Meryl Streep's 26 greatest movie moments

With more than 20 Oscar nominations to her name, Meryl Streep is synonymous with success in Hollywood. Which means it’s really hard to pick out just a few of her greatest movie moments.

Since her breakthrough role in the 1978 drama The Deer Hunter, the decorated movie star has been one of Hollywood’s most beloved artists of all time. Renowned for her chameleonic abilities, Streep has practically lived a hundred lives on the silver screen; she’s played femme fatales, loving mothers, union leaders, ruthless politicians, celebrity chefs, monstrous magazine editors, strict Catholic nuns, and everything in between. 

Born and raised in New Jersey, Streep grew up attending Catholic school and was, as author Karina Longworth wrote in a 2013 biography, a “gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair.” Though she appeared in many school plays, the soon-to-be star didn’t take acting seriously until she attended Vassar College, where her acclaimed performance in a production of Miss Julie generated serious buzz on campus. Vassar’s drama professor Clint J. Atkinson later remarked of Streep, “I don’t think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She taught herself.”

To paraphrase her Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada: There is no one who can do what she does. To prove it, here are Meryl Streep’s all-time greatest movie moments.