Annette Bening

Acting

Annette Bening

Born 1958-05-29 · Topeka, Kansas, USA

Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. With a career spanning over four decades, she is known for her versatile work across screen and stage. Bening has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for five Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, making her one of the few artists nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting without winning. A graduate of San Francisco State University and the American Conservatory Theater, Bening started her career on stage with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival company in 1980, and played Lady Macbeth in 1984 at the American Conservatory Theater. She made her Broadway debut in the Tina Howe play Coastal Disturbances (1987), for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Making her film debut in 1988, she gained further recognition for her role in The Grifters (1990), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination. This acclaim continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s with further Oscar-nominated performances in the comedy-dramas American Beauty (1999) and Being Julia (2004), which respectively won her the BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Actress. Bening's performance as the title character in the British television film Mrs. Harris (2005) earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie. In the following decades, Bening received two additional Oscar nominations for her leading roles as a lesbian mother in The Kids Are All Right (2010) and swimmer Diana Nyad in the Netflix biographical film Nyad (2023), the former of which also won her a Golden Globe. She returned to Broadway in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons (2019), earning another Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play. Her other roles during this period include the films 20th Century Women (2016), Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017), Captain Marvel (2019), and Death on the Nile (2022), and the miniseries Apples Never Fall (2024). Description above from the Wikipedia article Annette Bening, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Captain Marvel poster
6.8

The story follows Carol Danvers as she becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. Set in the 1990s, Captain Marvel is an all-new adventure from a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Captain Marvel

2019

The Bride! poster
6.1

A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride is born. But what ensues is beyond what either of them imagined.

The Bride!

2026

American Beauty poster
8.0

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

American Beauty

1999

Death on the Nile poster
6.4

Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple's idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short.

Death on the Nile

2022

Mars Attacks! poster
6.4

A fleet of Martian spacecraft surrounds the world's major cities and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim, "come in peace." U.S. President James Dale receives assurance from science professor Donald Kessler that the Martians' mission is a friendly one. But when a peaceful exchange ends in the total annihilation of the U.S. Congress, military men call for a full-scale nuclear retaliation.

Mars Attacks!

1996

Jerry & Marge Go Large poster
7.4

The remarkable true story of how retiree Jerry Selbee discovers a mathematical loophole in the Massachusetts lottery and, with the help of his wife, Marge, wins $27 million dollars and uses the money to revive their small Michigan town.

Jerry & Marge Go Large

2022

Valmont poster
6.7

Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love.

Valmont

1989

Open Range poster
7.2

A former gunslinger is forced to take up arms again when he and his cattle crew are threatened by a corrupt lawman.

Open Range

2003

The Siege poster
6.3

The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist from his Middle East homeland leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. An FBI senior agent and his team attempt to locate and decommission the enemy cells, but must also deal with an Army General gone rogue and a female CIA agent of uncertain loyalties.

The Siege

1998

The Kids Are All Right poster
6.6

Two women, Nic and Jules, brought a son and daughter into the world through artificial insemination. When one of their children reaches age, both kids go behind their mothers' backs to meet with the donor. Life becomes so much more interesting when the father, two mothers and children start to become attached to each other.

The Kids Are All Right

2010

Hope Gap poster
6.5

Grace lives an idyllic life in a British seaside town, but her world soon comes crashing down when her husband of 29 years tells her he's leaving her for another woman. Through stages of shock, disbelief and anger -- and with support from her son -- Grace ultimately regains her footing while learning it's never too late to be happy.

Hope Gap

2019

The Grifters poster
6.5

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

The Grifters

1990

Ruby Sparks poster
7.1

Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. Finally, he makes a breakthrough and creates a character named Ruby who inspires him. When Calvin finds Ruby, in the flesh, sitting on his couch about a week later, he is completely flabbergasted that his words have turned into a living, breathing person.

Ruby Sparks

2012

The American President poster
6.5

Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.

The American President

1995

Life Itself poster
7.2

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.

Life Itself

2018

Guilty by Suspicion poster
6.5

Owing to his alleged involvement with communist parties, film director David Merrill is forbidden from working in Hollywood. He decides to fight for his rights and faces numerous challenges.

Guilty by Suspicion

1991

The Great Outdoors poster
6.4

It's vacation time for outdoorsy Chicago man Chet Ripley, along with his wife, Connie, and their two kids, Buck and Ben. But a serene weekend of fishing at a Wisconsin lakeside cabin gets crashed by Connie's obnoxious brother-in-law, Roman Craig, his wife, Kate, and the couple's two daughters. As the excursion wears on, the Ripleys find themselves at odds with the stuffy Craig family.

The Great Outdoors

1988

Danny Collins poster
6.7

An ageing hard-living 1970s rock star decides to change his life when he discovers a 40-year-old undelivered letter written to him by John Lennon.

Danny Collins

2015

NYAD poster
7.1

Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean.

NYAD

2023

Regarding Henry poster
6.5

After being shot, a lawyer loses his memory and must relearn speech and mobility, but he has a loving family to support him.

Regarding Henry

1991

20th Century Women poster
7.3

In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.

20th Century Women

2016

What Planet Are You From? poster
5.4

A human-looking alien from a highly advanced but emotionless all-male society is sent to Earth to impregnate a woman and bring the child back to their planet. The alien ends up falling in love while a suspicious FAA agent tails him.

What Planet Are You From?

2000

The Report poster
7.0

The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate’s sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden.

The Report

2019

Ginger & Rosa poster
6.0

A look at the lives of two teenage girls - inseparable friends Ginger and Rosa -- growing up in 1960s London as the Cuban Missile Crisis looms, and the pivotal event the comes to redefine their relationship.

Ginger & Rosa

2012