She has appeared in a number of their films, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar!

McDormand won three Academy Awards for Best Actress for playing a pregnant police chief in Fargo (1996), a grieving mother seeking vengeance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and a widowed nomad in Nomadland (2020).

[7] She had previously been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Television Movie for her work in the Showtime film Hidden in America (1996).

[15] McDormand's first professional acting role was in Derek Walcott's play In a Fine Castle also known as The Last Carnival, which was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and performed in Trinidad.

In addition to her early film roles, McDormand played Connie Chapman in the fifth season of the television police drama Hill Street Blues, and appeared in a 1986 episode of The Twilight Zone.

In 2002, "the game and talented" McDormand performed as Oenone in the Wooster Group's production of an "exhilarating dissection" of Racine's tragedy Phèdre entitled To You, the Birdie!, at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York.

[16] After appearing in several theatrical and television roles during the 1980s, McDormand gradually gained renown and critical acclaim for her dramatic work in film.

[20][21] That same year, she appeared in the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing and starred in the political thriller Hidden Agenda alongside Brian Cox, which was met with further critical acclaim, and won the Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

[26] Roger Ebert called Fargo "one of the best films I've ever seen" and asserted that McDormand "should have a lock on an Academy Award nomination with this performance, which is true in every individual moment, and yet slyly, quietly, over the top in its cumulative effect.

[28] Also in 1996, McDormand played Edward Norton's psychiatrist Dr. Molly Arrington in the legal thriller Primal Fear, and appeared alongside Chris Cooper in the neo-Western mystery film Lone Star.

[31] McDormand starred as Billy Bob Thornton's wife Doris Crane in the Coen Brothers' film noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001).

In 2002, she starred alongside Robert De Niro in the crime drama City by the Sea, and as free-spirited record producer Jane in Laurel Canyon, which earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female.

In 2007, McDormand won an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in Nicole Holofcener's dark comedy Friends with Money (2006).

[37] In the animated film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), McDormand voiced Captain Chantel Dubois and also sang a version of the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien".

That same year, she co-starred in Wes Anderson's ensemble film Moonrise Kingdom, and alongside Matt Damon in Promised Land.

[39] In November 2014, HBO aired a four-part miniseries based upon the series of short stories by Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge, co-produced by and starring McDormand.

[45] During that year's awards season, she drew significant media attention for her feminist provoking acceptance speeches which came with the advent of the Time's Up and Me Too movements.

The following year, she voiced God in the six-episode Amazon/BBC Studios series Good Omens, starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

[51] Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has appeared in a wide variety of projects on the screen and stage, portraying various characters for which she has frequently received critical acclaim.

McDormand makes you believe every person she plays is a flesh-and-blood human who continues living out their life once the cameras stop rolling.