It’s been a jaw-dropping 12 years—yes, really—since a 22-year-old Jennifer Lawrence tripped over her Dior couture on the way to the Oscar podium to collect her best-actress prize for Silver Linings Playbook. Backstage afterward, a reporter asked her if she, now with one Academy Award and two nominations to her credit, was worried about peaking too early.
“Well, now I am,” the actor replied, laughing and looking faux-exasperated.
Happily, Lawrence did nothing of the sort, her career settling into a steady rhythm following an incredibly rapid early rise. And now, at 35, she may just be gearing up for another Oscar campaign, what with Lynne Ramsay’s mind-bending thriller Die My Love—in which Lawrence plays a new mother battling postpartum depression and psychosis—earning raves at Cannes. (It lands in theaters this November.) Here’s hoping.
But first, in honor of her birthday today, we take a look back at Jennifer Lawrence’s most memorable performances to date.
Winter’s Bone (2010)
The actor’s breakout role, at just 19, as the fresh-faced, steely teen traveling through the merciless Ozarks in search of her deadbeat dad, may still be her best. Debra Granik’s clear-eyed portrait of life on the fringes earned the endlessly compelling and astonishingly assured newcomer her first Oscar nomination—and the industry’s undivided attention.
The Hunger Games (2012)
Building on her reputation for playing flinty outsiders, Lawrence then took the part of the formidable Katniss Everdeen, the bow and arrow-wielding warrior who volunteers as tribute in Gary Ross’s heart-stopping dystopian epic. Sprinting through the woods, taking deadly aim, and besting her foes at hand-to-hand combat, too, she proved to be a fearsome action hero, later returning to the franchise for Catching Fire and the two-part Mockingjay.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Then, the pièce de résistance: her turn as the fast-talking, determined, troubled, and exuberant force of nature that is Tiffany Maxwell, the young widow who upends the life of Bradley Cooper’s recent divorcé in David O. Russell’s playful romp. Cue an Oscar, SAG, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award, with the former making her the second youngest best actress winner of all time.
American Hustle (2013)
Now Hollywood royalty, the actor donned a giant blond bouffant, oversized gold hoops, and skin-tight cocktail dresses to embody the seedily glamorous Rosalyn Rosenfeld, the firecracker married to Christian Bale’s hustling con artist in this rip-roaring crime caper. Whether she’s taking her husband to task or going head-to-head with Amy Adams’s other woman, she’s as terrifying as she is hilarious, the part resulting in Lawrence’s third Oscar nod, her second Golden Globe, and her first BAFTA.
Joy (2015)
Lawrence’s third collaboration with Russell and Cooper was equally fruitful: a surreal biopic in which she plays Joy Mangano, the headstrong housewife who became a self-made millionaire by creating a self-wringing mop sold on QVC. Magnetic and commanding as ever in the role, she netted herself a third Golden Globe and fourth Academy Award nomination.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Spreading the word about a giant comet hurtling toward earth alongside her fellow astronomer, played by a gruff and grizzled Leonardo DiCaprio, and romancing Timothée Chalamet’s backward cap-wearing conspiracy theorist is all in a day’s work for Kate Dibiasky, Lawrence’s deadpan doctoral candidate in Adam McKay’s ensemble satire. It represented a welcome return to comedy for Lawrence, an actor who has always been sidesplittingly funny, but doesn’t get to show it onscreen as often as she should.
Causeway (2022)
In Lila Neugebauer’s delicate character study, a stripped-back Lawrence takes the part of a soldier still reeling from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Afghanistan—a real showcase for her talents, as well as those of scene partner Brian Tyree Henry, playing a mechanic processing his own tragedy. Restrained and ruminative, layered and deeply affecting, Lawrence’s performance recalls her work in Winter’s Bone, reminding us that there’s no one quite like her.
