The best Kate Winslet movies and TV shows feature several award-winning efforts, with Winslet consistently picking up nominations both on the big and small screen. Winslet got her start as a child actor in theater productions, and then she moved into television appearances as a teenager. However, it was in 1994 when Winsley achieved her breakout role in the Peter Jackson psychological drama movie Heavenly Creatures, which was based on a true-crime murder case in New Zealand.

While that was her breakout role, she enjoyed her mainstream explosion when she starred in Titanic in 1997. The James Cameron movie was the highest-grossing movie of all time for many years, and that made both Winslet and her co-star Leonardo DiCaprio major movie stars for the years to come. Winslet has since chosen to dive into more prestigious roles, and that has resulted in her earning seven Oscar nominations and 14 Golden Globe nominations over her career in movies and TV shows.

10 Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Juliet Hulme

The first movie that gained Kate Winslet mainstream attention was Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. Jackson made this film years before helming The Lord of the Rings, but after his first two splatstick horror movies, which makes it an interesting anomaly in his career. Heavenly Creatures is based on the true story of the Parker-Hulme murder case in New Zealand in 1954. Winslet plays Juliet Hulme opposite Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker, two teenage girls who murdered Parker's mother.

Winslet, who was only 19 when the movie came out, received critical praise for her performance, as did Jackson, who proved he could do something much more than the horror he was best known for at the time. Heavenly Creatures earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and Jackson won the Silver Lion for directing at the Venice Film Festival. Winslet won acting awards at the Empire Awards, London Film Critics Circle, and the New Zealand Film and Television Awards.

9 Iris (2001)

Young Iris Murdoch

Released in 2001 and directed by Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal), Iris is a biopic about novelist Iris Murdoch and her relationship with her husband, John Bayley. Based on the 1999 memoir Elegy for Iris, Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent play Iris and John later in life, while Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville play the couple in their younger years. The film shows both the couple in their prime when Murdoch was outgoing and dominant, and later in life when Murdoch lived with Alzheimer's disease.

Iris was praised as an actor's showcase, and it received three acting animations at the Academy Awards that year. Judi Dench was nominated for Best Actress and Kate Winslet for Best ing Actress, while Jim Broadbent won for Best ing Actor. Broadbent also won at the Golden Globes, while both Winslet and Dench were nominated there as well. Winslet did win Best Actress at the European Film Awards.

8 Steve Jobs (2015)

Joanna Hoffman

Danny Boyle directed the Steve Jobs biopic in 2015, with Michael Fassbender playing the Apple Inc. co-founder throughout 14 years of his life. Filling out the main cast of the biopic is Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley. Winslet's Hoffman was one of the original of the Apple Macintosh team and the NeXT team with Jobs. Her job was consulting the entire Macintosh marketing team for the first year and a half of its existence.

Hoffman was described as Jobs' "work wife," who was with him from the start of Apple and stuck with him throughout his entire career with the company. Steve Jobs was a box office disappointment, but that was mostly blamed on a poor studio release method. However, critics praised the film, awarding it an 85% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score. Kate Winslet and Michael Fassbender both received Oscar nominations for their performances, while Winslet took home Best Actress in a ing Role at the BAFTAs.

7 Mildred Pierce (2011)

Mildred Pierce

Todd Haynes set his eyes on the small screen in 2011 by adapting the James M. Cain 1941 novel Mildred Pierce for HBO. The story follows a divorcee named Mildred Pierce who tries to start a restaurant business during the Great Depression. A side story also involves her trying to gain the respect of her arrogant daughter (played by Evan Rachel Wood). Guy Pearce and Melissa Leo co-star in the film, which was previously adapted in 1945, with Joan Crawford as the lead role in that effort.

The series picked up 19 Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, with Winslet winning for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Critics mostly praised Mildred Pierce, awarding it an 81% fresh rating for the miniseries. Reviews say the story is loyal to the source material and that Winslet delivers a fantastic lead performance as the title character. While Mildred Pierce is a miniseries, it was also shown at the Venice International Film Festival. The series picked up 19 Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, with Winslet winning for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, an award she also won at the Golden Globe Awards.

6 Sense And Sensibility (1995)

Marianne Dashwood

Kate Winslet appeared in the Jane Austen movie Sense and Sensibility in 1995. In this film, Emma Thompson stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Winslet stars as her younger sister Marianne. The film follows the two sisters, part of a wealthy English family, as they deal with sudden destitution and are forced to find security through marriage, with Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman starring as their suitors. Thompson not only starred in the film, but she also wrote the script, which Ang Lee went on to direct.

The film was a box office success, making $135 million on a $16 million budget. It was also a critical success, with a very high 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Sense and Sensibility went on to earn seven Academy Award nominations, winning Emma Thompson an Oscar for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). Thompson and Winslet also received acting nominations and the film received a Best Picture nomination. Winslet went on to win a BAFTA for her performance.

5 Mare Of Easttown (2021)

Mare Sheehan

Kate Winslet's most recent critical success came on the small screen with her role in the HBO series Mare of Easttown. In this series, Winslet stars as Mare Sheehan, a former high school basketball star in Easttown, Philadelphia. She now works as a detective in the town. However, she is struggling in her job as a missing person's case remains unsolved for a year, and now another girl has disappeared. She also has to deal with her son's suicide and is in a custody battle for his son.

Winslet had a great ing cast around her, including Jean Smart, Guy Pearce, and Evan Peters. There were seven episodes in the miniseries, which earned a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The show also earned 16 Primetime Emmy nominations, with Kate Winslet winning for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, and both Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson earning ing actor wins.

4 Little Children (2007)

Sarah Pierce

Kate Winslet was one of the stars in the melodrama 2006 film Little Children. Todd Field directed the film about people in a small community who find life turned upside down when an unhappy housewife begins an affair with a married neighbor. Winslet plays the unhappy housewife, Sarah, and Patrick Wilson plays the man she began an affair with, Brad. Jennifer Connelly stars as Brad's wife, Kathy. There is also a disturbing side plot about a pedophile sex offender who is living in their town (Jackie Earl Haley).

The movie was a critical hit, with an 80% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score. Both Jackie Earl Haley and Kate Winslet received Oscar nominations for their performances in the film, but neither won the award. Winsley was also nominated for the BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. The film also landed on several critics' top 10 lists for the year.

3 Titanic (1997)

Rose DeWitt Bukater

The movie that made Kate Winslet a worldwide star was the James Cameron bio-drama Titanic. The film was a phenomenon from the moment it premiered, and it was the highest-grossing movie of all time for years after its release. In the movie, which tells the story of the sinking of the Titanic, Winslet plays Rose DeWitt Bukater, a teenager from Philadelphia whose mother was planning to push her to marry a wealthy man named Cal (Billy Zane) as they began to lose their money after Rose's father died.

The movie is about the sinking of the Titanic, but it is actually a tragic love story, as Rose falls in love with the poor orphan Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). The story of star-crossed lovers made $2.264 billion at the box office and was also a huge critical hit. Titanic received 14 Oscar nominations and won 11 of them, including Best Picture and Best Director. However, it lost both acting nominations (Winslet and Gloria Stuart). In 2017, the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry.

2 The Reader (2008)

Hanna Schmitz

Kate Winslet starred in The Reader in 2008, a romantic drama based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink. In this film, Winslet stars as a 36-year-old tram conductor named Hanna Schmitz. She meets a 15-year-old named Michael Berg (David Kross), and the two have a controversial affair over the summer. Years later, an older Michael learns that Hanna is on trial in a case where several former female SS guards allowed 300 Jewish women to die in a burning church during the death march near Kraków.

The film is about both their relationship and Michael learning the truth about Hanna, but learning it too late to save her from her fate. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, although most negative reviews saw the movie as "Oscar bait." Regardless, almost every review praised Kate Winslet's performance as Hanna. Winslet won the Oscar for Best Actress, while the film received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.

1 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Clementine Kruczynski

In 2004, Kate Winslet and Jim Carry ed the cast of the Michel Gondry film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The movie is a sci-fi romantic drama in a near future society where a procedure has been created to eliminate memories from a person's mind. Winslet plays Clementine, while Carrey plays Joel. The two meet and fall in love, only for their relationship to fall apart. Clementine goes to have the mind erasure procedure done, and Joel realizes this isn't the first time they have fallen in love, and it always ends this way.

Gondry takes the idea and creates a non-linear film that shows memories disappearing as the story goes on, a way to display what the procedure might feel like to Clementine and Joel. Written by Charlie Kaufman, the film was a critical hit, with a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has since become a massive cult classic. Kate Winslet earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, while Kaufman won for Best Original Screenplay.