Meryl Streep’s greatest hits

Looking like the Joyce Carol Oates of the movies, Meryl Streep has three pictures coming out this summer: “A Prairie Home Companion,” “The Ant Bully,” “The Devil Wears Prada.” Several more are on the way.

Nearly 57, the two-time Oscar winner is often called the world’s greatest actress, mostly for her unnerving ability to pick up accents and slip into the skins of characters of several classes and nationalities. In an industry where strong women’s roles are rarely offered at her age, she’s always in demand, appearing in vehicles as wildly different as “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “The Hours.”

If you’re too young to have grown up with her and you’ve only seen her sharing the screen with Jim Carrey or Nicole Kidman, you may have the impression that she’s an aging eccentric with a gift for tweaking supporting roles. But go back three decades, to her attention-getting film debut in “Julia,” closely followed by “Manhattan” and “The Deer Hunter” (which earned her the first of 13 Oscar nominations), and you’ll find an actress who is uniquely brilliant no matter what she’s playing.

It’s difficult to narrow such a rich career down to a top 10. A top 20 might be fairer. Nevertheless, here goes:

NBC VIDEO Meryl Streep June 5: Meryl Streep talks with the "Today" show's Ann Curry about her role in "A Prairie Home Companion." Today show

“The Seduction of Joe Tynan” (1979). In the same year she won her first Oscar (as a wife who abandons husband and child in “Kramer vs. Kramer”), Streep gave an even more spectacular performance in Alan Alda’s sharp political comedy-drama about a compromising young senator. Alda’s screenplay may favor the Kennedy-esque character he plays, but you won’t forget Streep’s airily confident performance as his mistress.

“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981). In the closest thing to a Jekyll-and-Hyde vehicle she’s ever had, Streep gets to play two characters: Jeremy Irons’ Victorian lover and the famous film actress who is playing her. As the dishonored beauty in the 19th century story, Streep maintains a romantic sense of mystery. As the unattainable 20th century actress who always seems to be performing, she’s astonishingly calculating.  

“Sophie’s Choice” (1982). As a Polish concentration-camp survivor who can’t forget the unutterably cruel trick played on her by the Nazis at Auschwitz, Streep delivers the Oscar-winning performance with which she is still most identified. Her accent may be the single most impressive technical achievement of her career, though the film itself remains a rather stolid and remote affair.

“Silkwood” (1983). Streep’s first collaboration with director Mike Nichols may be her most convincing attempt to transform herself. She plays a barely literate, rather ordinary Southerner who is adored by a lesbian friend (Cher) and radicalized by her work at an Oklahoma nuclear factory. Although the picture is often remembered, rather unfairly, as an anti-nuke message movie, it’s most affecting as a relationship drama.

“Plenty” (1985). In the same year she made one of her most popular movies, “Out of Africa,” Streep unfortunately flopped at the box office with Fred Schepisi’s superbly cast adaptation of David Hare’s play about a World War II heroine who can find no satisfaction in post-war life. Streep has never done a better job of exploring the contradictions in a deeply difficult character.

“A Cry in the Dark” (1988). Streep won a Cannes prize and should have taken home the Oscar for Schepisi’s extraordinary Australian drama about a woman who is accused of killing her child. Sam Neill, as her much-tested husband, matches Streep in every scene they share. Based largely on the media circus that followed the accusation, the film communicates a documentary urgency that’s unlike anything else Streep has done.

“Postcards From the Edge” (1990). Demonstrating a musical talent that’s on display again in “A Prairie Home Companion,” Streep plays a Hollywood actress dealing with drug addiction, a sometime lover (Dennis Quaid) and a pushy celebrity mom (Shirley MacLaine). Carrie Fisher’s script, based on her semi-autobiographical novel, gives Streep plenty of opportunities to explore the nuances in a familiar show-biz type.

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