Before retiring from acting in 2014, Cameron Diaz was a household name in Hollywood. Born in San Diego, California, Diaz initially began her career as a model when she was 16 years old. She would transition into acting five years later, when she was 21, after auditioning for Chuck Russell’s 1994 movie The Mask. Her breakthrough movie role in The Mask immediately established Diaz as one of Hollywood’s top stars and as a sex symbol of the 90s, leading to a string of successful movies as the decade closed out.

While Diaz’s career was established in the 90s, it elevated to all-new levels in the 2000s. She appeared in movies like Charlie’s Angels and Shrek, both of which were massive hits at the box office and tapped into completely different demographics. Diaz became one of the highest-paid actresses in 2013, per The Hollywood Reporter, which is a testament to her star power and ability to bring characters to life on the screen. These are her best dramatic movies.

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7 My Sister's Keeper

My Sister’s Keeper was adapted from the 2004 Jodi Picoult book of the same name. Brian and Sara (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) are the parents of three children. Their 15-year-old daughter, Katie (Sofia Vassilieva), has acute promyelocytic leukemia, which means her life is subject to a series of donations, hospital visits, and medications. Her sister Anna (Abigail Breslin) was born as a savior sibling, which means she is intended to be the source of any organ or tissue donations. Anna decides she no longer wants to donate a kidney to her sister after realizing the impacts on her own life, leading to a legal lawsuit and rifts in the family.

6 The Box

Cameron Diaz stars in 2009’s The Box, a psychological horror-thriller that delves into the territory of some serious moral questions. The story was based on a 1970 short story by Richard Matheson, which, in turn, inspired an episode of the cult classic Twilight Zone. A man (Frank Langella) delivers a box to a couple (Cameron Diaz and James Mardsen), claiming that if they press the button on top, they can win a million dollars. But there is a consequence to pressing the button: a stranger must die. The two are in dire need of money, so they press the button, unlocking a series of events that forces them to make some difficult decisions.

5 Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her

Premiering at Cannes Film Festival in 2000, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her took home the Un Certain Regard Award. Five vignettes weave together to tell the stories of five different women, many of whom have differing but interconnected experiences. They are police detectives, doctors, a single mother, another a blind woman. Their life stories may not be similar in terms of content, but the themes and overarching characteristics are actually closer than they initially appear.

4 The Counselor

Ridley Scott’s The Counselor has an all-star cast with Penélope Cruz, Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, and Brad Pitt. The Counselor (Fassbender), a man who remains unnamed outside of this, is a lawyer who gets tangled up with drug cartels near the Mexico-Texas border. He only wanted to buy his girlfriend (Cruz) a diamond ring to propose with, but ends up in a situation that quickly begins to escalate.

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3 Being John Malkovich

1999’s Being John Malkovich was a hit at the Oscars that year, but did not take home any awards. A New York City-based puppeteer (John Cusack) crawls through a door one day and finds himself inside the mind of actor John Malkovich, and, with his puppeteering skills, decides to take advantage of the opportunity. The movie is surprising, keeping viewers on its toes, twisting and turning in on itself as it crawls towards the final climax.

2 Vanilla Sky

Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz star in Vanilla Sky, a science fiction psychological thriller. The movie was adapted from a Spanish-language film titled Open Your Eyes, which also starred Cruz. An owner of a publishing company has a disfigured face after a lover’s spat gone wrong, leading him down a dark path mentally. Vanilla Sky grapples with the notion of being stuck on a border between dreams, reality, and nightmares — especially when one man initially seems to have it all before his downfall.

1 Gangs of New York

Martin Scorsese came out with Gangs of New York in 2002, a film rooted in the history of New York City. In the mid-1800s, the Irish immigrants and local inhabitants of the city are at odds with each other. The locals do not want immigrants in what they consider their territory, so they form gangs to fight against each other. One boy’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) father was murdered in this violence, leading him to come of age and seek out his father’s killer (Daniel Day-Lewis) for revenge.