Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Winona Ryder won audience’s hearts for being quirky and dark, with films like 1988’s ‘Beetlejuice’ and 1990’s ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (both helmed by Tim Burton) and, my personal favorite, 1989’s ‘Heathers.’ She made her mark as the first “manic pixie dream girl” — sure, she’s slightly different, but you can’t help but fall in love with her.

Ryder’s expressive, big eyes and penchant for sad, relatable characters made her super lovable. As the young emo-goth Lydia Deetz in ‘Beetlejuice,’ one of her first roles, she gained stand-out praise alongside established actors Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin.

Her follow-up, as Veronica Sawyer, in the super-dark high school satire ‘Heathers,’ solidified her place as a movie star.

In 1994, Ryder won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination for her role in ‘The Age of Innocence.’ She was nominated again for the Best Actress Oscar in 1995 for ‘Little Women.’ Then she showed real chops in 1999’s ‘Girl, Interrupted,’ holding her own against Angelina Jolie’s tour-de-force performance and really making an impact on audiences. In 2000, Ryder was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Continue reading From ‘Black Swan’ to ‘The Dilemma’: Is Winona Ryder Having a Comeback?

It took six years off, presumable prescription drug treatment, and a lot of community service for Winona Ryder to make it back. And it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of her early work that three appropriately quirky supporting parts—as Commander Spock’s artificially-aged mother in Star Trek, as a deranged ballerina in Black Swan, and as Kevin James’ cheating wife upgrading to Channing Tatum in The Dilemma, in theaters on Friday—was all it took to resurrect a certain kind of American’s crush on Ryder, for GQ to declare as Johnny Depp once did, that it’s Winona Forever all over again. Continue reading Winona Ryder’s Second Act: Lessons From ‘Little Women’