12 Best Movies of Actress Toni Collette

Her dinner-table tirade ("I am your mother!") and her inhuman wailing on the floor after a horrific family tragedy rank among the most devastating acting work in modern horror history. Ari Aster demanded everything Collette had, and she delivered a performance unanimously praised by critics as an Oscar-worthy monument to pure grief and possession.

As the overworked, worried mother of Cole (Haley Joel Osment), Collette gave M. Night Shyamalan's supernatural thriller its deep emotional foundation. The scene in the car where her son finally confesses he sees dead people and relays a message from her own deceased mother guarantees a flood of tears.

In the iconic yellow VW bus, Sheryl desperately tries to hold her chaotic family together: a suicidal brother, a drug-addicted father-in-law, a silent son, and a bankrupt husband. Collette is the indispensable, loving anchor that gives the indie comedy its irresistible warmth.

With flowing linen robes, a quasi-spiritual lifestyle blog, and a parasitic hunger for the family fortune, Collette delivers a hilarious parody of modern wellness gurus. Her hysterical defense of her own lies to detective Benoit Blanc is pure comedic gold.

Her international breakthrough. Collette gained nearly forty pounds for the role of socially awkward misfit Muriel, belittled by her father, obsessed with ABBA, and dreaming of the perfect wedding. Her disarming smile and tragicomic transformation made her a global star overnight.

As depressive, hippie-ish mother Fiona, who cooks vegetarian meals and spontaneously bursts into tears at the kitchen table, Collette delivers a painfully honest performance. The clash between her vulnerability and the cynical shallowness of Hugh Grant's character produces beautiful cinema.

Collette has just one big scene in Julianne Moore's segment, but what a scene. As the seemingly perfect neighbor Kitty who suddenly breaks down over her fear of a hysterectomy and infertility, she reveals, with a trembling smile, the immense emptiness behind the 1950s facade.

In Charlie Kaufman's surreal psychological fever dream, Collette plays the protagonist's mother. Throughout the film, her age shifts from young mother to dying elder in the blink of an eye. Her manically laughing, terrifying dinner scenes are vintage Collette.

In Guillermo del Toro's sultry neo-noir, Collette plays a traveling carnival clairvoyant who teaches Bradley Cooper's character the secrets of mentalism and cold reading. Her melancholic gaze in the zinc bathtub shows a woman who knows the harsh reality of illusions all too well.

As the mother of an introverted teenager spending his summer vacation with her new, manipulative boyfriend (Steve Carell), Collette effortlessly balances her own desire to be loved with her gnawing guilt toward her son.

Alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Collette played the naive, impressionable Harriet Smith in this acclaimed Jane Austen adaptation. Her endearing insecurity and open-hearted gullibility create a delightful contrast to Emma's aristocratic meddling.

In Dan Gilroy's satirical art-world slasher, Collette plays a ruthless gallerist who'll step over anyone to get her hands on rare paintings. Her cynical greed and her tragicomic encounter with a murderous work of art are pure indulgence.