10 Best Meryl Streep Movies, According to IMDB 

Meryl Streep has been in too many movies to count. Of course, we counted though. Since 1977, she’s been in 75 movies and counting. With so many to count, we couldn’t decide which were our favorites and had to look over at IMDb for some help.

A lot of younger folks know of Meryl Streep through her iconic role as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada or her role as Amanda Seyfried’s mother in Mamma Mia. Surprisingly, neither of these movies made the top 10 Meryl Streep films on IMDB, despite how many people can quote Miranda Priestly’s iconic speech about Andi’s cerulean blue sweater, played by Anne Hathaway.

So if you’re a fan of one of the best actresses of her generation, here are ten of the best Meryl Streep films ranked, according to IMDb.

10 Heartburn (1986) 6.1

A book to screen adaptation, Heartburn (1986) is based on Nora Ephron’s novel, stemming from her life experiences married to Carl Bernstein, though semi-fictionalized. Heartburn is about a food writer played by Meryl Streep and married to Jack Nicholson’s character, Mark, a womanizer. Though she marries him despite her worries about his past, when she’s pregnant with her second baby, she discovers her husband is having an affair and realizes her mistake.

Not the only movie on this list starring these two actors; the duo hit the screen once again on this next film on the list, Ironweed.

9 Ironweed (1987) 6.7

A very different film, Ironweed (1987) also stars Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson as a couple, though this time a homeless couple in the wake of the Great Depression. Also based on a book with the same name, William Kennedy also wrote the screenplay and won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel. As a group of people in Albany decide they’ll do anything to rid Albany of homeless people, Jack Nicholson, as the main character Francis, tries to contend with his past.

Monumentally, both Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson were nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor.

8 Death Becomes Her (1992) 6.6

With a star-studded cast, featuring Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, and Isabella Rossellini, and Meryl Streep, Death Becomes Her (1992) is the story of the rivalry between Goldie Hawn’s character Helen Sharp, and Meryl Streep’s, Madeline Ashton Melville. Dr. Ernest Melville, played by Bruce Willis, gives them an immortality treatment. However, while they can’t die, when they do “perish”, their physical bodies are affected. Not wanting to be outdone by the other, the women compete throughout the movie to hilarious effects.

Death Becomes Her, one of Meryl Streep’s funnier and kookier roles, has a huge cult following, especially among the LGBTQ+ community, similarly to The Devil Wears Prada.

7 The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) 7.0

This is the third movie on this list to be adapted from a novel; it seems Meryl Streep is made to perform adaptations of literary work. Is it because she is so talented and well-read? The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) is based on the 1969 novel by John Fowles.

The movie is quite meta, blurring the lines of fiction and reality on many levels. Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons are actors, playing an in love Victorian couple, Sarah and Charles. Soon, even the two actors start confusing fiction and reality, their method acting taking on new levels. The excellence of their performances got the movie nominated for 5 Oscars.

6 A Cry In The Dark (1988) 6.9

A Cry In The Dark (1988), known as Evil Angels in Australia, is a drama film based on the real-life events of a mother who lost her two-month-old baby who was killed by a dingo, Meryl Streep plays Lindy, and was convicted for murder because no one believed her story. Because Lindy seems too unaffected by the disappearance of her baby, the media portrays her as a cold-hearted, stoic person, who must be a murderer.

Still unsure of the outcome, the case was reopened 24 years after the release of this movie as Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton wants to prove that her baby was really taken by a dingo.

5 The Deer Hunter (1979) 8.1

An epic-war drama film, The Deer Hunter (1978) is the only movie on the list where Meryl Streep plays a supporting role. Depicting the lives of the people living in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania, it shows the effects of the U.S. Vietnam War on their lives.

John Cazale, who plays Stan, had cancer at the time of the filming and couldn’t afford his medical bills. To keep his co-worker on set and healthy, Robert DeNiro paid for his medical insurance and refused to participate in the film if Cazale was fired.

4 The Iron Lady (2012) 6.4

The newest of Meryl Streep’s films on this list, The Iron Lady (2011), is a biographical drama portrays the life and career of Margaret Thatcher, a British politician, who was the first-ever female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 20th century, as well as the longest-serving Prime Minister. While Meryl Streep plays the older Thatcher, younger Thatcher is played by Alexandra Roach.

While this role helped Streep win many awards, one of the more icon moments of The Iron Lady’s success was when Streep won her third Oscar, 29 years after her second one.

3 Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979) 7.8

One of Meryl Streep’s first movies, Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979) was an iconic role for both her and Dustin Hoffman. Kramer Vs. Kramer is a legal drama about a custody battle between Joanna Kramer, and her ex-husband Ted Kramer. Famous for its depictions of the effects of divorce on the psychology of children, as well as the gender roles of the time, it became the highest-grossing film of the year when it came out in 1979.

It is widely known that when Hoffman, in character, slaps Meryl Streep in the movie, it was not scripted and he had not previously asked for her consent, as Streep has talked about it on multiple occasions.

2 Sophie’s Choice (1982) 7.6

Sophie’s Choice (1982) depicts the story of a Holocaust survivor named Sophie played by Meryl Streep, and her abusive lover, the Jewish-American Nathan, who is obsessed with the Holocaust. Their rocky relationship is affected by this obsession, as well as Sophie’s traumatic past, as they befriend Stingo, a writer, and the narrator of the film.

While most of the story was fictionalized, only one of the characters in the movie was a real person: Rudolf Hoess, an actual commandant at Auschwitz.

1 Out Of Africa (1985) 7.2

Meryl Streep plays Karen Blixen, a Danish baroness and plantation owner. Out Of Africa (1985) takes place in the 20th century and tells the love story of Karen Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton, a big-game hunter, and the story of their torrid affair as she escapes the disappointment of marrying Baron Bror Blixen, who ends up being a disappointment and a poor businessman.

Like most of the other movies on this list, Out of Africa is an adaptation, loosely based on the autobiographical book of the same name, written by Isak Dinesen. Only the two final narrations were taken from the book, while the rest of the screenplay was written by Kurt Luedtke, who tried to emulate the original writer’s style.

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