Warren Beatty has had one of the most celebrated careers in movie history amassing 14 Oscar nominations in various categories along the way. He won the 1981 Best Director Oscar for his passion project “Reds” a three hour and fifteen-minute film about the Russian revolution. It was hardly a topic people thought would work on film but Beatty made it work (although the film would shockingly lose the Best Picture Oscar to “Chariots of Fire” in one of Oscar’s more surprising Best Picture moves.)
Beatty followed his older sister Shirley MacLaine into the acting profession. He began his career with appearances in television before finding success on Broadway in the play “A Loss of Roses.” The play only ran a few weeks but Beatty was a standout among the cast and received the play’s only Tony nomination. More importantly the play would introduce him to playwright William Inge, who would go on to play a key role in Beatty’s film career when he wrote “Splendor in the Grass,” the film that would launch Beatty to movie stardom. The classic “Bonnie and Clyde” would only elevate him even further.
Beatty would additionally gain fame as one of Hollywood’s most active ladies’ men and often co-starred with his off screen loves such as Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Madonna and finally Annette Bening, who managed to get the confirmed bachelor down the wedding aisle after their teaming in the film “Bugsy.”
Beatty has made surprisingly few films over the course of his career probably since he has usually chosen to have full control of his movies and rarely just took acting roles in films he didn’t produce, write, direct or all three. In fact, Beatty has twice accomplished the remarkable when he received four Oscar nominations for his direction, writing, producing and acting for “Reds” and “Heaven Can Wait.”
Tour our photo gallery of Beatty’s 12 greatest film performances, ranked from worst to best.
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12. Rules Don’t Apply (2016)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director and writer: Warren Beatty. Starring Lily Collins, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick.
Beatty had long been fascinated with the life of Howard Hughes and wanted to make a biopic about the highly successful film producer, inventor, and aviation pioneer whose life later ended in seclusion and mental illness. Beatty was known for taking his time getting his projects off the ground and with this subject matter Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio beat him to the screen with their film “The Aviator.” Twelve years after that film Beatty finally brought his version of Hughes to the screen in a less than successful film that focused more on the love story of two of Hughes’ employees rather than on Hughes himself.
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11. Dick Tracy (1990)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: Warren Beatty. Writer: Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. Starring Madonna, Glenne Headley, Al Pacino.
Beatty brought the popular comic script detective to life in this lavish colorful adaptation that met with a limited degree of box office and critical success. Beatty often placed his girlfriends in the leads of his films and his then paramour Madonna had one of her best screen roles as the siren Breathless Mahoney who tempts Tracy away from his true love Tess Trueheart. Al Pacino received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the film and the makeup, art direction and the original song “Sooner or Later” written by Stephen Sondheim and sung by Madonna won Oscars.
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10. All Fall Down (1962)
Image Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock Director: John Frankenheimer. Writer: William Inge. Starring Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Angela Lansbury.
The playwright William Inge who often focused on the tempestuous lives of people in the American south wrote the screenplay for this story of parents dealing with their irresponsible womanizing son played by Beatty. Beatty’s character enters into an affair with an older woman played by Eva Marie Saint which troubles his parents.
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9. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/Seven Arts/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: José Quintero. Writer: Gavin Lambert. Starring Vivian Leigh, Coral Browne, Jill St. John.
Beatty once again played a man involved with an older woman in this adaptation of a popular novel. Vivian Leigh plays an aging actress fearful about the demise of her career who also suffers the loss of her husband while on a trip to Rome. Beatty plays an unscrupulous gigolo who takes advantage of the emotionally troubled woman.
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8. Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director: Elia Kazan. Writer: William Inge. Starring Natalie Wood, Pat Hingle, Barbara Loden.
In another potboiler of southern sexuality from William Inge, Beatty made his film debut and caused a bit of a sensation. Beatty became a sex symbol as the upper-class boy with whom Natalie Woods’ character become infatuated to the extend that she ends up in a mental institution due to the intensity of her love.
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7. Bulworth (1998)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/Shutterstock Director: Warren Beatty. Writers: Warren Beatty, Jeremy Pikser. Starring Halle Berry, Sean Astin, Laurie Metcalf.
Beatty cast himself as a politician so fed up with the system and life itself that he falls into a suicidal depression. His apathy towards politics and life frees him up to say whatever he wants about the system. He takes the unconventional approach of saying this stuff in the form of rap and hip hop music. Beatty and the film both earned Golden Globes in the Comedy categories.
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6. Shampoo (1975)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Hal Ashby. Writer: Robert Towne, Warren Beatty. Starring Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant.
Beatty had fashioned a pretty solid reputation as a lady’s man and Hollywood’s premiere lotharios when he took on this role as a hairdresser who provides more than just hairstyling for his clients. The film was highly discussed for its frank sexuality. Lee Grant won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as one of Beatty’s clients/lovers. Carrie Fisher made her film debut as Grant’s sexually precocious daughter.
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5. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
Image Credit: Snap/Shutterstock Director: Robert Altman. Writers: Robert Altman, Brian McKay. Starring Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane.
Beatty teamed with famed director Robert Altman and Julie Christie for this offbeat western that cast Beatty as a gambler and Chrisite as a prostitute who team up for a business venture. The film was notable as being darker in tone than most westerns and its characters less than heroic. Christie was nominated for Best Actress in what would be the first of three films in which she’d co-star with Beatty.
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4. Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directors: Warren Beatty, Buck Henry. Writers: Elaine May, Warren Beatty. Starring Julie Christie, Dyan Cannon, Jack Warden.
Beatty earned four Oscar nominations as producer, co-director, co-writer and star of this comedy which also earned five additional nominations including Supporting Actor and Actress for Jack Warden and Dyan Cannon. Beatty plays a football player who is killed off mistakenly and sent back to earth in another body by his heavenly guardians. The film was a remake of another popular film “Here Comes Mr. Jordan.”
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3. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Image Credit: Bros/Seven Arts/Tatira-Hiller Productions/REX/Shutterstock Director: Arthur Penn. Writers: David Newman, Robert Benton. Starring Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons.
“Bonnie and Clyde” ushered in the revolution that would takeover American filmmaking in the seventies where darker more violent stories would become the norm in movies. Beatty plays Clyde and Faye Dunaway Bonnie, two young people who join together on a crime spree that terrified the country during the Great Depression. The film earned 10 Oscar nominations including ones in each of the four acting categories. Beatty was nominated twice as Best Actor and producer. The film won Oscars for its cinematography and Best Supporting Actress Estelle Parsons.
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2. Reds (1981)
Image Credit: Paramount/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Warren Beatty. Writers: Warren Beatty, Trevor Griffiths. Starring Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton.
Beatty once again did the unthinkable by earning four Oscar nominations as producer, director, writer, and star and would also have actors from his film nominated in all four of the acting categories for this biopic of John Reed. Reed was a journalist involved in the Russian revolution who hoped to bring communism to America. This film is perhaps Beatty’s greatest achievement as a director and he won the Oscar for Best Director. Interestingly while his performance is excellent, he generously gave his co-stars Jack Nicholson, Maureen Stapleton (Best Supporting Actress winner) and especially Diane Keaton the meatier roles. At a recent AFI tribute to Keaton, Beatty proclaimed that the reason the film works is because of Keaton’s performance. Keaton was a prime contender for Best Actress but she and fellow front runner Meryl Streep (“The French Lieutenant’s Woman”) were both beaten for the award by surprise winner Katharine Hepburn for “On Golden Pond.”
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1. Bugsy (1991)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Director: Barry Levinson. Writer: James Toback. Starring Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley.
Beatty let others handle the directing and writing on this film and that perhaps freed him up to do his most acclaimed work as an actor. The film documents how the gangster Bugsy Siegel created Las Vegas. The film also is notable in pop culture as the place where Beatty met Annette Bening, the actress he would marry bringing to a close his long running status as the most famous bachelor in Hollywood.
