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If you think about Jane Fonda‘s career for two seconds, you’ll get dizzy. She’s the daughter of one of the great movie stars of Hollywood’s golden age; she played lady outlaws and sexy space kittens in her earliest roles; she won two Academy Awards for Best Actress in the span of eight years; she became so outspoken against the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War that her name became a shorthand for “contemptible Hollywood liberal” in many circles; she disappeared from the movies entirely for almost 20 years to go make aerobics videos and be married to Ted Turner; and now at age 79, she’s still doing some of the best work of her career.
To mark the occasion of the debut of the third season of Grace & Frankie — Fonda’s Netflix comedy series with fellow screen legend Lily Tomlin — we’ve compiled a list of the ten essential Jane Fonda movies that you can find on streaming. She’s one of the defining actresses of her era, and she’s made some fascinating movies along the way. Time for a marathon.
'Cat Ballou' (1965)
These days, you’re lucky to find a western of any stripe to go see. Back in the late ’60s, you could get a western comedy. Cat Ballou was a comedic western (and sometimes musical) starring Jane Fonda as the title character, a schoolteacher turned vengeance seeker when her father is murdered by an outlaw. The film was a hit, and Lee Marvin actually won an Oscar for Best Actor for playing a dual role.
'Barefoot in the Park' (1967)
Fonda co-starred with Robert Redford in this adaptation of the Neil Simon play. The two play newlyweds in New York City. It was the second of four times that Fonda and Redford would star together, the most recent of which will come later this year in the Netflix release Our Souls at Night.
'Barbarella' (1968)
Fonda’s most infamous hit was this campy piece of swinging ’60s sci-fi directed by Roger Vadim, who was her husband at the time. Fonda played the title character, a sexy space traveler and diplomat. There are not too many movies that feature a future two-time Oscar winner trapped inside a machine called (in the French version of the film at least) an orgasmotron. But that’s why we have Barbarella, a movie whose camp value far exceeded its story, characters, or filmmaking technique.
'Klute' (1971)
If Barbarella were indicative of the 1960s filmmaking climate that birthed it, Klute, made only three years later, was indicative of the films of the 1970s: dark, uncompromising tales of the underbelly. This noir crime story was directed by Alan J. Pakula (All the President’s Men) and starring Fonda as a high-priced call-girl who helps a detective (Donald Sutherland) solve a murder case. Fonda won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for the film.
'Julia' (1977)
The tempestuous relationship between writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett was dramatized in this sweeping bit of historical fantasy (years after the film, Hellman was accused of fabricating Julia’s story). Fonda starred as Hellman, while Jason Robards played Hammett, and Vanessa Redgrave played the title character, Hellman’s lifelong friend who fought against the Nazis in Germany. Robards and Redgrave both won Oscars, with Redgrave giving her infamous “Zionist hoodlums” speech, meaning that for once, Fonda wasn’t the most controversial figure in one of her movies.
'California Suite' (1978)
In the same year that she won an Oscar for Coming Home, Fonda also starred in this comedic farce — another Neil Simon adaptation — about a handful of people all staying in the same California hotel. Fonda and Alan Alda played a divorced couple, alongside such actors as Michael Caine, Maggie Smith (who won an Oscar for her performance), Walter Matthau, Richard Pryor, and Bill Cosby. The presence of Fonda, Caine, and Smith makes this the rare movie to star three two-time Oscar winners.
'The China Syndrome' (1979)
This classic nuclear thriller starring Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas capitalized on fears of nuclear energy, though it interestingly was released only months before the Three Mile Island disaster, and years before Chernobyl. Fonda plays a TV reporter who ends up touring a nuclear plant on a rather disastrous day. The film is as gripping a thriller as you’re likely to find from its era.
'9 to 5' (1980)
The classic ’80s comedy is still so good, and the trio of Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton is so iconic that Parton is STILL being asked when she’s going to join the other two on Grace & Frankie.
'On Golden Pond' (1981)
This movie was a huge Oscar favorite, winning Best Actor for Henry Fonda and Best Actress for Katharine Hepburn. This was of course a chance for Jane to act with her father, not long before his death. Their characters’ turbulent father-daughter storyline is among the film’s most touching.
'Youth' (2015)
Well into her ’70s, Jane Fonda is still doing great, challenging work. She’s only in a couple of scenes in Paolo Sorrentino’s visually sumptuous Youth, but her impact is as great (if not greater) than all of her cast-mates. She’s a titan in her field, and she can still blow the doors off a movie theater. Long may she continue to do so.
