When we talk about the title of Greatest Living Actress, it seems as though many folks can only think of one answer to that question (we’ll give you a hint: her first name rhymes with Ferrell). While we are in no way trying to throw the goddess Meryl Streep under the proverbial bus, we are suggesting that perhaps it’s time to allow for more room in the conversation without showering all our attention on one admittedly iconic performer who, by now, has earned her just desserts. I mean, Nicole Kidman and Viola Davis are both still alive and making movies, right?
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Frances McDormand is someone who absolutely belongs in this conversation – if not for the title of Greatest Living Actress, then certainly someone who is gunning for the throne. For thirty-plus years, McDormand has achieved something that many once thought to be impossible: she is both glamorous and totally down-to-earth, a bonafide movie star who nevertheless seems human and approachable. Watching McDormand do her thing, there’s a sense that we can somehow see ourselves in her work, and she’s never had to resort to prosthetics, fat suits, or any other Method nonsense in order to give a great performance. Frances McDormand is just naturally great, and the truth is that she has been for decades.
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We aren’t the only ones to espouse this glowing opinion of Mrs. McDormand: the Illinois-born actress has worked with some of the best directors in the business, including Joel and Ethan Coen, Ken Loach, John Sayles, Sam Raimi, Gus Van Sant, Robert Altman, Karyn Kusama, Wes Anderson, and many, many more. Currently, McDormand is earning arguably the best reviews of her career for her starring role in Chloé Zhao’s long-awaited follow-up to “The Rider,” “Nomadland,” which is currently the talk of the festival circuit after taking home the coveted Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival (it looks to be a smash at this year’s TIFF as well).
The “nomads” of Zhao’s third picture are essentially the forgotten middle-class of the last century: those who once reaped the rewards of suburban complacency, and now find themselves rudderless and adrift, roaming the vast American landscape in camper vans or RVs in search of seasonal work, essentially going where the wind blows them. In a career full of terrific performances, McDormand’s work in “Nomadland” is said to be among the best work she’s ever done, so to say that we’re excited is putting it mildly.
To celebrate yet another momentous performance from one of our greatest living actresses, here’s a run-down of the most essential McDormand performances, from the 80’s all the way to 2020. Be sure to hang around near the end for an Honorable Mention category because, let’s be real, Mrs. McDormand has more great performances than we could ever manage to fit onto one list.
“Blood Simple” (1984)
The world did not necessarily know who Frances McDormand was in 1984, when Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Blood Simple” was unleashed upon an unsuspecting moviegoing populace. Many, of course, would come to know her very shortly after the film’s release. The Coens’ grisly, hypnotically malignant neo-noir debut remains one of the most assured debut films we’ve ever seen, and it would go on to influence everything from “Blue Ruin,” the ferocious nouveau-exploitation breakthrough from “Green Room” director Jeremy Saulnier, to this year’s like-minded “Arkansas.” “Blood Simple” solidifies the Coens’ early obsession with infidelity, murder, and dirty, underhanded deals, with McDormand playing the only recognizable human being in an unbelievably seedy gallery of heartland bottom-feeders. McDormand plays Abby, who’s cheating on her contemptuous husband Julian (Dan Hedaya, who is so good here that he actually managed to convince some audiences that he was a Texas native) with a dim bulb named Ray, who tends bar at a watering hole that Julian technically owns. The film is McDormand’s proper screen debut, and she brings the same sense of innate decency that would go on to define many of her later roles to this part, which makes it all the more distressing that all three of these aforementioned characters are put through the wringer to such an extreme degree. “Blood Simple” may not be McDormand’s ultimate actor’s showcase, but as the official screen introduction of a generational talent, it remains a milestone. – NL
“Raising Arizona” (1987)
“Raising Arizona” sees Joel and Ethan Coen in full-on zany goofball mode, effectively kick-starting a trend where the brothers follow an ambitious, supposedly “serious” picture with a wink-and-a-nudge lark (subsequent examples of this trend include “Burn After Reading” coming out on the heels of “No Country for Old Men,” or “Hail, Caesar!” following “Inside Llewyn Davis”). “Raising Arizona” is primarily the story of Nicolas Cage’s pea-brained thief H.I. McDunnough and his attempts at raising an infant child (i.e. kidnapping one), but McDormand, in only a handful of scenes, manages to create a supporting character who is, in her own way, vividly unforgettable. McDormand plays gaudily-dressed swinger wife Dot, and everything about her performance here – from the way she takes a sincere interest in the well-being of H.I.’s baby, to the way she puts garnishes a hot dog – is such a choice that it feels as though the character has lived a lifetime before she’s actually been introduced. McDormand has always been effortlessly in tune with the very peculiar creative frequency preferred by the Coens, and while she would go on to create more persuasive, fleshed-out characters for the directors in later years (see: the next movie on this list), “Raising Arizona” offers a glimpse of McDormand in an early, daringly wacky comedic role. – NL
“Fargo” (1996)
The filmography of the Coen Brothers is one that’s filled with many a disagreeable character: fibbers, philanderers, scoundrels, simpletons, and two-bit lowlifes are the duo’s bread and butter, with one notable exception. That would be “Fargo’s” Marge Gunderson, who, throughout her upside-down hero’s journey, remains a paragon of virtue and altruism in a scurrilous moral landscape that is decidedly lacking in those two aforementioned qualities. “Fargo” is a modern masterwork that’s all but teeming with unsavory types, from William H. Macy’s lethally passive-aggressive pathological liar Jerry Lundegaard to Steve Buscemi’s sadistic, reptilian criminal henchman. “Fargo” offers its viewers a pitilessly nasty vision of Minnesota Not-So-Nice, and yet, as Gunderson, McDormand is a veritable beacon of hope. Marge’s smile can light up a room, and she can diffuse a grotesque crime scene tableau with something as beautifully observed as a throwaway mom joke. The heartbreaking climactic monologue that McDormand delivers to co-star Peter Stormare, which cements the character’s earnest belief that “there’s more to life than a little money,” affirms the movie’s perspective on the inherent worthlessness of material pursuit in this rotten Midwestern milieu. If nothing else, McDormand’s radiant turn here suggests that the Coens may not be the sadistic puppetmasters that so many of their critics accuse them of being. – NL
“Almost Famous” (2000)
We’ve sadly seen Cameron Crowe make some real stinkers over the past fifteen years, haven’t we? Once upon a time, before his most recent disappointing output, he made a little movie called “Almost Famous” that almost instantly announced itself as one of the greatest movies about rock n’ roll ever made. McDormand isn’t a huge part of “Almost Famous,” but as Elaine Miller, the rock-hating mother of the burgeoning teenaged journalist at the center of the story, she ends up being an essential part of why the film is as memorable as it is nearly twenty years later. Elaine is a fearsome force of maternal nature, a staunch enemy of the counterculture as envisioned through the lens of a former rock obsessive. She’s the kind of overbearing parent who drops her kid off at a show and leaves him by shouting “DON’T TAKE DRUGS,” thus inviting the ridicule of her son’s fellow concertgoers. Later, she talks Billy Crudup’s character, who is deep in the throes of an acid trip, off a proverbial ledge, insisting that he’s better than the scandalous lifestyle he’s chosen for himself. It used to be that Crowe actually listened to how people talk to one another, and McDormand, bless her heart, makes all of Crowe’s quippy line readings really sing. If nothing else, her performance is worth watching for Elaine’s ruthless analysis of the cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bookends” LP. – NL
“Wonder Boys” (2000)
“Wonder Boys,” a big-screen adaptation of Michael Chabon’s effervescent novel, is one of our favorite films from the great, departed director Curtis Hanson: a literate hangout movie for middle-aged intellectuals that’s also a screwball comedy in stoned slow-motion. The film observes the misadventures of a pot-puffing writer and professor named Grady Tripp as he careens from one misunderstanding to another over the course of a fateful weekend that’s filled with dead dogs, self-pity, Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, and enough cannabis for another “How High” movie. “Wonder Boys” can feel a bit like a boy’s flick, with the likes of Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr. being given much of the screenplay’s best dialogue, and yet it is unquestionably McDormand’s performance as Chancellor Sara Gaskell that lingers with you after the credits roll. Once again, McDormand plays a woman caught in a compromised romantic liaison, torn between Douglas’ charming has-been and her rather dull husband, who just so happens to be the chairman of her college’s English department. In every one of her scenes, McDormand allows us to feel the pain of the indecision that weighs on Sara, and Hanson, who was nothing if not an actor’s director, generously bolsters the brave choices she makes in scene after scene. McDormand is frank and funny and also refreshingly critical of the immature antics indulged in by Grady, lest we worry that the filmmakers may have been too enamored with the character’s regressive, Philip Roth-style bad-boy antics. – NL
“The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001)
In case you hadn’t noticed, this list is going to be heavy on Coen Brothers efforts (McDormand is married to one of them, after all), but since when has that ever been a bad thing? “The Man Who Wasn’t There” might be one of the Coens’ more underrated works: it’s a sensuous and engrossing ode to Columbia noirs of the 1940s, shot in inky black-and-white by the great Roger Deakins, and acted to the hilt by a top-tier cast that includes the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, James Gandolfini, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Shaloub, and more. McDormand plays Doris Crane, a blowsy and unapologetic drunk who may or may not be cheating on Thornton’s laconic barber with Gandolfini’s small-time slimeball, Big Dave. McDormand acts as the connective tissue between these two pathetic male characters, and the impenitent nature of her performance here brilliantly offsets the dry, mannered quietude of Thornton’s turn, as well as the sense of simmering inadequacy exuded by Gandolfini’s stumblebum. All the while, McDormand resists chewing the scenery: when it comes to acting as an invaluable part of an ensemble, she’s quite simply one of the best we’ve got. What’s more is that McDormand makes us both love and pity the doomed Doris, who may actually be one of the most tragic figures in the entire Coen oeuvre. – NL