Diane Keaton never really played the role of a glamorous movie star. She starred in iconic films and dated some of the biggest stars of her generation, and yet somehow she remained different and defiantly herself, despite working in the Hollywood system for so many years. Eccentric and sociable, with some sparkling charm, it is not surprising that she played the role of a muse for many, from Woody Allen To Nancy Meyers.
People often call her self-deprecating, as if it were a choice and not the product of deep-seated insecurities. Keaton believed she was ugly, struggled with eating disorders, and never seemed to give herself credit for her successes. But she was also able to convey this in her performances spanning five decades, unlike others.
There are so many of Keaton's films worth noting, including her full film with Allen. There are Instagram favorites like The First Wives Club (available to rent), nostalgic classics like Father of the Bride (streaming on Hulu), and dramatic twists in Marvin's Room (streaming on Kanopy) and Shoot the Moon (available to rent).
Here are six basic roles to get you started.
Kay Adams, the future Mrs. Corleone, could play a role in the wallpaper. But Keaton, in her breakout role, held the screen alongside her flashier co-stars. She was the wife who had something in her eyes, who could hold the screen in the chilling final frames of the first film. Social media doesn't often produce anything worthwhile, but in 2023, Francis Ford Coppola and Keaton exchanged views in an Instagram story, “ask me anything” session. She wondered why he chose her.
“I cast you because although you were supposed to play the more straight forward/vanilla wife, there was something more, deeper, funny and very interesting about you (I was right),” Coppola wrote.
WHERE TO WATCH: Available to rent on various platforms including Prime Video.
“La-di-da, la-di-da,” where do you even start with “Annie Hall?” It's a quintessential Keaton role, a love letter to her quirks, eccentricities, insecurities and charm, encapsulated in a fictional tie-wearing WASP from Chippewa Falls.
Allen told her to wear what she wanted, and so she collected her iconic outfit—khakis, vest, and tie—from “cool looking women on the streets of New York.” The hat was removed from actress Aurora Clement.
“No one had any serious expectations. We were just having a good time, traveling to the iconic places of New York,” she wrote in her memoirs. “As always, Woody was worried about the script. Was it too much like an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show? I told him he was crazy. Relax.”
WHERE TO WATCH: Stream on Fubo TV.
ANOTHER great Keaton film from 1977 has achieved cult classic status because it was not released on home video or DVD and only recently became available on digital platforms. Teresa Dunn's role makes Annie Hall look like a nun. With a Catholic upbringing and a “good girl” job teaching deaf children by day, Teresa goes to bars at night looking for men to hook up with – the more dangerous (like Richard Gere's character), the better.
WHERE TO WATCH: Available to rent on various platforms.
Warren Beatty directed, produced, co-wrote and starred in this historical epic about journalists documenting the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Keaton, playing journalist and activist Louise Bryant. By the time filming began, they were dating, and their relationship deteriorated during filming.
“Everyone knew that I was not very happy with Warren’s leadership,” she wrote in her memoirs. “It was impossible to work with a perfectionist who did 40 takes a set. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed. Even now I can't say that my performance was my own. It was more like a reaction to Warren – that's what it was: a response to Warren Beatty.”
WHERE TO WATCH: Stream on Kanopy.
In this comedy from Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers, Keaton plays a Manhattan yuppie who unexpectedly inherits a 14-month-old baby and begins to re-evaluate her life, eventually moving to Vermont, where she meets a veterinarian played by the outstandingly handsome Sam Shepard. In a forward-looking commentary on the must-have-everything discourse of the next 30 years, Roger Ebert wrote at the time: “'Baby Boom' isn't trying to show us real life. It's a fantasy of mothers and babies, sweetness and love, with just enough wicked comedy to spice it up.”
WHERE TO WATCH: Available to rent on various platforms.
Oh, Erica Barry, her gorgeous Hamptons home and ivory turtleneck sweaters. It was purely the brainchild of Meyers, a writer and director who came up with the brilliant idea of making a 50-year-old woman the object of desire in a hit romantic comedy. Keaton plays a brilliant playwright who attracts the attention of both an older playboy (Jack Nicholson) with a penchant for much younger women and a handsome young doctor (Keanu Reeves). Keaton called it her favorite movie, in part because she got to kiss Nicholson (whom she previously co-starred with in Red) “because it was so unexpected at 57.”
WHERE TO WATCH: Available to rent on various platforms.
