Without question one of our greatest working actresses, Kate Winslet has been performing since she was a teenager, getting her start on television in the United Kingdom before making her big-screen debut in 1994. More than 30 years later, her accolades include one Oscar (and seven total nominations), two Emmys, five Golden Globes, four SAGs, and five BAFTAs, won for projects as wonderfully varied as 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, 1997’s Titanic, 2008’s The Reader and Revolutionary Road, 2015’s Steve Jobs, and 2022’s Mare of Easttown on HBO.
Now celebrating her 50th birthday, Winslet remains at the peak of her powers, soon to make her feature directorial debut with the drama Goodbye June, starring Winslet, Toni Collette, Johnny Flynn, Stephen Merchant, Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough, and Timothy Spall. Her 24-year-old daughter, Mia Threapleton, has also entered the spotlight, appearing with Winslet in the anthology series I Am... on Channel 4 and in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme.
Below, in honor of her birthday, we take a fond look back at the very beginnings of Winslet’s career, from her turns in Heavenly Creatures and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet to the whirlwind that was Titanic.
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1992
A roughly 16-year-old Kate Winslet, the year after she made her screen debut in the sci-fi BBC series Dark Season.
Photo: ©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection2/15c. 1994
As Juliet Hulme in Winslet’s first feature film, Heavenly Creatures, which she led alongside a teenage Melanie Lynskey.
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1995
As Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh’s starry adaptation of Hamlet, also featuring Julie Christie, Billy Crystal, Jack Lemmon, and Robin Williams.
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1996
Bright lights, big city: Winslet posing for her portrait in New York.
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1996
Copper curls upon copper curls! With Nicole Kidman at the 16th London Film Critics Circle Awards, where Winslet won British actress of the year for her performance in Heavenly Creatures. (Kidman was also a winner that night, claiming actress of the year for her turn in To Die For.)
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1996
At the 53rd Annual Golden Globe Awards, where her film Sense and Sensibility was up for six awards. It would win best motion picture—drama and best screenplay.
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1996
Pretty in custom pink Vivienne Westwood at the 68th Academy Awards, where Sense and Sensibility had earned Winslet her first Oscar nod, in the best-supporting-actress category.
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1996
With her Sense and Sensibility co-star Emma Thompson—with whom Winslet remains close—at a BAFTAs after-party.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection9/15c. 1996
On the set of Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and director James Cameron.
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1998
With DiCaprio at the 55th Golden Globe Awards, where Titanic led the pack with eight nominations.
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1998
In a sweetly simple frock coat at the 3rd Annual Broadcast Film Critics Awards.
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1999
Wielding prizes for Titanic at the Empire Awards in London.
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1999
Sporting a sweet pixie cut and bold red lip at the New York premiere of Gillies MacKinnon’s Hideous Kinky, adapted from the novel by Esther Freud.
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2001
With Kate Hudson, Whoopi Goldberg, and Laura Linney at the 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, where Winslet was nominted for best actress in a supporting role for her performance in Philip Kaufman’s Quills.
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2001
With Judi Dench at the New York premiere of their film Iris, about novelist Iris Murdoch.
