She was already a household name when many of us were raising kids in the 1970s. Now Meryl Streep turns 77 on June 22, and she is still doing something no actor in Hollywood history has ever done.
Not even close.
A Number That Puts It All in Perspective
Streep has earned 21 Academy Award nominations. That is more than any actor who has ever lived. The next closest? Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson, both with 12. She blew past that number back in 2003 with her 13th nomination, for Adaptation. In the 23 years since, no one has come close to catching her.
She has won three times. Her first win came in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer, a film our generation remembers well. Then came Sophie’s Choice in 1983, a role that became part of American cultural memory. Her third Oscar arrived in 2012 for The Iron Lady.
Three competitive acting Oscars puts her in a very small group of performers who have ever pulled that off.
Her nominations cover nearly five decades of filmmaking. The first came for The Deer Hunter in the late 1970s. The most recent was for The Post in 2018. In between, she took on dramas, comedies, biopics, and musicals. The range alone is remarkable.
Still Working at the Top
And she is not resting on any of it. Streep returned to the role of fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which opened on May 1, 2026, and debuted at number one at the box office. The film brought back Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci, twenty years after the 2006 original became a pop culture landmark many of us still quote.
The sequel reminded audiences why Streep has stayed at the center of Hollywood for so long. She can open a movie, anchor a serious drama, and steal a comedy. Not many actors can say that about one decade, let alone five.
Well done, Meryl. The record is yours, and it looks like it always will be.
