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Darling (1965)
Though her acting legacy is all too overlooked in 2026, Julie Christie could do it all: romantic epics (Doctor Zhivago), psychological horror (Don’t Look Now), and collaborating with all-time auteurs (Robert Altman on McCabe & Mrs. Miller).
But Darling is the entry in which she proved that versatility all in one movie—and won the Best Actress Oscar for it.
Set in swinging ’60s London, Darling casts Christie as Diana, a young woman whose determination to defy boredom leads her on an odyssey of career changes and romantic partners that won’t stop until she literally becomes “Princess Diana” (to an Italian nobleman).
Christie is as striking as she is slippery: piercing eyes, perfect diction, and a constantly evoked sense that this character is acting, too, trying on pieces of a new identity at the first cultural moment that would allow a young woman like her to do so.
The more surreal Diana’s circumstances become, though, the more real Christie plays it. In this way, she’s in comedic and dramatic harmony with director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy). When she was 20, Diana floated above her workaday job and drab first marriage. And by the time her life becomes a bizarre fairy tale, Christie imbues Diana with the instantly recognizable denial, angst, and worry that come from realizing time is speeding up and decisions are running out.
An ideal watch for anyone who loved The Worst Person in the World (2021), Darling screens April 18 at Cinema 21.
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