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10 Nov 2025 11:36
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  •   Home > News > Entertainment

    From The Godfather to The First Wives Club — here are Diane Keaton's best films

    With a career beginning in the late 1970s, Diane Keaton would star in more than 100 films and earn several Oscar nods.


    Diane Keaton, the charming and sometimes unconventional US actress — who has died at age 79 — leaves behind an immense body of work.

    With a career beginning in the late 1970s, Keaton would go on to star in more than 100 films and earn several Oscar nods. 

    Here's a look back at some of her best roles.

    The Godfather (1972) 

    While not her film debut, Keaton's second film credit arguably led to her big break. 

    Keaton plays Kay Adams, the non-Italian girlfriend-turned-wife of gangster Michael Corleone (Al Pacino).

    Keaton would go on to star in all three Godfather films, and her performance as a visible outsider is portrayed with a remarkable level of pathos.

    But as she recalled in 2022, the role came rather serendipitously. 

    "I auditioned for The Godfather, not having ever read The Godfather or caring about The Godfather or anything, because all I was doing was auditioning," she said.

    She would also date Pacino in an on-again-off-again relationship throughout the 1980s. 

    Where to watch it in Australia: available for renting or streaming on Paramount+, Binge, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. 

    Annie Hall (1977)

    Keaton's Oscar-winning performance also came with the beginning of a years-long partnership (both on and off screen) with director Woody Allen. 

    The film — a love story between two New York neurotics — was immediately hailed for its wit and Keaton's kooky portrayal of the titular Annie. 

    Over the years, Keaton would be asked how much the story was based on the pair's real-life romance. 

    "It's not true, but there are elements of truth in it," she told The New York Times in 1977.

    She didn't, for example, have spiders in her bathtub — though "roaches, maybe". 

    Keaton would star in a series of follow-up Allen films including Manhattan, Love and Death, Sleeper, Radio Days, and Manhattan Murder Mystery. 

    Where to watch it in Australia: available for renting or streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. 

    Reds (1981)

    An epic in both story and length (it comes in at more than three hours), this film about two Americans in the Bolshevik Revolution was one of Keaton's more fascinating roles. 

    Keaton portrays Louise Bryant, who abandons her husband to follow journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty, who also directed the film). 

    The film earnt her another Oscar nomination, and she would later tell Beatty she would "never ever" forget the film's train station scene. 

    "I really do want to thank you for giving me the memory of a kind of love that I never imagined was possible until I played your Louise," she said to Beatty in 2020.

    "A love that transformed my very ordinary life into something extraordinary."  

    Where to watch it in Australia: available for renting or streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. 

    The First Wives Club (1996) 

    In her later career, Keaton would further embrace her comedy chops in films such as Father Of The Bride and Finding Dory. 

    But perhaps the best is The First Wives Club. 

    In a stand-out female-led cast, Keaton plays Annie Paradis, a woman who finds herself overwrought after separating from her advertising exec husband. 

    Keaton said the film was the first set where she felt truly "part of sisterhood". 

    And of course, who can forget that dance scene? 

    Where to watch it in Australia: available for renting or streaming on Binge, Apple TV and Amazon Prime. 

    Something's Gotta Give (2003) 

    The last film goes to Keaton's personal favourite, even though she was convinced it would fail. 

    Instead, the unlikely rom-com — between Keaton's Eric Barry and Jack Nicholson's eternal bachelor — earnt her yet another Oscar nod. 

    Predicting a box-office flop, Keaton recalls her surprise receiving "a cheque with a lot of zeros arrived in the mail for my back-end percentage". 

    She didn't have such a deal, but after phoning her agent, discovered that Nicholson had given her a piece of his own percentage of the movie's gross.

    Where to watch it in Australia: available for renting or streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.


    ABC




    © 2025 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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