Cage, John Goodman, Frances McDormand.
The year 1987 was a landmark year for Hunter. She would conclude it with her first Oscar nomination for “Broadcast News” and begin it with this antic comedy from the Coen brothers. Hunter plays the a cop who falls in love with a petty thief while taking his mug shots. Due to his infertility they are unable to have children. They decide to kidnap one of a group of quintuplets that have been born locally. Hunter’s bellowing command of “you go up there and get me a toddler!!!” in her deep southern accent was perhaps the first moment that indicated that this young film newcomer was someone to watch.
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2. THE PIANO (1993)
Image Credit: Jan Chapman Prods/Ciby 2000/Miramax/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Jane Campion. Starring Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Sam Neill.
Hunter won just about every award they give including a Best Actress Oscar for this film about a woman who is placed in an arranged marriage to a wealthy New Zealand plantation owner but begins to fall in love with a field hand on the estate. The woman is mute and chooses not to speak but instead communicates through the music of her piano. Hunter joined the list of people like Jane Wyman (“Johnny Belinda”), Marlee Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God”) and Sir John Mills (“Ryan’s Daughter”) who won Oscars without ever uttering a word on film.
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1. BROADCAST NEWS (1987)
Image Credit: Kerry Hayes/20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: James L. Brooks. Starring William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Jack Nicholson.
James L. Brooks had planned to cast his “Terms of Endearment” star Debra Winger in the lead role of this film set in the world of television news (a topic he was well acquainted with from his producing of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) but her pregnancy forced her to drop out at the last minute. At the TCM Film Festival a few years ago Brooks described how he auditioned every woman in Hollywood for the role and had settled on someone he was only halfhearted about when someone suggested he see the then little known Hunter. Hunter gave a great audition and would go on to receive a number of critics awards as the idealistic yet highly stressed out news producer fighting the loss of integrity she begins to see in her profession.
