Catherine Elise Blanchett AC (born May 14, 1969) is an Australian actress, producer, and theatre director. Regarded as one of the greatest actresses of her generation, she is noted for her versatile roles in blockbusters, independent films, and in her stage work in various theatre productions. She has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three British Academy Film Awards.
After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her acting career on the Australian stage, taking on roles in Electra in 1992 and Hamlet in 1994. Some of her earliest roles include Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road (1997), with Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Pauline Collins, Johanna ter Steege, and Julianna Margulies; Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997), with Richard Roxburgh and Celia Ireland; Gillian Armstrong’s Oscar and Lucinda (1997), with Ralph Fiennes, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Roxburgh, Clive Russell, and Bille Brown.
She came to international attention for portraying Elizabeth I in the drama film Elizabeth (1998), with Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough; for which she won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and received her first of seven Academy Award nominations. Other films around this time include Oliver Parker’s An Ideal Husband (1999), with Minnie Driver, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Northam, John Wood, Lindsay Duncan, Peter Vaughan, and Jeroen Krabbé; Mike Newell’s Pushing Tin (1999), with John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina Jolie, and Jake Weber; and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), with Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, James Rebhorn, Sergio Rubini, and Philip Baker Hall.
Blanchett is probably best known for her portrayal of the Elf character Galadriel in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003), collectively featuring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Brad Dourif, Karl Urban, Bernard Hill, and John Noble. She would reprise the role again in Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy (2012, 2013, 2014), collectively featuring McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Stephen Fry, Holm, Lee, Weaving, Wood, Bloom, and Serkis.
Blanchett won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of legendary actress Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese‘s The Aviator (2004), with Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Beckinsale, Holm, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Gwen Stefani, Kelli Garner, Matt Ross, Willem Dafoe, Alan Alda, and Edward Herrmann. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Richard Eyer’s Notes on a Scandal (2006), with Judi Dench and Bill Nighy; and Todd Hayne’s I’m Not There (2007), with Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Charlotte Gainsbourg, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Moore, and Michelle Williams.
Her Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), with Rush, Clive Owen, Rhys Ifans, Jordi Mollà, Abbie Cornish, and Samantha Morton; she became the first female actor to receive another Academy Award nomination for the reprisal of the same role. She’s also part of a handful of actors to receive two Academy Award nominations in the same year, along with Fay Bainter, Teresa Wright, Barry Fitzgerald, Jessica Lange, Sigourney Weaver, Al Pacino, Holly Hunter, Emma Thompson, Moore, Jamie Foxx, and Scarlett Johansson.
Other roles in the 2000s include Sam Raimi’s The Gift (2000), with Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, Hilary Swank, Katie Holmes, and Greg Kinnear; Sally Potter’s The Man Who Cried (2001), with Christina Ricci, Johnny Depp, Harry Dean Stanton, and John Turturro; Barry Levinson’s Bandits (2001), with Bruce Willis and Thornton; Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News (2001), with Kevin Spacey, Moore, Dench, Pete Postlethwaite, Scott Glenn, Ifans, Jason Behr, and Gordon Pinsent; Charlotte Gray (2001), with James Fleet, Abigail Cruttenden, Rupert Penry-Jones, Michael Gambon, and Billy Crudup; Tom Tykwer’s Heaven (2002), with Ribisi; Joel Schumacher’s Veronica Guerin (2003), with Gerard McSorley, Ciarán Hinds, Brenda Fricker, and Amy Shiels; Ron Howard’s The Missing (2003), with Tommy Lee Jones, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd, Eric Schweig, and Aaron Eckhart; Jim Jarmusch’s anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes (2004), with Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Isaach De Bankolé, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, among many others; and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), with Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Gambon, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, Bud Cort, and Seu Jorge.
Films in the mid to late 2000s include Little Fish (2005), with Sam Neill and Weaving; Alejandro G. Iñárritu (2006), with Brad Pitt, Gael García Bernal, Kōji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza, and Rinko Kikuchi; Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German (2006), with George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, and Beau Bridges; Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), with Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, and Shia LaBeouf; David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), with Pitt, Taraji P. Henson, Mahershala Ali, Julia Ormond, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas, and Tilda Swinton; and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010), with Russell Crowe, William Hurt, Mark Strong, Mark Addy, Oscar Isaac, Danny Huston, Eileen Atkins, and Max von Sydow.
Blanchett won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine (2013), with Alec Baldwin, Louis C.K., Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard, and Michael Stuhlbarg; and she was nominated again for the film Carol (2015), with Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, and Kyle Chandler.Other films in the 2010s include Joe Wright’s Hanna (2011), with Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, and Flemyng; The Monuments Men (2014), with Clooney (who also directed), Damon, Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, and Hugh Bonneville; and Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella (2015), with Lily James, Richard Madden, Stellan Skarsgård, Holliday Grainger, Derek Jacobi, and Helena Bonham Carter.
Films in the mid to late 2010s include Truth (2015), with Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, and Dennis Quaid; Terrence Malick’s Night of Cups (2016), with Bale, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, and Antonio Banderas; Song to Song (2017), with Ryan Gosling, Mara, Michael Fassbender, Portman, Val Kilmer, and Holly Hunter; Taika Waititi’s entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor: Ragnarok (2017), with Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Urban, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins; Gary Ross’s Ocean’s 8 (2018), with Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, and Carter; The House with the Clock in Its Walls (2018), with Jack Black, Owen Vaccaro, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sunny Suljic, and Kyle MacLachlan; and Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019), with Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, and Laurence Fishburne.
Blanchett received her 5th Academy Award Nomination in the best Actress category for Tár (2022), with Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong. Other films in the 2020s include Adam McKay’s (2021), with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, and Meryl Streep; Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley (2021), with Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn; Paul Feig’s The School for Good and Evil (2022), with Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Flatters, Kit Young, Peter Serafinowicz, Rob Delaney, Mark Heap, Patti LuPone, Rachel Bloom, Kerry Washington, and Charlize Theron.
Blanchett has also done voice work including the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo (2008), with Noah Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey, Damon, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White, and Cloris Leachman; How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), and the sequel The Hidden World (2019), collectively featuring Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Wiig, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington, and F. Murray Abraham; Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018), with Rohan Chand, Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto, the voice and motion capture of Bale, Naomie Harris, and Serkis (who also directed); and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2021), with Gregory Mann, Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Perlman, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Tim Blake Nelson, Finn Wolfhard, Burn Gorman and Turturro.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Kaboria (1990) – directed by Khairy Beshara
- Police Rescue (1994) – Michael Carson
- Parklands (1996) Kathryn Millard – short
- Paradise Road (1997) – Bruce Beresford
- Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997) – Cherie Nowlan
- Oscar and Lucinda (1997) – Gillian Armstrong
- Elizabeth (1998) – directed by Shekhar Kapur
- An Ideal Husband (1999) – directed by Oliver Parker
- Bangers (1999) – directed by Andrew Upton – also producer – short
- Pushing Tin (1999) – Mike Newell
- Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – directed by Stanley Kubrick – uncredited
- The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) – directed by Anthony Minghella
- The Gift (2000) – directed by Sam Raimi
- The Man Who Cried (2001) – directed by Sally Potter
- 2001 The Shipping News Petal Quoyle Lasse Hallström
- Bandits Kate (2001) – Barry Levinson
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)* – directed by Peter Jackson
- Charlotte Gray (2001) – directed by Gillian Armstrong
- Heaven (2002) – directed by Tom Tykwer
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)* – directed by Peter Jackson
- Veronica Guerin (2003) – directed by Joel Schumacher
- The Missing (2003) – directed by Ron Howard
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)* – directed by Peter Jackson
- Coffee and Cigarettes (2004) – directed by Jim Jarmusch
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) – directed by Wes Anderson
- The Aviator (2004) – directed by Martin Scorsese
- Little Fish (2005) – directed by Rowan Woods
- Babel (2006) – directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
- The Good German (2006) – directed by Steven Soderbergh
- Notes on a Scandal (2006) – directed by Richard Eyre
- Hot Fuzz (2007)* – directed by Edgar Wright – uncredited cameo
- In the Company of Actors (2007) – directed by Ian Darling – herself – documentary
- Elizabeth: The Golden (2007) – directed by Shekhar Kapur
- I’m Not There (2007) – directed by Todd Haynes
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)* – directed by Steven Spielberg
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)* – directed by David Fincher
- Ponyo (2008)* – directed by Hayao Miyazaki – english dub
- Robin Hood (2010)* – directed by Ridley Scott
- Hanna (2011) – directed by Joe Wright
- The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg (2011) – directed by Steven Soderbergh
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) – directed by Peter Jackson
- A Cautionary Tail (2012) – directed by Simon Rippingale – short
- Girl Rising (2013) – Richard E. Robbins – narrator – documentary
- Journey to the South Pacific (2013) – directed by Greg MacGillivray – narrator – documentary
- Blue Jasmine (2013) – directed by Woody Allen
- The Turning (2013) – directed by Jonathan auf der Heide, Shaun Gladwell, Anthony Lucas, Stephen Page, Mia Wasikowska, Tony Ayres, Rhys Graham, Claire McCarthy, Simon Stone, David Wenham, Jub Clerc, Justin Kurzel, Ian Meadows, Warwick Thornton, Robert Connolly, Yaron Lifschitz, Ashlee Page, & Marieka Walsh – anthology
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) – directed by Peter Jackson
- The Monuments Men (2014) – directed by George Clooney
- The Galapagos Affair (2014) – Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine – documentary
- How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)* – directed by Dean DeBlois
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) – directed by Peter Jackson
- Cinderella (2015) – directed by Kenneth Branagh
- Carol (2015) – directed by Todd Haynes – also executive producer
- Truth (2015) – directed by James Vanderbilt
- Manifesto (2015) – directed by Julian Rosefeldt
- Night of Cups (2016) – directed by Terrence Malick
- Voyage of Time (2016) – directed by Terrence Malick – narrator – documentary
- Red (2017) – directed by Del Kathryn Barton – short
- Song to Song (2017) – directed by Terrence Malick
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)* – directed by Taika Waititi
- Ocean’s 8 (2018) – directed by Gary Ross
- Uncanny Valley (2018) – directed by Alex Prager – short
- The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) – directed by Eli Roth
- Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) – directed by Andy Serkis
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)* – directed by Dean DeBlois
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2019) – directed by Richard Linklater
- Sweet Tooth (2019) – directed by Shannon Ashlyn – short
- Nightmare Alley (2021)* – directed by Guillermo del Toro
- Don’t Look Up (2021) – directed by Adam McKay
- Tár (2022) – directed by Todd Field – also executive producer
- Pinocchio (2022)* – directed by Guillermo del Toro & Mark Gustafson
- The School for Good and Evil (2022) – directed by Paul Feig
- The New Boy (2023) – directed by Warwick Thornton – also producer
- Borderlands (2023) – directed by Eli Roth
I Review Stuff 