10. Dunston Check-In (1996)
A kleptomaniac chimpanzee wreaks havoc on a posh hotel, leading to an inspired hoax involving bananas and small dogs. But the highlight is when Dunaway, as the snobbish hotel owner, falls backwards into a large cream cake with an orangutan on top of her. No apologies for including it in this selection, as it is one of the best moments in cinema.
9. Little Big Man (1970)
Dunaway plays the picaresque protagonist’s sexually frustrated foster mother (although Dustin Hoffman was actually four years her senior in real life) in one of the funniest episodes in Arthur Penn’s epic deconstruction of Western myths. It’s a supporting role, but a memorable one, particularly when she’s singing Bringing in the Sheaves while soaping him up.
8. Mommy Dearest (1981)
Poor Joan Crawford was just three years old when Dunaway went heavy with the brow pencil for this biopic based on Christina Crawford’s memoir, which revealed her mother as an abusive monster. Her co-stars claimed that Dunaway used the full method on set and the film flopped, but her histrionic performance and one-liners like “No wire hangers!” helped turn it into a camp classic.
7. Network (1976)
Dunaway won an Academy Award for her performance as Diana Christensen, an ambitious TV news programmer who will stop at nothing in pursuit of ratings in this smug, sloppy, but prescient satire. Paddy Chayefsky’s script is filled with the kind of lines that wow award-winners (and also won him an Oscar), though it’s a pleasure to watch Dunaway and her co-stars rant.
6. Barfly (1987)
There is obviously nothing funny about alcoholism, but Barbet Schroeder’s film with a semi-autobiographical screenplay by writer Charles Bukowski is objectively hilarious. Mickey Rourke is a hoot as Bukowski’s alter ego, with Dunaway matching him as the greasy-haired Wanda, who shows her legs and smacks her love rival (Alice Krige) after snarling, “I’ll rip you off your perfume!”
5. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Steve McQueen plays a jaded millionaire who engages in burglary, just for the laughs. Dunaway plays her would-be nemesis Vicki Anderson, an unfeasibly glam insurance investigator (29 Theadora Van Runkle costume changes and a Ferrari Spider!) and an infuriating vermin of a Michel Legrand score.
4. Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
Dunaway plays a fashion photographer who crouches in awkward side-split culottes to take daring Helmut Newton-style photos of sex and violence in this brilliant slice of gialloweird nonsense. She also has a psychic connection to the maniac who is stabbing her friends and colleagues to death, although this doesn’t help anyone much as each time her murderous vision kicks in, she stumbles around screaming uselessly.
3. The Four Musketeers (1974)
The second half of Richard Lester’s amusing Alexandre Dumas diptych provides Dunaway with a dazzling showcase as the archvillain sovereign Milady, charging at D’Artagnan with a postcoital poisoned dagger when he discovers her darkest secret, or posing as a victim. to manipulate his puritanical jailer into – historical spoiler! – assassinate the Duke of Buckingham. Very brave!
2. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Arthur Penn’s groundbreaking blend of nostalgia, slapstick, romance and ultra-violence, channeling the French New Wave, helped change the face of ’60s Hollywood, propelled Dunaway and her fabulous cheekbones to stardom, and launched a fashion trend for skirts. midi and Bonnie berets. But it’s Bonnie’s last loving look at Clyde (Warren Beatty) before they are gunned down that gives this shocking ending its bitter kick.
1. Chinatown (1974)
As Evelyn Mulwray, Dunaway has the most complicated role in this revisionist neo-noir, as she has to embody the femme fatale archetype, all scarlet lipstick and duplicity, while also allowing the antihero sleuth (Jack Nicholson) to pick your defenses, and finally take down the facade she put up to protect herself (and at least one other person) from the unspeakable truth. It’s a startling and utterly moving performance.
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