Screen 1970s After making her feature film debut in the buddy comedy
High Rolling (1977), Davis first came to prominence for her role as Sybylla Melvyn in the coming-of-age saga
My Brilliant Career (1979), for which she won
BAFTA Awards for
Best Actress and Best Newcomer. Davis was particularly praised for her performance;
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times admired her for bringing "an unconventional vigor to every scene she's in, even in a film that's as consistently animated as this one", while Luke Buckmaster, writing for
The Guardian in 2014, commented that Davis gave "a rousing performance as bull-headed protagonist Sybylla Melvyn. The term "once in a lifetime" tends to be slapped around like a bumper sticker, but this meaty role lives up to the accolade."
1980s Her success continued with lead roles in the
Australian New Wave films
Winter of Our Dreams (1981), as a waif-like heroin addict; the drama
Heatwave (1982), as a radical Sydney tenant organizer; and the thriller
Hoodwink (1981), as a sexually repressed clergyman's wife. Her international film career began when she played the younger version of
Ingrid Bergman's
Golda Meir in the television
docudrama A Woman Called Golda (1981), for which she received a
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie nomination. She then played a terrorist based on
Vanessa Redgrave in the British film
Who Dares Wins (1982). She was cast as Adela Quested in
David Lean's final film
A Passage to India (1984), an adaptation of
E. M. Forster's novel, and was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress. Likewise,
The Washington Post wrote, "With makeup the color of smudged ivory, her pallor enhanced by the off-white linens she wears, Davis is daringly unattractive for a leading lady; that plainness is emphasized in the book. Davis' neuroticism, her way of twitching and thrusting her jaw and looking up hungrily beneath the brim of her straw hat, brings to life the ravenous sexuality beneath Miss Quested's decorous exterior." She returned to
Australian cinema for her next two films,
Kangaroo (1986), as a German-born writer's wife, and
High Tide (also 1987), as a foot-loose mother attempting to reunite with her teenage daughter who is being raised by the paternal grandmother. Her performance in the latter won her glowing praise.
Pauline Kael called Davis "a genius at moods" and wrote, "As one of three backup singers for a touring Elvis imitator, Judy Davis is contemptuous of the cruddy act, contemptuous of herself. The film's emotional suggestiveness makes it almost a primal woman's picture: Judy Davis has been compared with Jeanne Moreau, and that's apt, but she's Moreau without the cultural swank, the high-fashion gloss. She speaks to us more directly." She won additional
Australian Film Institute Awards for both roles, and a
National Society of Film Critics award for
High Tides brief American theatrical run. Her final film of the decade, the Australian thriller
Georgia (1988), saw her play dual roles, a mother, Georgia, and her daughter Nina. For her performance, Davis earned another Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress.
1990s Davis had a cameo in
Woody Allen's
Alice (1990), her first appearance in an Allen-directed film. The following year, she was featured in
Joel Coen's
Barton Fink, which won the ''
Palme d'Or'' at the
Cannes Film Festival, and in
David Cronenberg's
Naked Lunch, an adaptation of the hallucinogenic novel of the same name. She returned to
E. M. Forster territory in
Where Angels Fear to Tread and won an
Independent Spirit Award for her work as mannish woman author
George Sand in
Impromptu, a romantic period drama with
Hugh Grant as her consumptive lover,
Frédéric Chopin. Davis was especially lauded for her performance as Sand, and
Hal Hinson of
The Washington Post wrote, "Judy Davis makes her entrances as if she were straddling a cyclone. She doesn't just walk in, she blows in on a torrent of extravagant self-assurance and wild temperament. Sand, who's the locus of this blissfully high-spirited romp about the circle of writers and musicians in 1830s Paris, never does anything halfway; her life is an experiment in full-throttle, passionate immersion, and that's why Davis is the ideal actress for the part. She's the most atmospheric of actors, perhaps the only one around capable of streaking the screen with lightning." She earned an Emmy nomination and her first
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of a real-life Second World War heroine
Mary Lindell in the
CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation
One Against the Wind. Adrian Turner of
Radio Times noted of her, "Judy Davis, one of the greatest and least "starry" actresses around, plays Lindell and shows the same sensitivity that she brought to her role in
A Passage to India." Cast in Woody Allen's
Husbands and Wives (1992), Davis performed the major role of Sally Simmons, one half of a divorcing couple. and
Todd McCarthy of
Variety thought Davis had revealed "a whole new side to her personality that has never surfaced onscreen before." For this performance, she earned both
Oscar and
Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 1993, Davis filmed
Dark Blood with
River Phoenix; it would be his last acting role before his death by drug overdose that year. Delayed by Phoenix's death (he had reportedly completed shooting 80% of his scenes), the movie was finally released in 2012. She next co-starred with
Kevin Spacey in the comedy film
The Ref (1994), portraying a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks, with
Denis Leary playing a thief who counsels their marriage. Similarly,
Rolling Stone magazine's
Peter Travers found Davis "combustibly funny, finding nuance even in nonsense." Considered "one of the fiercest film actors around", Davis's other roles have included the mysterious,
schizophrenic mother of a teenager in boarding school in
On My Own (1993), the lifelong Australian Communist Party member reacting to the downfall of the Soviet Union in
Children of the Revolution (1996), two more Allen films,
Deconstructing Harry (1997) and
Celebrity (1998) and a highly-strung
White House chief of staff in
Absolute Power (1997). After appearing in
Celebrity,
The Guardian newspaper wrote that Davis "in recent years has succeeded
Diane Keaton and
Mia Farrow as Allen's misfit muse." Much of her work in the late 90s was for television, gaining a collection of
Emmy Award nominations. She won her first Emmy for portraying the woman who gently coaxes a rigid military woman,
Glenn Close, out of the closet in
Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, with subsequent nominations for her repressed Australian outback mother in
The Echo of Thunder (1998), her portrayal of
Lillian Hellman in
Dash and Lilly (1999) and her frigid society matron in
A Cooler Climate (1999).
2000s Davis earned a second Emmy for her portrayal of
Judy Garland in the television biographical film
Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001). In 2003, she earned another Emmy nomination for her interpretation of
Nancy Reagan in the controversial biopic
The Reagans. In 2004 she co-starred with
Richard Dreyfuss in
Coast to Coast. In July 2006, she received her ninth Emmy nomination for her performance in the television film
A Little Thing Called Murder. Her tenth nomination came in 2007 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in the U.S. miniseries
The Starter Wife for which she was awarded the
Emmy. In August 2007, she appeared opposite
Sam Waterston in an episode of ABC's anthology series
Masters of Science Fiction. She appeared on the TV mini-series
Diamonds from 2008 to 2009. In film, she continued to earn good notices for her supporting roles in
Swimming Upstream (2003), as a working-class mother, and in the films
The Break-Up (2006) and
Marie-Antoinette.
2010s Davis appeared as Jill Tankard in a television drama film,
Page Eight (2011), for which she was nominated for an Emmy. She played Dorothy de Lascabanes in
The Eye of the Storm (2011), an adaptation of Patrick White's
novel of the same title, for which she won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She also had a major role as Woody Allen's psychiatrist wife in his
To Rome with Love. Davis co-starred with
Helena Bonham Carter and
Callum Keith Rennie in
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013). She reprised her role of Jill Tankard in
Salting the Battlefield (2014) and costarred with
Kate Winslet in
The Dressmaker (2015), for which she won an AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. Although the film received mixed reviews, Davis's supporting performance was lauded by critics: Richard Ouzounian of the
Toronto Star called her "sublime"
2020s In 2020 she reunited with
Ryan Murphy portraying Betsy Bucket in the drama series
Ratched. Also that year she acted in the
Apple TV+ series
Roar. The following year she acted opposite
Caleb Landry Jones in the psychological drama film
Nitram (2021) directed by
Justin Kurzel. The film premiered at the
2021 Cannes Film Festival where it received positive reviews. Davis later earned the
AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. On 26 March 2026, Davis was named in the cast for ITV co-commissioned series
Two Birds. Stage Davis's stage work has been mostly confined to Australia. Early in her career, she played
Juliet opposite
Mel Gibson's Romeo. In 1978, she appeared in
Visions by
Louis Nowra at the Paris Theatre Company in
Sydney. In 1980, she portrayed French chanteuse
Edith Piaf in
Stephen Barry's production of the
Pam Gems play
Piaf at the
Perth Playhouse. She played both Cordelia and the Fool in a 1984 staging of
King Lear by the
Nimrod Theatre Company, and also starred in its productions of
Strindberg's
Miss Julie,
Chekhov's
The Bear, Louis Nowra's
Inside The Island and, in 1986, the title role of
Ibsen's
Hedda Gabler for the
Sydney Theatre Company. In 2004, she starred in and co-directed
Howard Barker's play
Victory, as a
Puritan woman determined to locate her husband's dismembered corpse. Other stage directorial efforts include
Sheridan's
The School For Scandal and
Barrymore by
William Luce (all three for the Sydney Theatre Company). She created the role of The Actress in
Terry Johnson's
Insignificance at the
Royal Court in London, receiving an
Olivier Award nomination, and appeared in a brief 1989 Los Angeles production of
Tom Stoppard's
Hapgood. Writing for
Philadelphia magazine, David Fox found her "marvelous in the title role, as charismatic and commanding on stage as she is in film." In 2011, she portrayed the role of fading actress Irina Arkadina in
Anton Chekhov's
The Seagull at Sydney's
Belvoir St Theatre. Paul Chai of
Variety
praised her performance as Irina, writing, "Davis manages to instill Irina with not only a diva's haughty air and crafty manipulation but also with the right hint of fragility, as evidenced in her concern about being upstaged by the youthful and beautiful Nina." ==Awards and accolades==