Judy Davis

Actresses

Judith Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress in film, television, and on stage. With a career spanning over 40 years, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. She is the most awarded recipient for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA) with nine accolades and has received numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, and two nominations for Academy Awards.

She made her film debut in Igor Auzins’s High Rolling (1977), with Joseph Bottoms, Grigor Taylor, Wendy Hughes, and John Clayton. Other early films include Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career (1979), with Sam Neill and Wendy Hughes; Hoodwink (1981), with John Hargreaves, Hughes, and Geoffrey Rush; John Duigan’s Winter of Our Dreams (1981), with Bryan Brown, Cathy Downes, and Baz Luhrman; Ian Sharp’s Who Dares Wins (1982), with Lewis Collins, Richard Widmark, Tony Doyle and Edward Woodward; and Philip Noyce’s Heatwave (1983), with Richard Moir, Chris Haywood, Bill Hunter, John Gregg, and John Meillon.

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for David Lean’s A Passage to India (1984), with Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Nigel Havers, Victor Banerjee, and Roshan Seth. Other films in the 1980s include Tim Burstall’s Kangaroo (1986), with Colin Friels, John Walton, Julie Nihill, Peter Hehir, Peter Cummins, and Hugh Keays-Byrne; High Tide (1987), with Jan Adele, Claudia Karvan, and Friels; and Ben Lewin’s Georgia (1988), with John Bach, Julia Blake, Alex Menglet, and Marshall Napier.

She received a second Academy Award nomination (in the Best Supporting Actress category) for Husbands and Wives (1992), with Woody Allen (who also directed), Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack, Lysette Anthony, Juliette Lewis, Liam Neeson, and Blythe Danner. Other films in the early 1990s include Alice (1990), with Farrow, Joe Mantegna, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin Danner, Keye Luke, Bernadette Peters, Cybill Shepherd, and Gwen Verdon; Joel & Ethan Coen’s Barton Fink (1991), with John Turturro, John Goodman, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, and Steve Buscemi; James Lapine’s Impromptu (1991), with Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Julian Sands, Ralph Brown, Georges Corraface, Anton Rodgers, and Emma Thompson; Charles Sturridge’s Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), with Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves, Giovanni Guidelli, Barbara Jefford, and Helen Mirren; David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991), with Peter Weller, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider; and On My Own (1991), with Matthew Ferguson.

More films in the 1990s include Ted Demme’s The Ref (1994), with Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Robert J. Steinmiller Jr., Glynis Johns, Richard Bright, Christine Baranski, Adam LeFevre, J.K. Simmons, and BD Wong; The New Age (1994), with Weller, Patrick Bauchau, Rachel Rosenthal, Adam West, Corbin Bernsen, Patricia Heaton, and Samuel L. Jackson; Children of the Revolution (1996), with Richard Roxburgh, Rush, Neill, Rachel Griffiths, and F. Murray Abraham; Deconstructing Harry (1997), with Caroline Aaron, Allen (who also directed), Kirstie Alley, Bob Balaban, Richard Benjamin, Eric Bogosian, Billy Crystal, Hazelle Goodman, Mariel Hemingway, Amy Irving, Julie Kavner, Eric Lloyd, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Elisabeth Shue, Stanley Tucci, and Robin Williams; Absolute Power (1997), with Clint Eastwood (who also directed), Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Judy Davis, Scott Glenn, Dennis Haysbert, E.G. Marshall, and Richard Jenkins; Bob Rafelson’s Blood and Wine (1997), with Jack Nicholson, Stephen Dorff, Jennifer Lopez, and Michael Caine, and Celebrity (1998), with Kenneth Branagh, Hank Azaria, Leonardo DiCaprio, Melanie Griffith, Famke Janssen, Lerner, Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth, Winona Ryder, and Charlize Theron.

Films in the 2000s include Mark Joffe’s The Man Who Sued God (2001), with Billy Connolly and Emily Browning; Susan Seidleman’s Gaudi Afternoon (2001), with Marcia Gay Harden, Lili Taylor, Juliette Lewis, Christopher Bowen, and Courtney Jines; Russell Mulcahy’s Swimming Upstream (2003), with Jesse Spencer and Rush; Peyton Reed’s The Break-Up (2006), with Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston, Joey Lauren Adams, Ann-Margret, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Favreau, Cole Hauser, John Michael Higgins, and Justin Long; Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006), with Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Asia Argento, Molly Shannon, Shirley Henderson, Danny Huston, Steve Coogan, and Jamie Dornan; Fred Schepisi’s The Eye of the Storm (2011), with Rush and Charlotte Rampling; To Rome with Love (2012), with Allen (who also directed), Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, PenĂ©lope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Elliot Page; George Sluizer’s Dark Blood (2012), with River Phoenix, Jonathan Pryce, and Karen Black; Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013), with Bonham Carter, Callum Keith Rennie, Kyle Catlett, Niamh Wilson, Rick Mercer, and Dominique Pinon; Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker (2015), with Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo Weaving; and Justin Kurzel’s Nitram (2022), with Caleb Landry Jones, Essie Davis, and Anthony LaPaglia.

TV movies and miniseries in the 1980s to mid 1990s include Water Under the Bridge (1980), with Robyn Nevin, David Cameron, Rowena Wallace, Jacki Weaver, and Rod Mullinar; A Woman Called Golda (1982), with Ingrid Bergman, Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover, Anne Jackson, Robert Loggia, Leonard Nimoy, and Jack Thompson; The Merry Wives of Windsor (1982), with Alan Bennett, Richard O’Callaghan, and Richard Griffiths; Rocket to the Moon (1986), with John Malkovich, Eli Wallach, William Hootkins, Ian McShane, and Connie Booth; One Against the Wind (1991), with Niell, Anthony Higgins, Kate Beckinsale, and Denholm Elliott; and Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), with Glenn Close, Jan Rubeš, Wendy Makkena, Susan Barnes – for which she won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special.

TV movies and miniseries in the late 1990s to early 2000s include The Echo of Thunder (1998), with Lauren Hewett, Jamey Sheridan, Chelsea Yates, Browning, Ben Hanson, and James Hanson; Kathy Bates’s Dash and Lilly (1999), with Sam Shepard, Neuwirth, Laurence Luckinbill, David Paymer, Zeljko Ivanek, Ned Eisenberg, Mark Zimmerman, Victor A. Young, and Stephanie Morgenstern; A Cooler Climate (1999), with Sally Field, Jerry Wasserman, and Winston Rekert; and Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), with Tammy Blanchard, Victor Garber, Hugh Laurie, Alison Pill, and Marsha Mason – for which she won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

TV movies and miniseries in the early to late 2000s include The Reagans (2003), with James Brolin, Željko Ivanek, Mary Beth Peil, Bill Smitrovich, Shad Hart, Zoie Palmer, Richard Fitzpatrick, Vlasta Vrána, Francis Xavier McCarthy, Frank Moore, Aidan Devine, and John Stamos; Paul Mazursky’s Coast to Coast (2003), with Richard Dreyfuss, Selma Blair, Fred Ward, and Maximilian Schell; A Little Thing Called Murder (2007), with Jonathan Jackson, Chelcie Ross, and Cynthia Stevenson; and The Starter Wife (2007), with Debra Messing, Miranda Otto,
Chris Diamantopoulos, Peter Jacobson, Stephen Moyer, Joe Mantegna, and Anika Noni Rose – for which she won a second Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

TV movies and miniseries in the 2010s include Diamonds (2009), with James Purefoy, Joanne Kelly, and Derek Jacobi; David Hare’s Page Eight (2011), with Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Tom Hughes, and Ralph Fiennes; Salting the Battlefield (2014), with Nighy, Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves, Fiennes, Ewan Bremner, Felicity Jones, and Olivia Williams; and Feud: Bette and Joan (2017), with Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Jackie Hoffman, Alfred Molina, Tucci, Alison Wright, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Bates.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • High Rolling (1977) – directed by Igor Auzins
  • My Brilliant Career (1979) – directed by Gillian Armstrong
  • Winter of Our Dreams (1981) – directed by John Duigan
  • Hoodwink (1981) – directed by Claude Whatham
  • Heatwave (1982) – directed by Phillip Noyce
  • A Woman Called Golda (1982) – directed by Alan Gibson – TV movie
  • Who Dares Wins (1982) – directed by Ian Sharp
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor (1982) – directed by David Hugh Jones – TV movie
  • A Passage to India (1984) – directed by David Lean
  • Rocket to the Moon (1986) – directed by John Jacobs – TV movie
  • Kangaroo (1986) – directed by Tim Burstall
  • High Tide (1987) – directed by Gillian Armstrong
  • Georgia (1988) – directed by Ben Lewin
  • Alice (1990) – directed by Woody Allen
  • Flowers by Request (1990) – directed by Susan Wallace – short
  • Impromptu (1991) – directed by James Lapine
  • Barton Fink (1991) – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
  • Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) – directed by Charles Sturridge
  • Own My Own (1991) – directed by Antonio Tibaldi
  • One Against the Wind (1991) – directed by Larry Eikann – TV movie
  • Naked Lunch (1991) – directed by David Cronenberg
  • Husbands and Wives (1992) – directed by Woody Allen
  • Dark Blood (1993) – directed by George Sluizer – not released till 2012
  • The Ref (1994) – directed by Ted Demme
  • The New Age (1994) – directed by Michael Tolkin
  • Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) – directed by Jeff Bleckner – TV movie
  • Children of the Revolution (1996) – directed by Peter Duncan
  • Blood and Wine (1996) – directed by Bob Rafelson
  • Absolute Power (1997) – directed by Clint Eastwood
  • Deconstructing Harry (1997) – directed by Woody Allen
  • The Echo of Thunder (1998) – directed by Simon Wincer – TV movie
  • Celebrity (1998) – directed by Woody Allen
  • A Cooler Climate (1999) – directed by Susan Seidelman – TV movie
  • Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) – directed by Robert Allan Ackerman – miniseries
  • Gaudi Afternoon (2001) – directed by Susan Seidelman
  • The Man Who Sued God (2001) – directed by Mark Joffe
  • Swimming Upstream (2003) – directed by Russell Mulcahy
  • The Reagans (2003) – directed by Robert Allen Ackerman – TV movie
  • Coast to Coast (2003) – directed by Paul Mazursky – TV movie
  • A Little Thing Called Murder (2006) – directed by Richard Benjamin – TV movie
  • The Break-Up (2006) – directed by Peyton Reed
  • Marie Antoinette (2006) – directed by Sofia Coppola
  • The Starter Wife (2007) – directed by Jon Avnet – miniseries
  • A Clean Escape (2007) – directed by Mark Rydell – TV movie
  • Diamonds (2009) – directed by Andy Wilson – TV movie
  • Page Eight (2011) – directed by David Hare – TV movie
  • The Eye of the Storm (2011) – directed by Fred Schepisi
  • To Rome with Love (2012) – directed by Woody Allen
  • Hard Chic (2012) – directed by Baz Luhrman – short
  • The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) – directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
  • Salting the Battlefield (2014) – directed by David Hare – TV movie
  • The Dressmaker (2015) – directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
  • Nitram (2021) – directed by Justin Kurzel