Diane Keaton, who passed away in 2025, was one of the most distinctive and endearing American actresses of all time, and some of her most beloved films can be seen at the Jerusalem Cinematheque during January.
Keaton was beautiful, but she was much more than that, and in the early 1970s, top American directors such as Warren Beatty, Francis Ford Coppola, and, most famously, Woody Allen noticed her and put her in starring roles that she made her own.
Her most famous part, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar in 1978, was Annie Hall, in which she played a version of herself, seen through Allen’s eyes.
Interestingly, the movie was originally titled Anhedonia, and was a sprawling, often surreal story that included the storyline of the romance between Keaton’s Annie and the hero, a neurotic Jewish comedian played by Allen.
But Allen discovered in the editing room that it didn’t quite work and pared it down into one of the best romantic comedies of all time, focusing on the title character.
Keaton also starred in Woody Allen’s 1979 film, Manhattan, playing a complex woman who inspires another Allen alter-ego character to break up with his teen girlfriend, played by Mariel Hemingway.
This movie may not be as good as remembered, especially because the Hemingway storyline is a bit creepy, but it features amazing black-and-white cinematography, a Gershwin score, and the iconic scene of Allen and Keaton spending all night talking by the Brooklyn Bridge.
The First Wives Club (1996) is a sitcom-style revenge story about three women who are dumped and get even, based on the bestselling novel by Olivia Goldsmith, and starring Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn. Keaton plays the most placid and gullible of the three women, but she holds her own in the famous scene where the three sing, “You Don’t Own Me”. The film has a great supporting cast, including Stockard Channing, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rob Reiner.
Keaton's underrated skill in drama
Keaton is best known for her comedic roles, but she was in many successful dramas, too, and among the best is the Alan Parker film, Shoot the Moon (1981). She played a California housewife and mother whose life is shattered when her husband (Albert Finney) leaves her.
Keaton took what could have been a thankless victim role and created a character who truly shines. You can see why her estranged husband becomes increasingly unhinged when he realizes what he’s done and that he’s lost her for good.
In Reds (1981), director Warren Beatty cast her as Louise Bryant, a journalist who married John Reed (played by Beatty), the author of Ten Days that Shook the World, about the Russian Revolution. It’s an epic drama that won Beatty an Oscar as Best Director, and although it was widely praised upon its release, it also came in for criticism that it muddled its intellectual history, minimizing the brutal excesses of the Bolsheviks.
It’s Keaton’s character who expresses the most disillusionment with the repression of the Communists, and she walks away with just about every scene in which she appears.