Ryder is all bulging eyes and gulping mouth, rendering the OTT camerawork entirely superfluous.

“You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re 20,” says John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) to the impetuous Abigail (Ryder) in this high-fibre adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play. She used her clout at the time to hire co-star Ben Stiller as director. Much of this Gen X drama is cringeworthy, but Ryder emerges with dignity as the “non-practising virgin” with the “pointy little face”, whether bopping to My Sharona in the food mart or trying not to fall for Ethan Hawke. Looking for Richard (1996)Īl Pacino’s lively Shakespearean documentary goes backstage as he tries to unpick Richard III with the help of assorted experts (Vanessa Redgrave, John Gielgud) and co-stars, notably Kevin Spacey, superb as Buckingham, and a very game Ryder, who makes a tender Lady Anne. Ryder bounced back for Coppola’s Dracula but scarcely made an impression amid the extravagant sets and barmy performances. “Noni was fried, really fried,” said her Mermaids co-star Cher. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)Įxhausted after shooting three films back-to-back, Ryder dropped out of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III (Sofia Coppola took her place). Alien: Resurrection (1997)Īn unfairly maligned entry in the franchise, this breakneck, Joss Whedon-scripted sequel from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amélie) doesn’t give Ryder much to do as the android on board another doomed mission, but there is some nice rapport between her and Sigourney Weaver. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/20th Century Fox 13. This is the standard early Ryder role: high-achieving outsider, dressed in black, incorrigibly odd (she oversees a menagerie housed in an upturned boat). Small-town drama with Ryder as an adopted girl convinced that a returning superstar is her biological mother.

So-so Jerry Lee Lewis biopic with Ryder, 18 at the time, acquitting herself well as the 13-year-old first cousin once removed who became Lewis’s first wife. She plays the chain-smoking Corky, a cabbie who dreams of becoming a mechanic. Unfortunately, Ryder is in the worst one.

Jim Jarmusch’s portmanteau comedy comprises five tales of taxi-cab encounters from around the globe. Ryder essentially spends two hours taking advice from her elders over whether to marry a DIY enthusiast. Going straight from working with one female Australian director (Gillian Armstrong on Little Women) to another (Jocelyn Moorhouse) was a good move, even if the result second time around was less compelling. Maya Angelou (left), Ryder (centre) and Ellen Burstyn in How to Make an American Quilt.

Tom and jerry movies 1990s