The 15 best Nicole Kidman movies and TV shows, ranked (2024)

15. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Yorgos Lanthimos’ jet-black drama stars Colin Farrell as a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who keeps a prim and proper home with his wife (Kidman) and their two children (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic of Mid90s). He finds his idyllic existence shattered, however, by the insinuating Martin (Barry Keoghan), who informs the doctor that he must choose a member of his family to die in order to right a past wrong.

Lanthimos’ picture shares as much connective tissue with his bleakly alienating classic Dogtooth (2009) as his English-language breakout The Lobster (2015). It’s a powerful and at times exasperating picture with Kidman giving one of her most pared-back, understated roles, one which more often than not involves reacting, barely but viscerally, to the increasing chaos around her.

Where to watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer: Max

14. Expats (2024)

Lulu Wang’s heart-stopping series follows an American family who, since relocating to Hong Kong, have suffered a devastating family tragedy. Matriarch Margaret (Kidman) struggles to hold her life together as her husband (Brian Tee) and sister-in-law (Sarayu Blue) pull in opposing directions.

To give away the thrust of Expats would be to spoil some of its finest surprises. Wang is a master storyteller, letting the facts spill out methodically rather than predictably. There may be moments where you think you’ve missed something, but it’s just Wang holding her reveal until the sweetest possible moment. As a mother desperately searching to make her family whole again, Kidman imbues Margaret with a searing desperation that is, at times, so well-represented that it becomes hard to stomach.

Where to watch Expats: Amazon Prime Video

13. Margot at the Wedding (2007)

Narcissistic writer Margot (Kidman) descends upon her sister’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding as a “surprise,” hoping to thaw their frosty sibling rivalry in Noah Baumbach’s typically acid-tongued fourth feature. The director’s early films play like yuppie action pictures, with shrill arguments in dark rooms standing in for traditional action set pieces.

Kidman is ferociously satisfying here in the nastiest role she ever has, and probably ever will, play. Margot is even more dastardly than Paddington’s Millicent or To Die For’s Suzanne Stone. Yet she’s magnetic, and oddly sympathetic by the end, clearly having a great time upsetting her good-girl Hollywood image in an ugly, bleak indie. (We mean that as the highest compliment.)

Where to watch Margot at the Wedding: Paramount+

12. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Stanley Kubrick’s remarkably controversial, highly rewatchable, and rewarding erotic thriller stars Tom Cruise and Kidman as married Manhattan elites who come undone across a few marathon evenings. The wife confesses she fantasized about a strange man she met, sending her husband to the deepest recesses of Upstate New York looking for some illicit action to get even with his wife’s perverse imagination.

Kubrick’s final film is a peculiar and perverse horror feature with a centerpiece sequence involving a sinister masked orgy, followed by a nebulous murder mystery and concluding with a killer punchline delivered by Kidman. She has a smaller role here, disappearing for most of the film’s central act as Cruise goes about his sexual odyssey. Yet she makes a significant impact in a performance that fundamentally transformed her image.

Where to watch Eyes Wide Shut: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

11. The Others (2001)

Alejandro Amenábar’s stunning, classical ghost story stars Kidman as Grace, a mother caring for her two children as they await the return of their father, who’s off fighting in WWII. In a high-concept twist typical of early aughts thrillers, Grace’s kids are struck with a bizarre photosensitivity disease, which means she must relocate them to a rambling country manor and blot out all the windows with cloth, casting the home into eternal darkness. The arrival of groundskeepers (headed by the remarkably sinister Fionnula Flanagan) kicks off a series of supernatural events that cause Grace to reconsider her choice of residence.

Kidman is fabulous here in what is essentially a two-hander between her and Flanagan. Amenábar crafts a sumptuously old-school movie, so steeped in the pacing and rules of 1940s European horror that only once (with a single, fleeting gunshot) does it betray its roots. The Others is a tremendously effective, surprisingly smart picture whose muted reputation understates its contributions to the genre since its release.

Where to watch The Others: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

10. Paddington (2014)

Let’s not mess around: Everyone knows Paddington. He’s the marmalade-loving Peruvian bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) who flees his homeland to England, where he takes up with a family (Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville), overflows the tub, and foils more criminal plots than Sherlock himself. If you don’t care for Paddington, we don’t care for you and we’re not afraid to say it.

Kidman plays the villain here, an evil museum taxidermist named Millicent. Furious that her father went all the way to Peru and didn’t bring her one of Paddington’s rare brethren — instead opening up a petting zoo, of all things — she sets out to find the sweet-natured bear and make him a permanent part of her collection.

Quite possibly one of the least divisive pieces of media ever, both Paddington and its 2017 sequel are tremendously well-gauged, delightful family movies that are laugh-out-loud funny and joyously unoffensive. All the while, Kidman’s quirky antagonist is a campy anomaly in her filmography, but a worthy one at that.

Where to watch Paddington: Netflix

9. Cold Mountain (2003)

For better or worse, Anthony Minghella’s soaring Civil War romance about soldier Inman (Jude Law) venturing home to his true love, Ada (Kidman), is peak-era Miramax Oscar bait. An elongated running time (154 minutes)? Check. Steamy sex scenes that don’t feel entirely era-appropriate? Check. Renee Zellweger doing a wild accent in a larger-than-life (Oscar-winning) supporting role? That’s a big ol’ check!

Despite all of these elements (and more) which look a bit iffy 21 years hence, Minghella’s picture remains one of the best modern wartime romances, a sweeping, heartbreaking, and exhilarating epic that surpasses his own, more-lauded The English Patient (1996). Kidman gives a fearless, witty performance as a former society woman who must learn to tend her own land and behead a chicken as she awaits Inman’s return. Her thread, in which Zellweger arrives to teach her some hard lessons about farming, unfolds as something of a perverse buddy comedy.

Where to watch Cold Mountain: Paramount+

8. Birth (2004)

Before he freaked us all out with Under the Skin (2014) and directed the Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest (2023), Jonathan Glazer helmed this severely unsettling erotic thriller about a grieving widow (Kidman) who believes the soul of her deceased husband has been reborn into a pre-teen child (Cameron Bright).

Glazer’s picture is a peak mid-aughts arthouse weird-out that audiences were decidedly not ready for at the time. Watching it now, after Glazer’s style was more solidified with his two most recent pictures, the movie takes on a new context, fitting snugly alongside his other work. Kidman is astounding as the woman torn between her beliefs and what her close confidantes assure her is some sort of mental break. She walks a very fine, exceedingly believable line between the two, with her performance never tipping off where the film is headed.

Where to watch Birth: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

7. Dogville (2003)

A typically button-pushing entry in Lars von Trier’s filmography, this one combines keen performances and radical set design with the director’s penchant for “satirical” sequences of disconcerting violence. A mysterious woman known as Grace (Kidman), on the run from vicious gangsters (headed by James Caan), settles into a small town known as Dogville, where she works for the residents to earn their safekeeping. This being a Von Trier picture, things end poorly for all.

Kidman, who reportedly vowed to never work with von Trier again after this film, weaves a particularly convincing character out of a screenplay which is by turns lyrical and eye-rollingly cruel. Its greatest asset — and, it turns out, greatest joke — is the humanity with which Kidman imbues Grace, and how this naive, troubled young woman is inevitably eaten alive by the very people from whom she sought protection.

Where to watch Dogville: Mubi

6. Big Little Lies (2017–present)

Based upon Liane Moriarty’s blockbuster novel, Big Little Lies follows a group of affluent mothers in Monterey, Calif., who are brought together after someone close to them meets a mysterious demise. Reese Witherspoon, Zoë Kravitz, ​​Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Kidman round out the powerful main cast of Max’s soapy, indulgent, always entertaining pop-drama.

As an abused wife trying to salvage her marriage to a brutish businessman (Alexander Skarsgård), Kidman takes a surprisingly submissive role in the first season. It’s a fascinating choice for the actor who is arguably the biggest name in the cast, but one that is ultimately truthful to the role. In the second chapter, Kidman is in a more fierce, protective mode, which makes each of the two seasons (to date) play like a powerful sizzle reel of Kidman’s innate, singular abilities.

Where to watch Big Little Lies: Max

5. Practical Magic (1998)

Griffin Dunne’s superb pop fantasy about a coven of witches in a coastal New England town concerns the Owens sisters (Sandra Bullock and Kidman) who, after accidentally murdering one of their abusive boyfriends (Goran Višnjić), find themselves over their heads with a dutiful detective (Aidan Quinn) and their cadre of witchy relations.

An absolute classic in both the ’90s domestic dramedy canon and the sassy witchcraft genre, Practical Magic is light as a feather and yet finds time to say some pretty substantive things about how one processes grief and moves beyond their traumatic pasts. It’s a comedy first and foremost, but it’s also a cogent story about sisterhood and family with a few fun, supernatural flourishes and a terrific soundtrack.

Where to watch Practical Magic: Max

4. Rabbit Hole (2010)

John Cameron Mitchell’s riveting adaptation of David Lindsey Abaire’s play stars Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as two parents grieving the sudden, accidental death of their young son at the hands of a teen boy (Miles Teller, in his debut role).

Rabbit Hole served as Kidman’s comeback after several years — Bewitched (2005), The Invasion (2007), The Golden Compass (2007), Nine (2009) — in the wilderness. Mitchell’s picture reminded us that we’d been sleeping on her prowess for most of the prior decade. She’s a rather unbelievable force here, assured in her anger at the cards she’s been dealt but resolutely stoic and determined not to let this tragic incident define them.

Where to watch Rabbit Hole: Tubi

3. Destroyer (2018)

Can anyone explain how Kidman didn’t get an Oscar nomination for this role? Karyn Kusama’s fearsome police procedural about Erin Bell (Kidman) — a crooked, sun-damaged cop seeking vengeance against the gang that wrecked her life — deserved awards consideration, but for some reason Destroyer remains in a darkened corner of the actress’s filmography.

It’s hard to be unrecognizable when you’re Nicole Kidman, but she’s well and truly unrecognizable here. If you were to stumble across Destroyer on TV, it’s entirely possible you could watch the entire picture without realizing who the lead actor is. And while Kusama has struggled to earn recognition for her stunningly varied, influential films like Girlfight (2000), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and The Invitation (2015), Destroyer stands out as a hard-nosed ’70s-style thriller that spares no punches.

Where to watch Destroyer: Tubi

2. Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Christian (Ewan McGregor), a young writer, moves to Paris and falls in love with Satine (Kidman), the star performer at the Moulin Rouge, France’s hottest and most (PG-13-friendly) debauched nightclub. After convincing the owner to let Christian write the joint’s latest play, Satine and him fall into a doomed romance.

Baz Luhrmann’s classic jukebox musical — at once stunningly modern and effortlessly old-fashioned — is a perfect fusion of the director’s epic scope, pop craftsmanship, and knack for making his actors pop within larger-than-life settings. Kidman and McGregor are flawless here, as rapturous to watch as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in their heyday, as they cut a rug across a heartrending, phantasmagorical vision of France.

Where to watch Moulin Rouge!: Hulu

1. To Die For (1995)

If you have not seen To Die For: STOP. Turn off your phone. Pour a refreshing beverage. Watch To Die For. Return to your phone for the remainder of the evening.Gus Van Sant’s singular black comic satire of true crime and media vultures is Kidman’s best work full stop. Best movie, best performance, the whole shebang.

Kidman plays the lusciously named Suzanne Stone, a weather reporter on a small-town network with rock-bottom viewership who dreams of being a news journalist on a major network. There’s just one problem: her nagging husband (Matt Dillon), who’s perfectly fine with their menial existence. So she decides to pay a disturbed high schooler (Joaquin Phoenix) to knock him off; but when the plan goes awry, Suzanne finds herself at the center of a media circus in a way she never anticipated.

Buck Henry’s screenplay is as sharp as a katana blade and deeply prescient regarding the 24-hour news cycle, which was just emerging. (To Die For premiered at Cannes in May 1995, almost 11 months to the day after O.J. Simpson’s June ’94 Bronco chase.) It also has a lot to say about the rise of reality television, which was still a few years off; America’s perverse vilification, and then celebration and elevation, of criminal figures; and how public rhetoric varies so sharply depending on gender.

Where to watch To Die For: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)