The 10 Best Jodie Foster Performances, Ranked: ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘True Detective: Night Country,’ and More

Few people have been as famous for as long as Jodie Foster. Born to a Los Angeles couple and raised solely by her mom, Foster made her onscreen debut in 1965 as a three-year-old girl in a commercial for sunscreen brand Coppertone. From there, she became a minor child star, appearing in Disney films and bit TV roles before attracting national attention for playing a young child prostitute in 1976’s “Taxi Driver.” The film — one part of a very diverse year for Foster that also included parts in bizarro gangster child musical “Bugsy Malone” and classic Disney comedy “Freaky Friday” — became instantly iconic and instantly controversial, but Foster was widely lauded for her work, and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

History is filled with child stars who achieve great things while young, only to either leave the business behind or find parts dry up as they age. That didn’t happen with Foster. Although her career was put in a holding pattern after she chose to attend college and study at Yale, she more-or-less seamlessly made the transition from child to adult actor in the ’80s, when she took on the role of a rape victim in searing 1988 drama “The Accused” and won her first Oscar in the process. Her performance in the film, searing and authentic, seemed to promise someone who was definitely here to stay.

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And stay she has; although Foster can be choosy with parts, taking frequent breaks and almost completely pivoting to directing during the 2010s, she’s remained a welcome onscreen presence, and one that has remained vital and relevant as she’s aged from young spunky firecracker roles to thirty-something leading ladies to forty-something authority figures. And she’s a constant face at award shows, where she’s picked up a second Oscar for her iconic role as Clarice Starling in “The Silence of the Lambs,” and a whole raft of nominations for other acclaimed parts.

Her latest nomination, for the little seen Netflix biopic “Nyad,” feels a bit like a welcome back Oscar after several years out of the acting spotlight. But she’s still great in the role, likable with the down-to-earth charm she’s famous for, and after a decade where she made herself scarce, it’s lovely to see her in film again. And for the first time since she was a child star, she’s ventured into TV, where she appeared on Season 4 of HBO anthology “True Detective.” As a brash police officer investigating a missing persons case, Foster is still as magnetic and exacting as she is on film, and it’s satisfying to see her still giving excellent performances into her 60s.

In celebration of her Supporting Actress nomination and the recently concluded “True Detective” season, IndieWire decided to comb through Foster’s filmography to determine her best work. We included both film and TV performances, although only one of the latter made the cut, and based our rankings on the quality of Foster’s work rather than the titles themselves. Read on for IndieWire’s list of Jodie Foster’s 10 best performances, ranked.

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