1974 drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is already one hell of a way to jump-start a pre-teen acting career for Jodie Foster, yet it would be her second collaboration with director Martin Scorsese that made her an international star. 1976’s Taxi Driver was a shocking game-changer in a decade full of them, with Foster’s casting as a 12-year-old prostitute eliciting awe and dread from audiences, not to mention an eventual Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. As a new unlikely industry “It” girl, Foster quickly began to fill her resume with roles equally precocious (Freaky Friday, Bugsy Malone) and dark (The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane) following Taxi Driver.
Foster continued to hone her craft through the ’80s and into the ’90s, receiving a Best Actress Oscar for 1988’s The Accused, and moving on to even bigger Oscar night wins for 1992’s The Silence of the Lambs. 1995’s Nell would be Foster’s last Oscar nom to date, but the Golden Globes have been more receptive: She’s been nominated since for 1997’s Contact, 2007’s The Brave One, 2011’s Carnage, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2013, and finally won another acting Globe with 2021’s The Mauritanian.
More of Foster’s highlights during these decades include David Fincher’s Panic Room, Spike Lee’s Inside Man, and her own directorial-and-starring efforts like Money Monster. And now we take a look at all Jodie Foster movies ranked by Tomatometer!
Synopsis: The storytelling device of the flashback gets an intense workout in this tragic coming-of-age drama. Mark Harmon stars as washed-up... [More]
Critics Consensus: Magnetic by between Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard can't quite compensate for The Brave One's problematic and unconvincing eye-for-an-eye moral.
Synopsis: New York radio host Erica Bain has a life that she loves and a fiance she adores. All of it... [More]
Critics Consensus: Despite good intentions, Nim's Island flounders under an implausible storyline, simplistic stock characters, and distracting product placement.
Synopsis: Anything can happen on Nim's Island, a magical place ruled by a young girl's imagination. It is an existence that... [More]
Critics Consensus: Shadows and Fog recreates the chiaroscuro aesthetic of German Expressionism, but Woody Allen's rambling screenplay retreads the director's neurotic obsessions with derivative results.
Synopsis: In this Woody Allen film, a city is searching for the person responsible for a series of strangulation murders, and... [More]
Critics Consensus: Despite a committed performance by Jodie Foster, Nell opts for ponderous melodrama instead of engaging with the ethical dilemmas of socializing its titular wild child.
Synopsis: The dilemmas involved in socializing a socially isolated individual are explored in this moving drama set in the Smokey mountains.... [More]
Critics Consensus: Hotel Artemis has a few flashes of wit and an intriguing cast, but mostly it's just a serviceable chunk of slightly futuristic violence -- which might be all its audience is looking for.
Synopsis: Set in riot-torn, near-future Los Angeles, HOTEL ARTEMIS is an original, high-octane action-thriller starring Jodie Foster as The Nurse, who... [More]
Critics Consensus: Money Monster's strong cast and solidly written story ride a timely wave of socioeconomic anger that's powerful enough to overcome an occasionally muddled approach to its worthy themes.
Synopsis: Lee Gates is a bombastic TV personality whose popular financial network show has made him the money wiz of Wall... [More]
Critics Consensus: Sommersby stumbles as a consistently compelling mystery, but typically solid work from Jodie Foster and Richard Gere fuels an engaging romance.
Synopsis: Based on the French film The Return of Martin Guerre, Sommersby is the story of a presumed-dead Confederate soldier (Richard... [More]
Critics Consensus: After the heady sci-fi thrills of District 9, Elysium is a bit of a comedown for director Neill Blomkamp, but on its own terms, it delivers just often enough to satisfy.
Synopsis: In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station... [More]
Critics Consensus: Contact elucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters.
Synopsis: She's known it since she was a young girl, when she would magically connect with distant voices on her father's... [More]
Critics Consensus: It isn't as compelling on the screen as it was on the stage, but Carnage makes up for its flaws with Polanski's smooth direction and assured performances from Winslet and Foster.
Synopsis: Carnage is a razor sharp, biting comedy centered on parental differences. After two boys duke it out on a playground,... [More]
Synopsis: Tony Richardson's adaptation of John Irving's darkly comic novel details the bizarre misadventures of an oversized family headed by Beau... [More]
Critics Consensus: The Mauritanian takes a frustratingly generic approach to a real-life story that might have been inspirational in other hands, but Tahar Rahim's performance elevates the uneven material.
Synopsis: Directed by Kevin Macdonald and based on the NY Times best-selling memoir "Guantánamo Diary" by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this is... [More]
Synopsis: For her directorial debut, Jodie Foster selected a subject she was undoubtedly all-too-familiar with--the struggles faced by a child prodigy.... [More]
Critics Consensus: Elevated by David Fincher's directorial talent and Jodie Foster's performance, Panic Room is a well-crafted, above-average thriller.
Synopsis: After purchasing a brownstone in New York, a thirty-something divorced woman and her daughter are forced to take advantage of... [More]
Critics Consensus: The inter-cutting of animation by Spawn's creator, Todd McFarlane, doesn't always work, but the performances by the young actors capture the pains of growing up well.
Synopsis: Peter Care's debut feature The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys follows a handful of parish school adolescents who try to... [More]
Critics Consensus: A well-crafted and visually arresting drama with a touch of whimsy.
Synopsis: Audrey Tautou, who rose to international stardom with the title role in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's worldwide smash Amà (C)lie, reunites with... [More]
Critics Consensus: Spike Lee's energetic and clever bank-heist thriller is a smart genre film that is not only rewarding on its own terms, but manages to subvert its pulpy trappings with wit and skill.
Synopsis: The volatile showdown between a determined cop and a perfectionist bank robber is sent spiraling toward disaster when a scheming... [More]
Critics Consensus: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore finds Martin Scorsese wielding a somewhat gentler palette than usual, with generally absorbing results.
Synopsis: Alice Hyatt is a widowed mother with a growing son. Left penniless after her husband's death, Alice and her son... [More]
Synopsis: Simultaneously gut-wrenching and provocative, The Accused follows the struggle of a young woman to find justice after she is publicly... [More]
Critics Consensus: A must-see film for movie lovers, this Martin Scorsese masterpiece is as hard-hitting as it is compelling, with Robert De Niro at his best.
Synopsis: "All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin... [More]
Critics Consensus: Director Jonathan Demme's smart, taut thriller teeters on the edge between psychological study and all-out horror, and benefits greatly from stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Synopsis: In this multiple Oscar-winning thriller, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI's training academy whose... [More]
