Sarah Ellen Polley OC (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, political activist and retired actress.

She has starred in many feature films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), No Such Thing (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Splice (2009), and Mr. Nobody (2009).

[5] In 2022, she wrote and directed the film Women Talking, based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Miriam Toews, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

[9][10] Her mother was an actress (best known for playing Gloria Beechham in 44 episodes of the Canadian TV series Street Legal) and a casting director.

[11] Polley suffered from severe scoliosis as a child and underwent a spinal operation at 15 that required her to spend the next year in bed recovering.

[21] In November 2024, Polley received a honorary Doctors of Letters degree from the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus.

She was in the pilot episode for Friday the 13th – The Series and appeared in a small role in William Fruet's sci-fi horror film Blue Monkey, both in 1987.

Polley burst into the public eye in 1990 as Sara Stanley on the popular CBC television series Road to Avonlea.

She was cast in the role of Penny Lane in the big-budget 2000 film Almost Famous, but dropped out of the project to return to Canada for the low-budget The Law of Enclosures.

She made her feature-length film directing debut with Away from Her, which Polley adapted from the Alice Munro short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain.

The movie, starring Julie Christie (with whom she had played in No Such Thing, 2001, and The Secret Life of Words, 2005), debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2006, as part of the TIFF's Gala showcase.

It drew rave reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and the three Toronto dailies, both for the performances of Christie and her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and for Polley's direction.

[32] Polley wrote and directed her second feature, Take This Waltz starring Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, Seth Rogen, and Sarah Silverman, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011.

[35] In August 2014, during a profile of her work as a director, Polley announced that Alias Grace was being adapted into a six-part miniseries.

[40] In her 2022 essay collection Run Towards the Danger, Polley revealed she had been working on a second draft of the Little Women screenplay when she had a traumatic head injury resulting in post-concussion syndrome that left her with symptoms for four years so she was temporarily unable to work until she found effective treatment through University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's concussion program.

In an interview, Polley stated that she takes pride in her work and enjoys both acting and directing, but is not keen on combining the two:I like the feeling of keeping them separate.

Club commented that Polley's decision to go into directing had "deprived the world of many potentially great performances", calling her a "superb actor".

[44] In December 2020, it was announced Polley would direct Women Talking based upon the novel of the same name by Miriam Toews for Orion Pictures.

[48] Shirley Li of The Atlantic called it "vibrant cinema," while Anna Bogutskaya of Time Out said that it "imagines female emancipation as an honest, raging, caring experience.

In 2023, Polley was revealed to be in talks to direct Disney's live action adaptation of Bambi, but in March 2024, it never came in fruition due to reportedly no longer attached as a director.

In 2022, she released her first book of essays, the autobiographical, Run Towards the Danger which contains six essays that examine aspects of Polley's career on stage, screen, and on film, detailing her roles in a Stratford Festival production of Alice Through the Looking Glass, as well as her breakout roles in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and the TV series Road to Avonlea.

[54] In 1995, she lost two back teeth after being struck by a riot police officer during a protest against the provincial Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris in Queen's Park.

[63] In January 2012, Polley endorsed Toronto MP Peggy Nash in the 2012 New Democratic Party leadership race to succeed Jack Layton.

[67][68] In her 2022 autobiographical essay collection, Run Towards the Danger, Polley said she was sexually assaulted by Moxy Früvous singer Jian Ghomeshi on a 1995 date, while she was 16 and he was 28.

[71] Short Feature Executive producer Acting roles On October 16, 2010, it was announced that Polley would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.