Diane Keaton (1946-2025)
Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 9:30PM 
ANNIE HALL (1977) Woody Allen | © United Artists
Well, here you have it. As many have been asking, this is a post where you can share your love for Diane Keaton, who left us this past week at the age of 79. She was an actress like few others in the history of American cinema, New Hollywood to the bone, yet reminiscent of those Old Hollywood idols whose very presence molded movies around their persona. Her range was awe-inspiring, encompassing the ditzy archetypes she perfected in early Woody Allen comedies and the depths of tragedy, from light farcical fare to movie star showcases where drama and funny business came together beautifully. Even when she was going through the motions or leaning on audience expectations, Keaton managed to be top-notch entertainment. And, of course, she was always unique, true to herself since her acting debut in the Hair stage musical up to a last screen appearance in last year's Summer Camp.
In the spirit of celebrating Keaton, I have one little request of you…
MRS. SOFFEL (1984) Gillian Armstrong | © MGM
Ever since her unexpected passing was announced, I've been trying to carve time in between festival screenings and writing to watch a few Diane Keaton blind spots. So far, I've discovered the beginning of her Allen collaborations in Play It Again, Sam and Sleeper, the psychosexual martyrdom of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, an underrated tour de force as Mrs. Soffel, and the holiday blues of The Family Stone. I intend to catch up with The Little Drummer Girl despite its awful reviews because the idea of Keaton doing Le Carré is so conceptually odd. The TV movies On Thin Ice and Amelia Earhart – The Final Flight are also on the watchlist, as are her few directorial credits. Is there something I'm missing from Keaton's filmography? Please tell me and your fellow readers what obscure gems are worth our while, what deep cuts are essential viewing.
THE FAMILY STONE (2005) Thomas Bezucha | © Twentieth Century Fox
Some past Diane Keaton posts at The Film Experience
- Familiar Faces: Woody Allen's Cast Hierarchy
- Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Looking for Mr. Goodbar"
- The Dramas of Diane Keaton
- Almost There: Diane Keaton in "Shoot the Moon"
- Over & Overs: "Baby Boom"
- Soundtracking: "The First Wives Club"
- The Gay Heart of "The Family Stone"
- "Book Club" Review
- "Mack & Rita" Review
BOOK CLUB (2018) Bill Holderman | Paramount Pictures
Diane Keaton, RIP
Reader Comments (19)
I love Diane Keaton.
My introduction to the overwhelming power of Miss Keaton came in an empty movie theater on a stormy Monday evening in Portland, Oregon in 1977. I had read Looking for Mr. Goodbar, a serviceable thriller, and gone to see the film version which had received provocative reviews. As with most female character driven stories, male critics had bashed the film. Yet the comments about this new actress Diane Keaton were enticing.
Roger Ebert wrote, “Keaton plays her wonderfully, with a light touch you’d think would be impossible with this material. She’s always moving. She choreographs every situation, and only eventually do we realize she’s dancing out of the way. Her voice is liquid and funny, tossing off asides because they cut more deeply that way.”
I was taken with Miss Keaton. Even though I knew where the film was headed, I ignored it and fell for this charming actress. The ending was devastating. I left the theater numb. I vowed never to watch the movie again. And I haven’t.
But I would seek out any film featuring Miss Keaton. I have seen Reds, Annie Hall, and Marvin’s Room too many times to count, but I won’t watch Looking for Mr. Gooodbar again. I was tempted last week after her death, but I realized that the experience might well put me over the edge.
For me, Miss Keaton was a revered artist who provided solace by creating fully realized women in film stories that were honest, funny, earnest and sincere. Her work embodied all the qualities we strive to develop in ourselves.
I want to rewatch The Good Mother. I thought it was very progressive back in the day, but now it might be ridiculous.
I felt out of love with her after her recent string of awful comedies. Now I hope to reconnect.
I appreciate the acknowledegqment despite a heavy workload.
I have always enjoyed Diane but I never worshipped her as some people do or saw every one of her films,especially the identikit comedies she's been doing for the last 20 years.
If I had to pick a film of hers that's not celebrated amongst her great work though it's well known amongst Oscar snub fans and Diane fans is Shoot The Moon.
I am always amazed with her in that film and she's be 2nd runner up for to Jessica Lange Best Actress in 1982.
I feel she was the deserving winner of Best Actress in 81.
It's a shame that no director since Something's Gotta Give gave her a worthwhile dramatic role,imagine her in something like 45 Years.
She would have been a good fit a few years ago to play Vanessa Kirby's mother in Pieces of a Woman,a role Burstn was very good in but at 88 too old for.
The death of Diane Keaton really hit me hard. I was in my teens when "Annie Hall" came out. Annie Hall both the character and the film, hit like a Tsunami back in 1975.
Diane Keaton, as the cliché goes, men wanted to date her, women wanted to be her, it was a giant love affair that has lasted decades.
If anyone says she was mostly good at comedy, but not great at other genres, insist that they watch "Shoot the Moon".
This is a brilliant film, and Keaton's achingly open and honest performance should have won her an Oscar.
Her photography deserves to be better known as well.
What a gem of a person, and I'm just glad I was there to see her in her prime.
PS. Of Diane Keaton's later work, "The Family Stone" and "Morning Glory" are very good outings, and both films benefit from her talent.
LadyEdith Annie Hall Was 77.
As no one has mentioned it yet, seek out Manhattan Murder Mystery. Keaton is fantastic in that film.
I know that "The Family Stone" is a divisive movie. I know it is cheesy. I know it is syrup.
BUT, I will never understand how she was ignored for her flawless, fragile, and fearless performance as the matriarch, Sybil, in that film (same for Rachel McAdams and her portrayal of Amy). Her performance at the dinner table alone ("I...love...you. And you are more normal than any other asshole sitting at this table. OK? Ok.") should have secured a nom.
This was the first time I watched a performance of Keaton's and thought that she was biting into a completely layered character who is nothing predictable. Age and time has allowed me to rewatch her other performances to see that was there all along, but this Christmas watching "The Family Stone" is going to be even more heart-wrenching with her gone. Same with "Ordinary People" and the passing of Redford.
On a personal note, my father died two months ago. The last movie my family went to see as a family was "The Family Stone." So, Keaton's death is hitting even harder.
RIP, Miss Keaton!
Interiors is (was?) a very divisive movie, but I appreciated Woody Allen's attempt at a Bergman vibe. Moreover, I always liked Keaton in dramas a little more than in comedies (see also Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Shoot the Moon, Mrs. Soffel etc). She often reminded me of Mary Astor, and I wish she had played her in a biopic.
Personally, I find The Lemon Sisters to be a hidden gem of DKs.
Thank you Claudio --I started something but didn't finish it (story of my life -sign). I too think it's crazy that people think of her only in comedy. I would say her dramatic gifts were just as strong though perhaps they didnt' carry as much of an electric recognizable charge. In short she was a MOVIE STAR COMEDIENNE and a gifted Dramatic Character Actress. does that make sense.
And she did them both in the same calendar year to Oscar-worthy twice-over avail- ANNIE HALL & LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR. I honestly think she's one of the best cases you could ever point to and say "won the Oscar in the correct year!"
I watched The Godfather Part 2 yesterday and the fact that Diane has passed away hit me in the middle of the movie and it made me observe her performance more closely than my previous watch throughs of the movie and she does such an amazing job of fleshing out this character that didn't have the most layered story in the first movie. I haven't dedicatedly watched a lot of her movies but I loved her performances in Annie Hall and Manhattan. She brought this wholesome charisma on screen and had such command over her acting in the most naturalistic way possible. Diane was drop dead beautiful and was incredibly talented. Rest easy, Diane, you were one of the greats.
It's so odd that you can watch The Godfather and The Godfather 2 (for the 50th time) and never feel any early Woody Allen connection with Kay Adams Corleone (Play it Again, Sam, Sleeper). Then by the time of Godfather 3, there's no trace of Annie Hall/Manhattan in that character.
RIP-thanks for the movie memories.
I see Nathaniel has popped his head in the room,can we have some updates to your Oscar charts.
What made Keaton such a great dramatic actress was just how strange her performance choices were—no one would have played Louise Bryant the way she did, so modern, so off kilter. The scene where she testifies before Congress springs to mind—she’s so annoyed, such a creature of the 70s transported to the 1910s. There’s nothing even a little bit “period” about the way she played it, and it works so well.
She had an impeccable sense of what the character felt/needed in a scene and just played it, whether it served “the film” in a grand sense or not. And for someone whose persona was so steeped in self-doubt, she had incredible confidence interpreting a screenplay. Goodbar is like an auteur piece by an actress.
I always looked forward to a Diane Keaton interview. She was just so much herself, in her vulnerability, willingness to be doubtful or uncomfortable, down to her inimitable fashion sense. No other actor put themselves out there with so little pretense, which I think is why she had such a tremendous range.
My favorites of hers are Reds and Manhattan Murder Mystery, two entirely different roles. Reds for that same sense of doubt as one careens from writer to revolutionary to wife to heroine, and MMM for showing how much fun going down a conspiracy rabbit hole can be. Two roles that fit our present moment quite well tbh!
I gotta say, this one really hurt. Even with the less than great movies that populate the last decade or so of her filmography, she remains one of my favorite screen presences.
I’ll second TomG’s recommendation for Manhattan Murder Mystery, she really is great in it. I also think Reds is one of her best performances and she should’ve won a second Oscar for it.
Strangely, one movie I’m keen on revisiting in light of her passing is Crimes of the Heart. I first saw it as a kid and remembered it fondly as something in the vein of Steel Magnolias, but rewatching it a few years ago revealed it to be more of an August: Osage County: partially miscast, in need of a much stronger director, but watchable. I don’t even think Diane is good in it, but I still have affection for it.
I’m really gonna miss her, but she’ll live on through the movies!
Claudio, thanks for your lovely invitation to allow us all to come together to pay tribute to a true screen great.
I agree with so many people here (especially DK), and it's wonderful to see everyone shower affection upon the one and only Keaton. It's a tribute to her overall talent and artistry that she made so much crap in her overall filmography, but she's still fully viewed as a major artist and major contributor to the cinema.
I think Shoot the Moon is her greatest performance, ripped from within her, a film that really showed her raw power as an actor and force when put up against somebody as formidable as Albert Finney. And her work in Reds, where she both turns herself over to Warren Beatty and upends him handily, is a marvel. That train sequence in the film is one of the very, very best in any film.
What she does in both Interiors and The Little Drummer Girl and The Good Mother is awfully interesting too. To DK's point, nobody else would think to make those choices. And that monologue about not wanting to know where her water comes from in Baby Boom is a hilariously glorious aria.
Losing Keaton was a tough one for me. One of the founding actors in my falling in love with cinema. It's deeply meaningful to join the chorus here to hear how she was loved by so many.
Manhattan Murder Mystery (she was Golden Globe-nommed!) is just such an all-around great movie. Fun performances, their Annie Hall 20-years-later chemistry, well-plotted. And seeing some of the Woody regulars interact (Alda, Anjelica) is A+