With 59 roles and 18 Oscar nominations (not to mention three wins) throughout her nearly 40-year career, Streep is considered our greatest living actress — but which of those performances should be considered her best?
"Worst" is a relative term when talking about the always-impressive Meryl Streep — on their best day, any performer would be lucky to be as good as Meryl at her worst. But actors are the first to tell you they typically have little control over the finished product, as countless elements — direction, editing, scoring — contribute to the perceived "success" of a film.
Bad movies can boast great performances and wonderful films can be dragged down by awful acting. To this end, BuzzFeed focused solely on Streep's contributions to each of the 50-plus films below and only took into account the work she did to bring these characters to life, rather than the overall quality of the films.
Note: In order to be included, Streep's performance had to be in a project conceived for film or television. Which means that you won't find Streep's turn as the title character in Alice at the Palace, a truly surreal 1981 stage play that had one of its performances taped, listed below.
Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed
Blue Mecha, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
In Steven Speilberg's sci-fi adventure, Streep provided expository narration at the film's end.
Given the breadth of Streep's work, and the paltry voice-over dialogue available to her here, this was an easy choice for "the worst" because it was also "the least."
Warner Bros
The Angel Australia, Angels in America (2003)
Streep played a quartet of roles for director Mike Nichols in HBO's adaptation of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play: The Angel Australia, Hannah Pitt, Ethel Rosenberg, and The Rabbi. The Angel appears in a single scene toward the film's end when Justin Kirk's Prior Walter begs the elders to put an end to AIDS.
This perfectly fine performance simply pales in comparison to the opportunities afforded to Streep in the other three roles.
HBO
Anna, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
In this cinematic adaptation of John Fowles' novel of the same name, Streep — who was nominated for Best Actress — plays two roles: the titular character, Sarah Woodruff, and Anna, the actress bringing her to life in the film-within-a-film.
Anna is a more straightforward and simple character in comparison to the complex Sarah Woodruff, who we'll get to much later. There's little for Streep to do with this thinly drawn character, aside from recite the lines and (seemingly) wait to give her all in the Victorian story.
United Artists / Courtesy Everett Collection
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