1996–2000: ''Dawson's Creek'' and transition to adult roles Following her emancipation, Williams moved to Los Angeles and lived by herself in
Burbank. She said of her initial experience in the city, "There are some really disgusting people in the world, and I met some of them." Williams later described her early work as "embarrassing", saying she had taken those roles merely to support herself as she "didn't have any taste [or] ideals". Having learned to trade under her father's guidance, a seventeen-year-old Williams entered the Robbins World Cup Championship, a
futures trading contest; with a return of 1,000%, she became the first woman to win the title and the third-highest winner of all time (her father ranks first). '' (1998–2003) in
Wilmington, North Carolina, where she also lived during that time period.|alt=A photograph of Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in Wilmington, North Carolina In 1998, Williams began starring in the teen drama television series ''
Dawson's Creek, created by Kevin Williamson and co-starring James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson. The series aired for six seasons from January 1998 to May 2003 and featured her as Jen Lindley, a precocious New York-based teenager who relocates to the fictional town of Capeside. The series was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she lived for the six years of filming. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, Caryn James called it a soap opera that was "redeemed by intelligence and sharp writing" but found Williams to be "too earnest to suit this otherwise shrewdly tongue-in-cheek cast". Ray Richmond of Variety'' labeled it "an addictive drama with considerable heart" and considered all four leads appealing. The series was a ratings success and raised Williams's profile. It grossed $55 million domestically against its $17 million budget. Williams credited ''Dawson's Creek
as "the best acting class", but also admitted to not having fully invested herself in the show as "my taste was in contradiction to what I was doing every single day." She would film the series for nine months each year and spend the remaining time playing against type in independent features, which she considered a better fit for her personality. Williams found her first such role in the comedy Dick (1999), a parody of the Watergate scandal, in which she and Kirsten Dunst played teenagers obsessed with Richard Nixon. Dick
failed to recoup its $13 million investment. In the same year Williams played a small part in But I'm a Cheerleader'', a satirical comedy about
conversion therapy. Keen to play challenging roles in adult-oriented projects, Williams spent the summer of 1999 starring in an
off-Broadway play titled
Killer Joe. Written by
Tracy Letts, it is a black comedy about a dysfunctional family who kills their matriarch for insurance money; she was cast as the family's youngest daughter. The production featured gruesome violence and required Williams to perform a nude scene. Her next role was in the
HBO television film
If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), a drama about three lesbian couples in different time periods. Williams signed on to the project after ensuring that a sex scene with co-star
Chloë Sevigny was pertinent to the story and not meant to titillate. When asked about playing a series of sexual roles, she stated, "I don't think of any of them as sexy, hot girls. They were just defined at an early age by the fact that others saw them that way." Williams returned to the stage the following year in a production of
Mike Leigh's farce
Smelling a Rat. Her part, that of a scatterbrained teenager exploring her sexuality, led Karl Levett of
Backstage to label her "a first-class creative comedienne". She played a supporting role in the
Christina Ricci-starring
Prozac Nation, a drama about depression based on
Elizabeth Wurtzel's
memoir. ''Dawson's Creek
completed its run in 2003, and Williams was satisfied with how it had run its course. She relocated to New York City soon after. She had supporting parts in two art-house films that year, the drama The United States of Leland and the comedy-drama The Station Agent. In the former, starring Ryan Gosling, she played the grieving sister of a murdered boy; it was described by The Globe and Mails Liam Lacey as "neither an insightful nor well-made film". The Station Agent'', about a lonely dwarf (played by
Peter Dinklage), featured Williams as a librarian who develops an attraction towards him. Critically acclaimed, the film's cast was nominated for the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. On stage, Williams played Varya in a 2004 production of
Anton Chekhov's drama
The Cherry Orchard, alongside
Linda Emond and
Jessica Chastain, at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival. The theater critic
Ben Brantley credited her for "cannily play[ing] her natural vibrancy against the anxiety that has worn the young Varya into a permanent high-strung sullenness." German filmmaker
Wim Wenders wrote the film
Land of Plenty (2004), which investigates anxiety and disillusionment in a post-
9/11 America, with Williams in mind.
Kevin Thomas of the
Los Angeles Times praised Wenders's thoughtful examination of the subject and noted Williams's screen appeal. She received an
Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead nomination for the film. The actor next appeared in
Imaginary Heroes, a drama about a family coping with their son's suicide, and played an impressionable young woman fixated on mental health in the period film
A Hole in One. Williams returned to the comedy genre with
The Baxter, in which she played a geeky secretary. The film received negative reviews;
Wesley Morris of
The Boston Globe wrote, "Only when Williams is around does the movie seem human, true, and funny. Even in her slapstick, there's pain." As with her other films during this period, it received only a limited release and was not widely seen. Her film breakthrough came later in 2005 when Williams appeared in
Ang Lee's drama
Brokeback Mountain, about the romance between two men,
Ennis and
Jack (played by
Heath Ledger and
Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively). Impressed with her performance in
The Station Agent, the casting director
Avy Kaufman recommended Williams to Lee. He found a vulnerability in her and cast her as Alma, the wife of Ennis, who discovers her husband's homosexual infidelity. The actor was emotionally affected by the story and, despite her limited screen time, she was drawn to the idea of playing a woman constricted by the social mores of the time.
Brokeback Mountain proved to be her most widely seen film to that point, grossing $178 million against its $14 million budget, and she received a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
2006–2010: Work with auteurs Williams had two film releases in 2006. She first featured opposite
Paul Giamatti in the drama
The Hawk Is Dying. Following the awards-season success of
Brokeback Mountain, Williams was unsure of what to do next. After six months of indecision, she agreed to a small part in
Todd Haynes's ''
I'm Not There (2007), a musical inspired by the life of Bob Dylan. She was then drawn to the part of an enigmatic seductress named S in the 2008 crime thriller Deception. The film, which co-starred Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, was considered by critics to be middling and predictable. In her next release, Incendiary'', based on
Chris Cleave's
novel of the same name, Williams reteamed with McGregor to play a woman whose family is killed in a terrorist attack. A reviewer for
The Independent called the film "sloppy" and added that Williams deserved better. for the premiere of
Shutter Island in 2010|alt=An upper body shot of a smiling Michelle Williams Williams's two other releases of 2008 were better received. The screenwriter
Charlie Kaufman was impressed with her comic timing in
Dick and thus cast her in his directorial debut
Synecdoche, New York, an ensemble experimental drama headlined by
Philip Seymour Hoffman. Two days after finishing work on
Synecdoche, New York, Williams began filming
Kelly Reichardt's
Wendy and Lucy, playing the part of a poor and lonesome young woman traveling with her dog and looking for employment. With a shoestring budget of $300,000, the film was shot on location in
Portland, Oregon, with a largely volunteer crew. Sam Adams of the
Los Angeles Times considered her performance to be "remarkable not only for its depth but for its stillness" and
Mick LaSalle commended her for effectively conveying a "lived-in sense of always having been close to the economic brink". Her next project
Mammoth was helmed by the Swedish director
Lukas Moodysson and featured Williams and
Gael García Bernal as a couple dealing with issues stemming from
globalization. Her role was that of an established surgeon, a part she deemed herself too young to logically play. For her next project,
Martin Scorsese cast her opposite
Leonardo DiCaprio in the psychological thriller
Shutter Island. Based on
Dennis Lehane's
novel, it featured her as a depressed housewife who drowns her own children. The high-profile production marked a departure for her, and she found it difficult to adjust to the slower pace of filming. In preparation, she read case studies on infanticide. Williams had first read the script for
Derek Cianfrance's romantic drama
Blue Valentine at age 21. When funding came through after years of delay, she was reluctant to accept the offer as filming in California would take her away from her daughter for too long. Keen to have her in the film, Cianfrance decided to shoot it near Brooklyn, where Williams lived. On set, she and Gosling practiced
method acting by improvising several scenes.
The New York Timess reviewer
A. O. Scott found Williams to be "heartbreakingly precise in every scene" and commended the duo for being "exemplars of New Method sincerity, able to be fully and achingly present every moment on screen together". She received
Academy Award and
Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress. In her final film project of 2010, she reunited with Kelly Reichardt for the western ''
Meek's Cutoff''. Set in 1845, it is based on an ill-fated historical incident on the
Oregon Trail, in which the frontier guide
Stephen Meek led a wagon train through a desert. Williams starred as one of the passengers on the wagon, a feisty young mother who is suspicious of Meek. In preparation, she took lessons on firing a gun and learned to knit. Filming in extreme temperatures in the desert proved arduous for her, though she enjoyed the challenge.
2011–2016: My Week with Marilyn and Broadway in
My Week with Marilyn (2011). Pictured with co-star
Dougray Scott.|alt=A photograph of Dougray Scott and Michelle Williams filming in character for
My Week with Marilyn In 2011, Williams portrayed
Marilyn Monroe in
My Week with Marilyn, a drama depicting the troubled production of the 1957 comedy
The Prince and the Showgirl, based on accounts by
Colin Clark, who worked on the latter film. Initially skeptical about playing Monroe, as she had little in common with her looks or personality, Williams spent six months researching her by reading biographies, diaries and notes, and studying her posture, gait, and mannerisms. She also gained weight for the part, bleached her hair blonde, and on days of filming, underwent over three hours of makeup. She sang three songs for the film's soundtrack and recreated a performance of Monroe singing and dancing to "
Heat Wave". Roger Ebert considered Williams's performance to be the film's prime asset and credited her for successfully evoking multiple aspects of Monroe's personality.
Peter Travers opined that despite not physically resembling Monroe, she had "with fierce artistry and feeling [illuminated] Monroe's insights and insecurities about herself at the height of her fame". For her portrayal, she won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and received a second consecutive Oscar nomination. In
Sarah Polley's romance
Take This Waltz (2011), co-starring
Seth Rogen and
Luke Kirby, Williams played a married writer attracted to her neighbor. Though the actor considered it to be a light-hearted film, Jenny McCartney of
The Daily Telegraph found a darker undertone to it and favorably compared its theme to that of
Blue Valentine. To play a part that would appeal to her daughter, Williams starred as
Glinda in
Sam Raimi's fantasy picture
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Based on the
Oz children's books, it served as a prequel to the 1939 classic film
The Wizard of Oz. The film earned over $490 million worldwide to rank as one of her highest-grossing releases.
Suite Française, a period drama that Williams filmed in 2013, was released in a few territories in 2015 but was not theatrically distributed in America. She later admitted to being displeased with how the film turned out, adding that she found it hard to predict the quality of a project during production. Eager to work in a different medium and finding it tough to obtain film roles that enabled her to maintain her parental commitments, Williams spent the next few years working on the stage. Her desire to star in a musical led Williams to the role of
Sally Bowles in a 2014 revival of
Cabaret, which was staged at
Studio 54 and marked her
Broadway debut. Jointly directed by
Sam Mendes and
Rob Marshall, it tells the story of a free-spirited cabaret performer (Williams) in 1930s Berlin during the rise of the
Nazi Party. Before production began, she spent four months privately rehearsing with music and dance coaches. She read the works of
Christopher Isherwood, whose novel
Goodbye to Berlin inspired the musical, and visited Berlin to research Isherwood's life and inspirations. Her performance received mixed reviews; Jesse Green of
Vulture praised her singing and commitment to the role, but
Newsdays Linda Winer thought her portrayal lacked depth. The rigorousness of the assignment led Williams to consider
Cabaret her toughest project. '' in 2016. Challenged by her work on
Cabaret, Williams was eager to continue working on the stage. She found a part in a 2016 revival of the
David Harrower play
Blackbird. Set entirely in the lunchroom of an office, it focuses on a young woman (Williams), who confronts a much older man (played by
Jeff Daniels) for his sexual abuse of her when she was twelve years old. Williams, who had not seen previous stagings of the play, was drawn to the ambiguity of her role and found herself unable to detach from it after each performance.
Hilton Als of
The New Yorker considered her "daring and nonjudgmental embodiment of her not easily assimilable character" to be the production's highlight. She received a
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play nomination for
Blackbird. Williams returned to film in 2016 with supporting roles in two small-scale dramas,
Certain Women and
Manchester by the Sea. Several critics hailed Williams's climactic monologue, in which Randi confronts Lee, as the film's highlight;
Justin Chang termed it an "astonishing scene that rises from the movie like a small aria of heartbreak." She received her fourth Oscar nomination, her second in the Best Supporting Actress category.
2017–2022: Mainstream films and Fosse/Verdon Following a brief appearance in Todd Haynes's drama
Wonderstruck (2017), Williams appeared in the musical
The Greatest Showman. Inspired by
P. T. Barnum's creation of the
Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film featured her as Charity, the wife of Barnum (played by Hugh Jackman). She likened her character's joyful disposition to that of
Grace Kelly, The film emerged as one of her most successful, earning over $434 million worldwide.
Ridley Scott's crime thriller
All the Money in the World (2017) was Williams's first leading role in film since 2013. She starred as Gail Harris, whose son,
John Paul Getty III, is kidnapped for ransom. She considered it a major opportunity, since she had not headlined a big-budget Hollywood production before. A month prior to the film's release,
Kevin Spacey, who originally played
J. Paul Getty, was accused of sexual misconduct; he was replaced with
Christopher Plummer, and Williams reshot her scenes days before the release deadline. The critic
David Edelstein bemoaned that Williams's work had been overshadowed by the controversy and went on to commend her "marvelous performance", noting how she conveyed her character's grief through "the tension in her body and intensity of her voice". She received her fifth Golden Globe nomination for the role. It was later reported that her co-star
Mark Wahlberg had been paid $1.5 million to Williams's $1,000 for the reshoots, which sparked a discourse on
gender pay gap amongst Hollywood. Her first film role of the year was as a haughty but insecure executive in the
Amy Schumer-starring comedy
I Feel Pretty, which satirizes body image issues among women. The comedic role, which required her to speak in a high-pitched voice, led Peter Debruge of
Variety to term it "the funniest performance of her career". The film was a modest box office success. In a continued effort to work on different genres, Williams played
Anne Weying in the superhero film
Venom, co-starring
Tom Hardy as the
titular antihero. Influenced by the
#MeToo movement, she provided off-screen inputs regarding her character's wardrobe and dialogue, but the critic
Peter Bradshaw found it to be "an outrageously boring and submissive role".
Venom earned over $855 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in which Williams has appeared. in
Fosse/Verdon (2019) Williams returned to the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 with
After the Wedding, a remake of
Susanne Bier's Danish
film of the same name, in which she and
Julianne Moore played roles portrayed by men in the original. Benjamin Lee of
The Guardian considered the low-key part to be a better fit than her previous few roles.
Fosse/Verdon, an
FX miniseries about the troubled personal and professional relationship between
Bob Fosse and
Gwen Verdon, marked her first leading role on television since ''Dawson's Creek
. Williams felt her Broadway run in Cabaret'' helped prepare her to portray Verdon. She also served as an executive producer on the series, and was pleased not to have to negotiate to receive equal pay to her co-star
Sam Rockwell. She won the
Primetime Emmy Award and
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Miniseries. In 2021, Williams reprised the role of Anne Weying in the superhero sequel
Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It received mixed reviews, but grossed over $500 million worldwide. In her fourth collaboration with Kelly Reichardt, Williams starred in the drama
Showing Up (2022). For her role as a sculptor in it, she shadowed the artist
Cynthia Lahti. Tim Robey of
The Independent opined that Williams "thrives more intelligently than ever under Reichardt's watch here". Later in 2022, Williams starred in
The Fabelmans,
Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film about his childhood, in which she played Mitzi Fabelman, a character inspired by his mother. Spielberg had her in mind for the part after seeing her performance in
Blue Valentine; in preparation, she heard recordings and watched home movies of his childhood. Pete Hammond of
Deadline Hollywood labeled Williams "gut-wrenchingly great" and Kyle Buchanan of
The New York Times wrote that she "really goes for it, attacking this part like someone who knows she’s been handed her signature role". She was nominated for the
Actor Award,
Golden Globe Award, two
Critics' Choice Awards (
Best Actress and
Best Acting Ensemble), and the
Academy Award.
2023–present: Hiatus and return After filming
The Fabelmans, Williams took a two-and-a-half year break from acting. In 2023, she was enlisted by singer
Britney Spears to narrate the audiobook version of her memoir
The Woman in Me. A clipping from the audiobook, in which Williams imitates
Justin Timberlake speaking in "
blaccent" went viral on social media. She returned to acting with
Dying for Sex (2025), an FX miniseries based on the podcast of the same name, about a married woman who begins to explore her sexuality after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Time Judy Berman took note of the "impish vivacity and quiet resolve" in her performance, and was pleased that the portrayal "bear[ed] little resemblance to the Hollywood archetype of the beautiful young woman dying of cancer". For
Dying for Sex, she received
Emmy Award and
Actor Award nominations and won a
Golden Globe Award. Williams returned to theatre playing the title role in a revival of
Eugene O'Neill's play
Anna Christie, starring opposite
Tom Sturridge at
St. Ann's Warehouse, with performances running from November 25, 2025, to February 1, 2026. ==Public image and acting style==