Her subsequent work included starring roles in Reality Bites (1994), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Crucible (1996), Alien Resurrection (1997), Celebrity (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999), and Mr.

Ryder took a break from acting in the early 2000s, after the significant negative media attention brought by her arrest in 2001 for shoplifting,[3] later returning with smaller appearances in films such as Star Trek (2009), Black Swan (2010), and The Dilemma (2011).

Winona's family friends were her godfather Timothy Leary, the Beat Movement poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the science fiction novelist Philip K.

As the remote property had no electricity or television sets, Winona began to devote her time to reading and became an avid fan of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

Although the role went to Annabeth Gish,[14][17] writer/director David Seltzer cast her in his high school drama Lucas (1986), which starred Corey Haim, Charlie Sheen, and Kerri Green.

[23] She starred as a goth teenager whose family moves to a haunted house populated by ghosts played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton.

The film, a satirical take on teenage life, featured Ryder and Christian Slater as high school sweethearts who begin killing off popular students.

[28] Ryder's other 1989 starring role was in the biopic Great Balls of Fire!, in which she played the 13-year-old bride (and cousin) of rock'n'roll idol Jerry Lee Lewis.

In the fantasy film Edward Scissorhands (1990), she reunited with director Tim Burton to play the female lead alongside her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp.

In 1990, Ryder also made a cameo in Roy Orbison's music video "A Love So Beautiful" with Matthew Modine,[36] and was awarded 'ShoWest's Female Star of Tomorrow' by The National Association of Theatre Owners.

[35] She was next slated to appear as Mary Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III, but withdrew from the project in the beginning of filming in 1990 due to nervous exhaustion.

[40] Ryder continued her work in period films with Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993), an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel that co-starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis.

[41] For her portrayal of May Welland, the fiancée of Newland Archer (Day-Lewis), Ryder won a Golden Globe[34] and received Academy Award and BAFTA nominations as well.

Vincent Canby in the New York Times wrote, "Ms Ryder is wonderful as this sweet young thing who's hard as nails, as much out of ignorance as of self-interest.

"[43] Ryder next starred alongside Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Antonio Banderas, and Glenn Close in the melodrama The House of the Spirits (1993), based on Isabel Allende's novel.

The film received widespread praise; critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that it was the greatest adaptation of the novel and that "Ms. Ryder, whose banner year also includes a fine comic performance in Reality Bites, plays Jo with spark and confidence.

Ryder's next starring role was in How to Make an American Quilt (1995), an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Whitney Otto, co-starring Anne Bancroft, Maya Angelou, and Ellen Burstyn.

Ebert wrote: "Boys is a low-rent, dumbed-down version of Before Sunrise, with a rent-a-plot substituting for clever dialogue", calling the film a waste of Ryder's talent.

Directed by James Mangold and co-starring Angelina Jolie, the film was expected to mark Ryder's comeback playing leading roles.

[74] She then played a nun of a secret society loosely connected to the Roman Catholic Church and determined to prevent Armageddon in Lost Souls (2000), a commercial failure.

[84][85] In 2005, Ryder co-produced and co-narrated the documentary The Day My God Died (2004) with Tim Robbins, which focuses on international child sex trafficking.

[86] The second was Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly, a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, in which she co-starred opposite Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr. and Woody Harrelson.

In 2008, Ryder played the female lead opposite Wes Bentley and Ray Romano in Geoffrey Haley's offbeat romantic drama The Last Word.

She also starred in the independent film Stay Cool alongside Hilary Duff, Mark Polish and Chevy Chase, and in the television movie When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.

[101] She reunited with director Tim Burton, who directed her in the music video for The Killers' single, "Here with Me",[102] and cast her in the animated 3D feature film Frankenweenie (2012).

[107] In 2014, Ryder appeared in the British television film Turks & Caicos (2014) and modeled in the Fall advertising campaign of fashion label Rag & Bone.

[113][114] Since 2016, Ryder has starred in the Netflix science fiction-horror series Stranger Things,[115] created by The Duffer Brothers, playing Joyce Byers, a single mother whose 12-year-old son Will vanishes mysteriously.

[125] In 2021, Ryder reprised her role as Kim Boggs in Edward Scissorhands alongside Timothée Chalamet in a Super Bowl ad for Cadillac.

[147] On December 12, 2001, Ryder was arrested on shoplifting charges in Beverly Hills, California, accused of stealing $5,500 worth of designer clothes and accessories from a Saks Fifth Avenue department store.

[157] On June 18, 2004, Superior Court Judge Elden Fox reviewed Ryder's probation report and observed that she had served 480 hours of community service, and the felonies were reduced to misdemeanors.