Nicole Kidman’s 7 Best TV Shows, Ranked

There’s no question that Nicole Kidman is one of the most talented actresses of her generation — and she’s also one of the busiest. Kidman, who made her film debut in 1983 and appeared in her first TV show soon after (a two-episode guest role in the beloved Australian soap opera “A Country Practice”), is an Oscar and Emmy-winning performer whose versatility is only matched by her sheer nerve; every time she takes on a new role, we get to watch her transform once again (her commitment to incredible wigs is unmatched).

Earlier in her career, Kidman stuck to film acting, appearing in everything from Stanley Kubrick’s final film “Eyes Wide Shut” to Baz Luhrmann’s musical jukebox fever dream “Moulin Rouge!” Here, we’re going to focus on Kidman’s small screen roles, which have grown in number quite steadily since the mid-2010s. From the project that earned Kidman a well-deserved Emmy to a hit Taylor Sheridan series that keeps getting better with every season, here are Nicole Kidman’s seven best TV shows to date, ranked from “pretty great” to “utterly amazing.”

7. Nine Perfect Strangers

The first of two shows based on a Liane Moriarty book featured on this list, Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers” has Nicole Kidman at the helm as dubious and clearly shady “wellness influencer” Masha Dmitrichenko. The show’s first season, which faithfully adapts Moriarty’s book (more or less), is set at Masha’s Tranquillum House in California, where guests are promised a refreshing and revealing experience as they unplug, reset, and rediscover themselves. The problem is that Masha and her loyal assistant Yao (“The Good Place” standout Manny Jacinto) are secretly drugging the guests with psychoactive drugs to force revelations, and when the guests figure this out, it does not go over well (which is a massive understatement).

Both seasons of “Nine Perfect Strangers” feature A-list casts — Season 1 co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Regina Hall, and Bobby Cannavale, among others, and Season 2 brings Christine Baranski, Murray Bartlett, Annie Murphy, Lena Olin, Dolly de Leon, and Henry Golding into the mix as the setting moves from California to a remote ski chalet. “Nine Perfect Strangers” is often ridiculous and utterly campy, but it’s also a ton of fun … and it’s also pretty obvious that, as Masha, Kidman is having a total blast.

6. The Perfect Couple

Another literary adaptation — based on a bestselling novel by Elin Hilderbrand, who’s known for books set in and around the island of Nantucket — “The Perfect Couple” has a seriously stacked cast that includes Dakota Fanning, Meghann Fahy, Eve Hewson, Liev Schreiber, Sam Nivola, and, of course, Nicole Kidman. 

Kidman plays novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, who owns a luxurious and fabulous beachfront house in Nantucket with her husband, Tag Winbury (Schreiber). To celebrate the wedding of their son Benji Winbury (Billy Howle) to his bride, Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), Greer and Tag invite a crowd to stay at the house for the nuptials, but — as it always does in shows that center around rich people behaving badly — tragedy strikes. In this story, the tragedy is the discovery of Merritt Monaco’s (Fahy) body the night before the wedding; not only is Merritt Amelia’s maid of honor, but eventually, we discover that she was having an affair with a Winbury man.

Kidman is reliably great as Greer, a woman concerned about her grown children’s futures who’s also growing suspicious of her own husband’s indiscretions. Plus, Greer is not a morally good character, so there’s a lot for Kidman to play with as she portrays this prickly, difficult, and image-obsessed woman who feels like she needs to keep calm and carry on despite an active and ongoing murder investigation involving her family

5. Expats

Prime Video’s “Expats” flew under the radar upon its release, but the miniseries thoughtfully examines the lives of several expatriates in Hong Kong. Alongside Sarayu Blue’s Hilary Starr and Ji-young Yoo’s Mercy Cho, Nicole Kidman portrays Margaret Woo, who lives in the city with her husband and children and grapples with the disappearance of her youngest son. With three intertwined arcs that broach heavy themes of grief and forgiveness, “Expats” forces viewers to reflect on what they would do in a similar family tragedy in which blame could be passed around.

Kidman impresses with a raw interpretation of Margaret’s struggle to find herself in her community amid her devastating circumstances. “It’s this deep grief that’s carried around, mixed with this desire to stay hopeful as a mother,” Kidman told USA Today of her character. “That’s how the whole performance was constructed: ‘I know he’s alive and I’m not going to give up.’ It’ll never be over for Margaret, even if her husband and children are like, ‘OK, we have to leave.’ I love how we’re all so different as human beings and in the ways we cope with things.”

“Expats” takes a slow-burn approach to its narrative, yet the six-episode journey is well worth it for those who adore character studies and complicated emotions.

4. Top of the Lake

Nicole Kidman appeared in the second season of “Top of the Lake,” a murder mystery that packs a powerful punch. Starring Elisabeth Moss as Detective Robin Griffin, the BBC series revolves around a different case each time around, with Season 2 following the grisly killing of a girl in Australia. Kidman plays Julia, who emerges in the story as the adoptive mother of the daughter Robin gave up earlier in her life. Julia’s turbulent personal life comes to light, and it collides with Robin’s story in ways audiences might not expect. In a scene-stealing role, Kidman morphs into a domineering and volatile woman who causes a great deal of conflict.

Thanks to its detailed build up, eerie atmosphere, and riveting plot twists, “Top of the Lake” succeeds as a gripping murder mystery that’s made even better by the addition of Kidman. The actress was big a fan of the first season — so much so that she reached out to ask for a part in the second one. “Nicole just really wanted to be in the show,” co-creator Jane Campion told The Guardian. “And we realised she would really kill as Julia — in fact, once I started imagining her as Julia then it became really fun for me to write and we expanded it, which was a good call because it really brought the themes together.”

3. Lioness

Taylor Sheridan has created a ton of massively popular shows — most notably “Yellowstone” and its subsequent spin-offs — and in 2023, he managed to get Nicole Kidman to join his series “Lioness.” This thriller focuses on a specialized department of the CIA, referred to as “Lionesses,” who infiltrate and attempt to dismantle terrorist cells; when the series opens, we see protagonist Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña) trying to pull off a secret mission in Syria, only for it to go horribly wrong. Years after that, Joe decides to take former Marine Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira) under her wing, all under the purview of Joe’s boss, Kaitlyn Meade, played by Kidman.

“Lioness” is a paint-by-numbers spy thriller for the most part, but Saldaña and Kidman manage to elevate the material alongside co-stars like TV veteran Michael Kelly (as Kaitlyn’s superior and the deputy director of operations at the CIA Byron Westfield) and Morgan Freeman (who plays U.S. Secretary of State Edwin Mullins). Whether or not you’re already a fan of Sheridan’s body of work, it’s worth checking out “Lioness” on Paramount+ for Kidman’s performance alone.

2. The Undoing

If you can get past Nicole Kidman’s obviously fake red wig in “The Undoing” — also based on a book, this time Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 2014 novel “You Should Have Known” — you’ll realize it’s one of her best projects. This acclaimed HBO miniseries stars Kidman as Grace Fraser, a wealthy and successful psychologist based in Manhattan who’s utterly taken aback when a seemingly troubled young woman named Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis) is found murdered. Grace, who had increasingly strange interactions with Elena before the latter’s death, also realizes that her husband, oncologist Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant), wasn’t at the medical conference he said he was attending, making him a potential suspect in Elena’s murder.

Flanked by performers like Noah Jupe, Lily Rabe, Édgar Ramírez, Noma Dumezweni, and the late, great Donald Sutherland, Kidman is unbelievably great on “The Undoing,” making Grace — a character that could become a caricature in the hands of a lesser actress — feel incredibly real and lived-in. There are a bunch of thriller TV shows out there about unreliable husbands and scorned wives, but “The Undoing” is particularly great, in large part because of Kidman’s leading turn.

1. Big Little Lies

Without question, HBO’s “Big Little Lies” features far and away the best TV performance from Nicole Kidman. The two-season series, which is partially based upon Liane Moriarty’s book of the same name, moves the action from Australia to the wealthy enclave of Monterey, California, and introduces us to a group of mothers whose children — including Kidman’s seemingly perfect Celeste Wright — all attend the same school.

To her old friends like Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) and Renata Klein (Laura Dern), as well as new friends like Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), Celeste’s life with her husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), and their twin boys seems unbelievably ideal. It’s not. Behind closed doors, Perry is violent and physically abusive towards Celeste, who is afraid to leave her marriage. When Perry dies under “strange” circumstances, Celeste and her friends become suspects, but the coven of mothers band together to protect their own.

A misguided second season of “Big Little Lies” takes the action past the end of Moriarty’s story and focuses heavily on Celeste as she fights Perry’s mother, Mary Louise Wright (Meryl Streep), for custody of Celeste’s sons. But even under those circumstances, Kidman is still great. Her performance as Celeste is raw, real, heartbreaking, and triumphant … and it’s no wonder that this is the role that added an Emmy to Kidman’s collection of awards.

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