Hilary Swank has had an interesting career. She began her acting career in 1992 with a bit part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and within 15 years was the owner of two Best Actress Oscars. Swank has, comparatively speaking, laid low since then. She hasn't stopped acting, but she's no longer the brightest star in the room. She's instead opted for supporting roles in ensemble pieces such as New Year's Eve or starring roles in smaller films such as Amelia.
Swank has two films coming out in 2020, including the incredibly controversial battle royale film The Hunt. Here are her 10 best films so far.
Freedom Writers - 70%
Freedom Writers is about a teacher who tries to teach at-risk youths to be the best versions of themselves. The film is based on the real-life story of Erin Gruwell, a high school teacher in Long Beach, California, who used her students' writings to teach them about tolerance and the parallels between books like The Diary of Anne Frank and their own lives.
Gruwell's efforts also allowed her students to graduate and attend college. The film was dedicated to the memory of Armand Jones, one of the film's actors. He was killed after principal photography wrapped when he was robbed.
The Homesman - 81%
Tommy Lee Jones' second directorial effort and first feature screenplay, The Homesman was adapted from the 1988 Glendon Swarthout novel of the same name. Swank starred as protagonist Mary Bee Cuddy, a woman in the Nebraska Territory in the 1850s. She must bring three women from their village to a church in Iowa. Cuddy enlists the help of claim jumper George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) after saving him from a lynching.
The film features extended cameos from actors such as Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, and Hailee Steinfeld.
What They Had - 87%
What They Had is a 2018 film starring Swank as Bridget, a woman caring for her Alzheimer's-stricken mother. Michael Shannon also stars as her brother Nicky. The bulk of the film focuses on Bridget and Nicky's attempts to convince their father to put their mother in a nursing home.
Bridget has family problems of her own, which makes it hard for her to focus on her parents. Their father is finally convinced after Bridget and Nicky's mother goes missing. She is found quickly, but he decides they cannot take that risk again.
Boys Don't Cry - 88%
Swank won her first Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Brandon Teena, a real-life transgender man who was the victim of a hate crime in 1993. The film also starred Chloe Sevigny as his girlfriend Lana Tisdel. Sevigny received an Oscar nomination for her role.
Boys Don't Cry portrays the months leading up to Teena's death when he lived in Falls City, Nebraska. Swank was so convincing she passed as a boy in front of both her neighbors and the doorman at her audition.
I Am Mother - 90%
In this 2019 Australian science fiction film, Swank plays a woman from the outside world who enters a bunker containing a girl and a robot. The robot, named Mother, raised the girl from birth following certain moral and ethical guidelines. According to Mother, contact with the outside world is lethal to those in the bunker. Swank's character appears to the girl and begs for help.
The girl lets her inside the bunker, challenging everything's she ever known and the place Mother has in her life.
...So Goes the Nation - 91%
Swank appears briefly in ...So Goes the Nation, a documentary on Ohio's role as a bellwether state in the 2004 general election. The film focuses particularly on each campaign's ground game and the way the effectiveness of tactics such as door-to-door pitches affected the outcome of the campaign.
Nation posits that John Kerry's presidential campaign had several advantages going into the final stretches of the campaign, but wasted all of them while the Bush campaign took advantage of whatever it could.
Million Dollar Baby - 91%
Swank won her second Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald, a boxer who is taken under the wing by trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood). Dunn helps Maggie rise through the ranks of the boxing world, resulting in a fight against the women's welterweight champion. The champion knocks Maggie out with a sucker punch from behind, causing Maggie to land awkwardly on a stool and break her neck.
The injury leaves paralysis Maggie, who depends on a ventilator to breathe. Maggie then has to fend off her family, who despise her success for endangering their federal aid.
11:14 - 92%
11:14 is an anthology film about a series of events that converge at 11:14 p.m one night. Swank plays Buzzy, a convenience store worker in the film's first and fourth stories. Buzzy allows her co-worker, Duffy, to rob the store of $500 to pay for an abortion.
Buzzy volunteers to be shot in the arm to make the robbery look legitimate. A police officer arrests Duffy and eventually Buzzy for conspiring to help commit the crime, although that is only a small fragment of what happens during 11:14's climax.
Insomnia - 92%
2002's Insomnia is a Christopher Nolan-directed remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name. Set in Nightmute, Alaska, Swank plays local detective Ellie Burr. She assists LAPD detectives Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) with solving the murder of a 17-year-old girl.
Dormer is the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation in Los Angeles and bends the rules frequently to get his desired outcome. The film features a rare villainous turn from Robin Williams, who plays a local crime writer.
Logan Lucky - 92%
Swank plays another detective in this Steven Soderbergh-directed romp. The film stars Channing Tatum and Adam Driver as Jimmy and Clyde Logan, two brothers who attempt to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600.
They enlist the help of Daniel Craig's deliciously Southern Joe Bang, a convict known for his safe-cracking ability. Swank's detective is brought on the case after the heist is almost too successful; she's stymied at every turn by various witnesses' unwillingness to talk and the speedway's satisfaction with getting some of its money back.