We’re in the Middle of a Sissy Spacek-ssaince and We Don’t Even Realize It

Are you in the market for an older woman character to embody strength and sensitivity in an unassuming package? Perhaps a backbone of steel amid increasingly bizarre and unsteadying circumstances? An actress who brings award-winning gravitas to any cast? What you need is Sissy Spacek, and you better sign her up quick, because we are in the middle of a glorious Sissy Spacek renaissance that spans both TV and movies, and it’s been great so far.

It’s been nearly 38 years since Sissy Spacek was awarded the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter. Now, after turning 69 years old on Christmas Day, Spacek has just completed a year where she’s delivered standout spotlight performances in both film and television, theatrical release and streaming, somehow bridging all sorts of platforms in order to flex her acting chops for a whole new generation.

Newly available to stream is The Old Man & the Gun, a lighthearted story about a career criminal (Robert Redford) whose gentlemanly matter as he robs banks has the law enforcement officers constantly on his tail halfway admiring him for his chutzpah. Along the way, he meets an unassuming women stranded with her car by the side of the road. Initially, Redford’s character only approaches Spacek’s because he needs cover from the advancing police. But from the moment these two tried and true movie stars set eyes on each other, you know that it’s going to become much more than a chance encounter. Much of the middle part of The Old Man & the Gun is this very sweet love story between two people whose hard-won sense of independence, rather than an impediment, becomes what attracts them to one another. And even though director David Lowery is one of the brightest lights of his filmmaking generation, this is a movie that is fully powered by the movie-star charisma of its central romance.

The Old Man & the Gun topped off a year where Spacek had already been delivering the goods on TV. In her smallest role, she still brought a lot of spark to her scenes as Julia Roberts’ mom in Homecoming. If nothing else, that endlessly inventive half-hour drama got to boast two Oscar-winning actresses sharing a home together.

Spacek’s real TV triumph, however, has been Castle Rock, where she delivered one of the year’s best supporting performances as Ruth Deaver, an old woman whose life is filled with regrets and who — in an appropriately Stephen King-esque twist — becomes unstuck in time, drifting from one moment on her own timeline to the next, re-experiencing moments of grief, longing, and occasional joy. Her showcase episode, “White Queen,” was one of the standout TV episodes of all 2018.

It’s not like we have a surplus of top-notch, Oscar-winning actresses in their aging years in Hollywood. We need to cherish the ones we have. We’re living in a golden age of Sissy Spacek projecting smart, sometimes sad, decentness in a world gone mad. What’s better than that?