He gained praise for his roles in the romantic drama Her (2013) and the crime satire Inherent Vice (2014), and won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the psychological thriller You Were Never Really Here (2017).

[10] The fifth child was born in Florida where the family settled; around this time they legally adopted the surname Phoenix, inspired by the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, symbolizing a new beginning.

In 1979, when Phoenix's father had to stop working because of an old spinal injury, the family moved to Los Angeles where the mother met a high-profile child agent named Iris Burton, who got the children into commercials and bit parts on TV.

To supplement their income, the kids sang their original songs like "Gonna Make It", written by River, and busked for money in matching yellow shirts and shorts.

[13] He guest-starred in the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "A Very Happy Ending" that year, playing a child who blackmails a hitman into killing his father.

[24] After establishing himself as a child actor, Phoenix felt he was not getting any appealing offers; he decided to take a break from acting and traveled to Mexico with his father, learning Spanish.

The family retreated to Costa Rica to escape the media glare as the event came to be depicted as a cautionary tale of young Hollywood surrounded by mythology and conspiracy.

[26] Phoenix returned to acting in Gus Van Sant's 1995 black comedy To Die For, based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Maynard, which in turn was inspired by the Pamela Smart murder case.

Rivetingly played by Mr Phoenix with a raw, anguished expressiveness that makes him an actor to watch for, Jimmy is both tempted and terrified by Suzanne's slick amorality.

[31] In his next film, 8mm (1999), Phoenix co-starred as an adult video store employee who helps Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) investigate the underworld of illegal pornography.

In the film, he played Merrill Hess, a former Minor League baseball player who, along with his older brother Graham (Mel Gibson), discovers that Earth has been invaded by extraterrestrials.

[46] In 2003, Phoenix played the irresolute husband of a superstar-skater (Claire Danes) in Thomas Vinterberg's romance-drama It's All About Love,[47] and voiced Kenai in the Disney animated film Brother Bear.

Based on the Rwandan genocide, the film documents Paul Rusesabagina's (Don Cheadle) efforts to save the lives of his family and more than 1,000 other refugees by providing them with shelter in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines.

[70] Phoenix's first producing task was the action thriller We Own the Night (2007), in which he played nightclub manager Bobby Green/Grusinsky who tries to save his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) from Russian mafia hitmen.

[73] Later that year, he played a father obsessed with finding out who killed his son in a hit-and-run accident in his second feature with Terry George, the crime drama film Reservation Road.

[79] I'm Still Here purports to follow the life of Phoenix, from the announcement of his retirement from acting, through his transition into a career as a hip hop artist managed by rap icon Sean "Diddy" Combs.

His performance as Freddie was described as "career-defining" by Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, who was impressed that Anderson and Phoenix collaboratively were able to build such complex work around such a derelict figure.

He played Theodore Twombly, a man who develops a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice.

Club labeled Phoenix as "one of the most emotionally honest actors in Hollywood", impressed at how he effortlessly unleashes waves of vulnerability in the film's many tight, invasive close-up images, calling it a "tremendous performance, one that rescues this character—a mess of insecurities, regrets, and desires—from the walking pity party he could have been".

[100] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph termed Phoenix as Anderson's "perfect leading man" and his work as "the kind of quietly dazzling performance that rarely wins awards but will be adoringly dissected and quoted for decades".

[102] After narrating the sequel to Earthlings, the 2015 animal rights' documentary Unity,[103] Phoenix teamed with director Woody Allen and Emma Stone in the crime mystery film Irrational Man.

To prepare for the film, Phoenix was advised by a former bodyguard who goes on international missions to rescue children suffering sexual exploitation and abuse by human traffickers; he gained a significant amount of weight and muscle for the part.

The film starred John C. Reilly and Phoenix as the notorious assassin brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters respectively and chronicles their chase after two men who have banded together to search for gold.

Writing for Roger Ebert's website, Tomris Laffly commented on Phoenix's and Reilly's "tremendous chemistry" and Lindsey Behr of the Associated Press opined that the duo "excellently manage all the various tones in the film" they also shared credit with Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed .

Set in 1981, the film follows Arthur Fleck, a failed clown and stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism inspires a violent counter-cultural revolution against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City.

Phoenix lost 52 pounds (24 kg) in preparation,[120] and based his laugh on "videos of people suffering from pathological laughter" they also shared credit with Robert De Niro .

[150] Justin Chang, analyzing his career in Los Angeles Times in 2020, remarked that filmmakers immediately seemed to recognize that Phoenix was more than a heartthrob, and that there was "something more tortured, more vulnerable and infinitely more interesting at play beneath the surface".

[183] The same month, he starred in Guardians of Life, the first of twelve short films by the environmental organization Mobilize Earth that highlighted the most pressing issues facing humanity and the natural world.

[184] Dávid Szőke and Sándor Kiss in Film International were highly critical of this move, arguing that "what is rather mind-boggling is that the discourse centers less on the issue of the calf and its mother or the exploitation of our natural world, and more on Phoenix in the leading role as the savior of our planet, raising questions about the narrative’s alignment with his environmental activism.

"[201] Phoenix is on the board of directors for The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organization which provides daily meals to students of township schools in Soweto, South Africa, founded by Page-Green.