Winona Laura Horowitz (born October 29, 1971), known professionally as Winona Ryder, is an American actress and film producer. She film debut in Lucas (1986), with Corey Haim, Kerri Green, Charlie Sheen, and Courtney Thorne-Smith. She gained attention with her performance in Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice (1988), with Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton. Other notable films in the 80s include 1969 (1988), with Robert Downey Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, and Bruce Dern; Heathers (1988), with Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, and Penelope Milford; and Great Balls of Fire! (1989), with Dennis Quaid, John Doe, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Trey Wilson.
Film in the early 90s include Jim Abrams‘ Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990), with Jeff Daniels and Frances Fisher; Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990), with Johnny Depp, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, and Alan Arkin; Richard Benjamin‘s Mermaids (1990), with Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Christina Ricci; Jim Jarmusch‘s anthology film Night on Earth (1991), co-starring in a segment with Gena Rowlands; and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), with Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins, Cary Elwes, and Tom Waits.
She garnered critical acclaim and two consecutive Academy Award nominations for her portrayals of socialite May Welland in Martin Scorsese‘s The Age of Innocence (1993), with Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Miriam Margolyes; and Jo March in the film adaptation of Little Women (1994), with with Gabriel Byrne, Trini Alvarado, Samantha Mathis, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, Christian Bale, Eric Stoltz, Mary Wickes, and Susan Sarandon.
Her other films during this period were Reality Bites (1994), with Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller (who also directed), Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn; How to Make an American Quilt (1995), with Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Nelligan, Alfre Woodard, and Jean Simmons; The Crucible (1996), with Day-Lewis, Paul Scofield, and Joan Allen; Jean-Pierre Jeunet‘s Alien Resurrection (1997), with Sigourney Weaver, Ron Perlman, Domique Pinon, J.E. Freeman, Michael Wincott, Dan Hedaya, and Brad Dourif; Woody Allen‘s Celebrity (1999), with Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Melanie Griffith, Joe Mantegna, and Charlize Theron; and James Mangold‘s Girl, Interrupted (1999), with Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Moss, Angela Bettis, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jared Leto; which she also executive produced.
Films in the early 2000s include Lost Souls (2000), with Ben Chaplin, Elias Koteas, and John Hurt; Mr. Deeds (2002), with Adam Sandler, Peter Gallagher, John Turturro, Jared Harris, and Steve Buscemi; Simone (2002), with Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Rachel Roberts, and Jay Mohr; The Darwin Awards (2006), with Joseph Fiennes, David Arquette, Juliette Lewis, Wilmer Valderrama, Chris Penn, Julianna Margulies, and Robin Tunney; Richard Linklater‘s A Scanner Darkly (2006), with Reeves, Downey, and Woody Harrelson; and The Ten (2007), with Paul Rudd.
Later film roles include Rebecca Miller‘s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), with Robin Wright, Arkin, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively, Julianne Moore, and Reeves; Stay Cool (2009), with Mark Polish, Hilary Duff, Sean Astin, Josh Holloway, Jon Cryer, and Chevy Chase; and J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009), with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Leonard Nimoy.
In 2010, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: as the lead actress in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story and as part of the cast of Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan, with Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, and Barbara Hershey. She also reunited with Burton for Frankenweenie (2012), a stop-motion animated adaptation of his 1984 live action short film.
Other notable films include Ron Howard‘s The Dilemma (2011), with Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly, Channing Tatum, and Queen Latifah; The Iceman (2012), with Michael Shannon, James Franco, Ray Liotta, Chris Evans, and David Schwimmer; The Homefront (2013), with Jason Stratham, Franco, and Kate Bosworth; Experimenter (2015), with Peter Sarsgaard, Taryn Manning, Kellan Lutz, Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Lori Singer, Dennis Haysbert, Anthony Edwards, and Jim Gaffigan; and Destination Wedding (2018), in her fourth collaboration with Reeves.
Since 2016, she has starred as Joyce Byers in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things, with David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Cara Buono, Matthew Modine, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, Dacre Montgomery, Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, and Brett Gelman – for which she has received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations; and in 2020, she starred in the HBO drama miniseries The Plot Against America. In 2000, Ryder was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Lucas (1986) – directed by David Seltzer
- Square Dance (1987) – directed by Daniel Petrie
- Beetlejuice (1988)* – directed by Tim Burton
- 1969 (1988) – directed by Ernest Thompson
- Heathers (1988) – directed by Michael Lehmann
- Great Balls of Fire! (1989) – directed by Jim McBride
- Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) – directed by Jim Abrahams
- Edward Scissorhands (1990) – directed by Tim Burton
- Mermaids (1990) – directed by Richard Benjamin
- Night on Earth (1991) – directed by Jim Jarmusch
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – directed by Francis Ford Coppola
- The Age of Innocence (1993) – directed by Martin Scorsese
- The House of the Spirits (1993) – directed by Bille August
- Reality Bites (1994) – directed by Ben Stiller
- Little Women (1994) – directed by Gillian Armstrong
- How to Make an American Quilt (1995) – directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
- Boys (1996) – directed by Stacy Cochran
- Looking for Richard (1996) – directed by Al Pacino – documentary
- The Crucible (1996) – directed by Nicholas Hytner
- Alien Resurrection (1997) – directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Celebrity (1998) – directed by Woody Allen
- Girl, Interrupted (1999) – directed by James Mangold – also executive producer
- Being John Malkovich (1999) – directed by Spike Jonze – archive footage
- Autumn in New York (2000) – directed by Joan Chen
- Lost Souls (2000) – directed by Janusz Kamiński
- Zoolander (2001)* – directed by Ben Stiller – uncredited cameo as herself
- Mr. Deeds (2002)* – directed by Steven Brill
- Simone (2002) – directed by Andrew Niccol
- The Day My God Died (2003) – directed by Andrew Levine – narrator, producer – documentary
- The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) – directed by Asia Argento – uncredited
- The Darwin Awards (2006) – directed by Finn Taylor
- A Scanner Darkly (2006) – directed by Richard Linklater
- The Ten (2007) – directed by David Wain
- Sex and Death 101 (2007) – Daniel Waters
- Welcome (2007) – directed by Kirsten Dunst – short
- The Last Word (2008) – directed by Geoffrey Haley
- Water Pills (2009) – directed by Blake Soper – short
- The Informers (2009) – directed by Gregor Jordan
- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) – directed by Rebecca Miller
- Stay Cool (2009) – directed by Michael Polish
- Star Trek (2009)* – directed by J.J. Abrams
- Black Swan (2010)* – directed by Darren Aronofsky
- The Dilemma (2011) – directed by Ron Howard
- Frankenweenie (2012) – directed by Tim Burton
- The Letter (2012) – directed by Jay Anania
- The Iceman (2012) – directed by Ariel Vromen
- Homefront (2013) – directed by Gary Fleder
- Experimenter (2015) – directed by Michael Almereyda
- Destination Wedding (2018) – directed by Victor Levin
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