
Annette Bening
Biography
Annette Carol Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. With a career spanning over four decades, she is known for her versatile work across screen and stage. Bening has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for five Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, making her one of the few artists nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting without winning. A graduate of San Francisco State University and the American Conservatory Theater, Bening started her career on stage with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival company in 1980, and played Lady Macbeth in 1984 at the American Conservatory Theater. She made her Broadway debut in the Tina Howe play Coastal Disturbances (1987), for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Making her film debut in 1988, she gained further recognition for her role in The Grifters (1990), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination. This acclaim continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s with further Oscar-nominated performances in the comedy-dramas American Beauty (1999) and Being Julia (2004), which respectively won her the BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Actress. Bening's performance as the title character in the British television film Mrs. Harris (2005) earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie. In the following decades, Bening received two additional Oscar nominations for her leading roles as a lesbian mother in The Kids Are All Right (2010) and swimmer Diana Nyad in the Netflix biographical film Nyad (2023), the former of which also won her a Golden Globe. She returned to Broadway in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons (2019), earning another Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play. Her other roles during this period include the films 20th Century Women (2016), Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017), Captain Marvel (2019), and Death on the Nile (2022), and the miniseries Apples Never Fall (2024). Description above from the Wikipedia article Annette Bening, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Also Known As
Movie Appearances

American Beauty
as Carolyn Burnham
1999

Mars Attacks!
as Barbara Land
1996

Open Range
as Sue Barlow
2003

Bugsy
as Virginia Hill
1991

The Great Outdoors
as Kate Craig
1988

What Planet Are You From?
as Susan Anderson
2000

Regarding Henry
as Sarah Turner
1991

A Night at the Academy Museum
as Self
2021

Postcards from the Edge
as Evelyn Ames
1990

Guilty by Suspicion
as Ruth Merrill
1991

Running with Scissors
as Deirdre Burroughs
2006

Richard III
as Queen Elizabeth
1995

The American President
as Sydney Ellen Wade
1995

The Siege
as Elise Kraft / Sharon Bridger
1998

In Dreams
as Claire Cooper
1999

The Women
as Sylvie Fowler
2008

Mother and Child
as Karen
2009

Behind the Lines
as Narrator (voice)
TBA

Valmont
as Merteuil
1989

Love Affair
as Terry McKay
1994
TV Appearances

The Sopranos
as Annette Bening
1999

The Ellen DeGeneres Show
as Self
2003

The Daily Show
as Self
1996

Miami Vice
as Vicky
1984

Today
as Self
1952

LIVE with Kelly and Mark
as Self - Guest
1988

The View
as Self
1997

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
as Self - Guest
1992

The Early Show
as Self
1999

Wiseguy
as Karen Leland / Maloy
1987

Liberty's Kids
as Abigail Adams (voice)
2002

The Oscars
as Self
1953