On half a dozen occasions at least, Julianne Moore has given ample demonstration of her ability and intelligence. Thus, she lent herself faithfully to the increasingly pale and withdrawn figure for Todd Haynes's Safe (1995), while staying in the memory as the half-naked, very talkative, and fiery red young woman for Robert Altman's Short Cuts (93). Then there was the pom queen for Boogie Nights (97, Paul Thomas Anderson), in which drugs and natural kindness had led to a rosy, shiny blur of warmth.

She was trained at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, she has worked on stage, and won an Emmy for As the World Turns. But she had the looks and attitude that led her more naturally to independent films (classic Hollywood complains at her freckles; the same superficial complaint that stopped another great actress Isabelle Huppert from ever making it big there - just think but for the sake of a few spots what some great actors could have achieved!!), until late 1999, when she found herself in two big lead roles—as the adulteress who turns away in The End of the Affair (99, Neil Jordan) and as the young wife in Magnolia (99, Anderson). The former was disappointing. But the latter was good—clearly, Moore had arrived as a major figure.

She made her debut in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (90, John Harrison) and appeared in The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (92, Allan Moyle); The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (92, Curtis Hanson); Benny & Joon (93, Jeremiah Chechik); Body of Evidence (93, Uli Edel); The Fugitive (93, Andrew Davis); Vanya on 42nd Street (94, Louis Malle); Assassins (95, Richard Donner); the dreadful Nine Months (95, Chris Columbus); Roommates (95, Peter Yates); Surviving Picasso (96, James Ivory); The Lost World: Jurassic Park (97, Steven Spielberg); The Myth of Fingerprints (97, Bart Freundlich, her companion); The Big Lebowski (98, Joel Coen); Chicago Cab (98, Mary Cybulski and John Tintori); in the Vera Miles part in Psycho (98, Gus Van Sant); Cookie's Fortune (99, Altman); An Ideal Husband (99, Oliver Parker); superb in A Map of the World (99, Scott Elliott).

She had little to do in The Ladies Man (00, Reginald Hudlin), but after the short Not I (00, Jordan), adapted from Beckett, she took over the role of Clarice Starling and helped make Hannibal (Ol, Ridley Scott) into a wistful romance. She was wasted in Evolution (01, Ivan Reitman) and in World Traveler (01, Freundlich); but she was good again in The Shipping News (01, Lasse Hallstrom), and she was even better in The Hours (02, Stephen Daldry).