Five Great Diane Keaton Performances to Stream

Diane Keaton, the movie star whose death was announced on Saturday, left behind an immense body of work — more than 100 appearances in both television and film — that cements her as one of Hollywood’s most revered actresses.

Her career took off in the late 1970s, when Keaton was in her 30s. In 1978, she won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance in “Annie Hall.” She was nominated three other times in that category, for “Reds” in 1982, “Marvin’s Room” in 1997 and “Something’s Gotta Give” in 2004.

Though Keaton was admired as a dramatic actress, much of her popularity came through her prodigious comedic chops. She won over audiences with her performances in “Father of the Bride,” “The First Wives Club” and the animated film “Finding Dory,” among other movies.

Here is where to stream five of her best films.

1972

‘The Godfather’

In Francis Ford Coppola’s epochal gangster film, Keaton portrays Kay Adams, a quiet WASP outsider who doesn’t know what she’s getting into when she marries into the Corleone family. She becomes the second wife of Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, and when the door is slowly closed on her in the movie’s final scene, viewers have no doubt where Michael’s heart lies.

Keaton told People magazine in 2022 that she had accepted the role without reading the 1969 Mario Puzo novel on which the movie was based. “I auditioned for ‘The Godfather,’ not having ever read ‘The Godfather’ or caring about ‘The Godfather’ or anything, because all I was doing was auditioning,” she said. “I needed to get work.” Keaton played Kay Corleone in all three “Godfather” films.

Stream, rent or buy it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime or Fandango at Home.

1978

‘Annie Hall’

Woody Allen’s best-picture-winning comedy examines the ups and downs of a romantic relationship between a comedian, Alvy Singer (played by Allen, who also directed the film), and Keaton’s Annie Hall, a nightclub singer. A.O. Scott, a critic at large for The New York Times, said the film was “one of the funniest movies ever made about romantic love,” though it was not exactly “what you would call a romantic comedy.” Keaton won her first Academy Award for her work in the film, and her acceptance speech seemed to epitomize her offbeat style: “Well then, this is terrific. It’s simply terrific,” she gushed from the stage.

“What really thrilled me about ‘Annie Hall,’” Keaton told The New York Times in 1977, “was that I was able to sing in it.” (Her character belts out memorable versions of “Seems Like Old Times” and “It Had to Be You.”) Keaton wrote in her memoir, “Then Again,” that the role was a “breeze” to perform.

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1981

‘Reds’

In this epic drama — it runs longer than three hours — about the role of two Americans in the Bolshevik Revolution, Keaton portrays a fiercely ambitious and unpredictable woman named Louise Bryant, who abandons her husband in Portland, Ore., to follow the radical journalist John Reed, who is played by Warren Beatty, to Greenwich Village. (Beatty also directed and co-wrote the movie.)

Keaton’s performance is “nothing less than splendid,” Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times in 1981, calling it “the best work she has done to date.” The part, a flash of brilliance in an equally extraordinary dive into the American left of the early 20th century, earned Keaton her second Academy Award nomination for best actress.

Stream, rent or buy it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime or Fandango at Home.

1996

‘Marvin’s Room’

This coming-of-age drama, directed by Jerry Zaks and adapted from Scott McPherson’s 1991 play, follows the drastically different paths of two sisters: Lee, played by Meryl Streep, and Bessie, played by Keaton. Bessie has relinquished her freedom to care for her ailing father, while Lee has all but abandoned the family. After years of the siblings’ growing apart, the news of Bessie’s leukemia diagnosis leads to a heartbreaking family reunion.

A Times review from 1996 called Keaton’s performance “lovely,” adding that she had worked “wonders” in extending Bessie beyond an “advertisement for noble sacrifice.” Keaton would again be nominated for a best actress Oscar.

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2003

‘Something’s Gotta Give’

The Times hailed Keaton’s performance in this romantic comedy about a middle-aged playwright, played by Keaton, and an aging bachelor with a penchant for younger women, played by Jack Nicholson, as a showcase of her “unparalleled comic skill.” She blended her character’s traits into a “performance that is at once entirely coherent and dizzyingly unpredictable,” Scott wrote.

Keaton wrote in her memoir that “Something’s Gotta Give” had become her “favorite film,” though she had been convinced that it would fail. (And, yes, she was nominated for an Academy Award for that role, too.)

Stream, rent or buy it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime or Fandango at Home.