People
Catherine Keener
Acting · follow into films and chains
Biography
Catherine Ann Keener (born March 26, 1959) is an American actress. Considered one of the independent film industry's most reliable performers, Keener is known for portraying disgruntled and melancholic yet sympathetic women in independent films, as well as supporting roles in studio films. She has been twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Being John Malkovich (1999) and for her portrayal of author Harper Lee in Capote (2005). Keener also appeared in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Into the Wild (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008), and Get Out (2017), which were all well received by critics. Keener is the muse of director Nicole Holofcener, having appeared in each of Holofcener's first five films. She also appeared in each of director Tom DiCillo's first four films, and three films directed by Spike Jonze. From 2018 to 2020, she starred in the Showtime dramedy series Kidding.
Notable films
Where to start
Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.
Love of Your Life
As Ruth
Get Out
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Being John Malkovich
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Captain Phillips
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Synecdoche, New York
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Where the Wild Things Are
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Enough Said
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Incredibles 2
As Evelyn Deavor (voice)
Chains
KinoChain journeys
Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.
Storming the Deck
From the Bounty to the Caine, mutiny films have always been about more than shipboard insurrection. This chain charts how cinematic rebellions at sea reflect th...
7 films
The Melodrama They Never Let Us Keep
Rachel Morrison's Love of Your Life arrives as a reminder: the woman's picture was never a lesser form. It was grief, desire and colour, and the Europeans knew...
8 films
Metamorphosis: Bodies in Flux
From Kafka's insect to Cronenberg's flesh, a journey through cinema's most profound transformations, where identity itself is the shape-shifter.
7 films
The Threshold of Nowhere
From a furniture store's hidden door to the endless corridors of the mind, this chain maps the liminal spaces where dread and wonder collide.
8 films
Wild Hearts: Feral Children and the Call of the Wild
From the forests of 18th-century France to the animated jungles of Mowgli, a journey through cinema's feral children and their quest for belonging.
7 films
The Rom-Com Lives in the Hesitation
A chain about romantic comedy as a precision instrument, where the timing is in the pause and the laugh is in the fumbled hand.
8 films
From External Beast to Internal Trauma
Here is a five-film narrative chain that traces how the monster evolved from an exotic physical threat into a psychological mirror of society.
5 films
Escapes from Broken Realities
A journey through films where children and the childlike build imaginative refuges from fractured worlds, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Terry Gilliam...
8 films
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Related people
Collaborators & neighbours
Acted
Love of Your Life
2026 · Ruth
Joker: Folie à Deux
2024 · Maryanne Stewart
Polar Bear
2022 · Narrator (voice)
The Adam Project
2022 · Maya Sorian
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
2018 · Cynthia Foards
Incredibles 2
2018 · Evelyn Deavor (voice)
Get Out
2017 · Missy Armitage
Show Me a Hero
2015 · Mary Dorman
Accidental Love
2015 · Pam Hendrickson
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa .5
2014 · Ellie / Self
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
2013 · Ellie Zisman
Captain Phillips
2013 · Andrea Phillips
Enough Said
2013 · Marianne
Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
2011 · Diane Hudson
The Oranges
2011 · Paige Walling
Trust
2010 · Lynn Cameron
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
2010 · Sally Jackson
Where the Wild Things Are
2009 · Mom
Synecdoche, New York
2008 · Adele Lack
Into the Wild
2007 · Jan Burres
An American Crime
2007 · Gertrude Baniszewski
Capote
2005 · Harper Lee
The 40 Year-Old Virgin
2005 · Trish Piedmont
The Interpreter
2005 · Dot Woods
S1m0ne
2002 · Elaine Christian
Death to Smoochy
2002 · Nora Wells
Being John Malkovich
1999 · Maxine Lund
Out of Sight
1998 · Adele Delisi
If These Walls Could Talk
1996 · Becky
Box of Moonlight
1996 · Floatie Dupre
Walking and Talking
1996 · Amelia
Living in Oblivion
1995 · Nicole Springer
Switch
1991 · Steve's Secretary (Beth)