Winona Ryder
American actress and Golden Globe winner celebrated for her iconic roles across four decades of film and television.
Winona Ryder - Personal Information
- Name: Winona Ryder
- Date of Birth: October 29, 1971
- Place of Birth: Winona, Minnesota, USA
- Gender: Female
- Job Title: Actor
- Crew Jobs: Thanks, Executive Producer, Producer, Additional Writing
Biography
Winona Laura Horowitz (born October 29, 1971), known professionally as Winona Ryder, is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards. She is known for taking on quirky roles in her earlier films, later playing more prominent roles in the 1990s.
After Ryder's film debut in Lucas (1986), she gained attention with her performance in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). She further rose to prominence with major roles in Heathers (1989), Mermaids (1990), Edward Scissorhands (1990), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). She garnered critical acclaim and two consecutive Academy Award nominations for her portrayals of socialite May Welland in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993) and Jo March in the fifth film adaptation of Little Women (1994). Her other films during this period were Reality Bites (1994), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Crucible (1996), Alien Resurrection (1997), Celebrity (1998), and Girl, Interrupted (1999), which she also executive-produced.
In 2002, Ryder starred in the critically panned box office hit Mr. Deeds, after which her career declined and she took a break from films. In 2009, she returned in the high-profile film Star Trek. In 2010, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: as the lead actress in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story and as part of the cast of Black Swan. She also reunited with Burton for Frankenweenie (2012). She has starred as Joyce Byers in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things (2016–2025), for which she has received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations; and in 2020, she starred in the HBO drama miniseries The Plot Against America.
Her relationship with Johnny Depp in the early 1990s and a 2001 arrest for shoplifting were both subjects of tabloid journalism. She has been open about her personal struggles with anxiety and depression. In 2000, Ryder received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Filmography
A selection of Winona Ryder's most recent screen appearances across film and television.
- One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 (2026) as Self (uncredited)
- Tim Burton: Life in the Line (TV - 2025) as Self
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) as Lydia
- Tim Burton: Life in the Line (2024) as Self
- Haunted Mansion (2023) as Pat (uncredited)
- Gone in the Night (2022) as Kath
- Winona Ryder: The Ghosts She Called (2022) as Self - Actress (archive footage)
- The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon (2022) as Self
- Hannibal Hopkins & Sir Anthony (2021) as Self (archive footage)
- Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine (2020) as Lacey Groin
External Links
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