The best movies and TV shows feature some big releases, and it all started when she got her big break as a child actor. Fanning began her acting career when she was five. She appeared in television commercials and took on a small role in the medical drama ER as an accident victim with leukemia. This led to her big breakout when she was only seven and starred in the drama film I Am Sam, where she played the daughter of a mentally challenged man who was fighting to retain custody of her.

This led to Fanning catching the attention of Steven Spielberg, who first cast her in his sci-fi TV miniseries Taken and his theatrical sci-fi blockbuster War of the Worlds. She soon began nabbing roles in movies and major acting stars like Reese Witherspoon (Sweet Home Alabama ). As an adult, Fanning continues to shine with major roles in TV shows like The Alienist and movies like The Watchers.

In 2024, the daughter of acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan. Based on the novel by A.M. Shine, the story follows Mina (Fanning) as a young woman whose car breaks down in a forest. As she is walking and looking for help, a woman tells her she has to get into a bunker, or she will die. As she follows the woman, Madeline (Olwen Fouéré), she discovers there are "Watchers" outside who will kill them if they catch them on the loose.

The film has Fanning and the other survivors in the bunker trying to figure out what is happening and how they can escape, while the Watchers remain in the shadows, never coming out for the viewer to see until the end. The film has a deep mythology, bringing the idea of fairies into the mix, and Shyamalan works hard to keep the mysteries of these creatures while Fanning does a great job of showing the dangers of the situation. The film received negative reviews, but most critics unfairly compared the director to her more famous father.

In 2010, Dakota Fanning joined the cast of the biographical drama The Runaways. This movie followed the rise and fall of the 1970s rock band of the same name, a band that had some massive hits before two of the members went on to have considerable success as solo artists. However, smartly, the film followed the one member who . Fanning played Currie in the film.

Currie was a teen when she joined up with The Runaways and was the lead singer of the band, which also included Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton). The film mostly follows Currie and Jett's friendship until Currie leaves the band. While the movie was a box office disappointment, it received positive reviews, with Fanning and Stewart receiving praise for their performances and the criticism mostly geared toward the story itself.

In 2018, Dakota Fanning was one of the leads in the crime drama thriller TNT series The Alienist​​​​​. This is a historical series with a team assembled in the 1890s to catch a serial killer targeting street children. The team consists of Daniel Brühl as Laszlo Kreizler (an alienist/psychiatrist), Luke Evans as John Schuyler Moore (an illustrator), and The series also mixes in real-life figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, who was the NYPD commissioner in this series).

Fanning had a lot to do in the series, a former institutionalized young woman close to Roosevelt who fought to prove she belonged in her position on the force. The series only ran for two seasons and 18 episodes. Fannings' Sara moved on to become a private detective in the second season. Her character helped develop the show's ability to show inequality and the role of women in that era. Fanning earned a Saturn and Satellite nomination for her performance.

Dakota Fanning was part of the ruling class of vampires in The Twilight Saga, the Volturi. They are the largest and most powerful coven of vampires in the world, and they mostly work out of Rome, although they have shown the ability to travel to wherever they need to in order to keep order and protect the secrets of all vampires. This makes them a huge antagonistic force when Edward and Bella have their daughter, a child whose power threatens all vampires everywhere.

, which included Aro (Michael Sheen), Marcus (Christopher Heyerdahl), Jane (Dakota Fanning), Alec (Cameron Bright), and Caius (Jamie Campbell Bower). Twilight was a phenomenon - one that critics hated but legions of fans adored. The last movie was one that brought critics and fans a little closer, if for no other reason than the massive battle at the end between the Volturi and the Cullens.

The third movie in Denzel Washington's Equalizer reboot sees Robert McCall (Washington) lying low in Italy after he is shot in the back. While recovering there, he becomes fond of the locals in the small town. He finds the desire to protect them when a local criminal cartel begins to harass and kill the villagers in an attempt to force them out so they can build their businesses there to capitalize on the location. who comes in to investigate Robert's warnings.

Fanning was a co-lead in the film, the CIA officer working the case while Robert takes care of the dirty work. It also ends with Robert giving Emma a list of contacts to help her in her future assignments while also revealing that she is the daughter of Robert's old colleague, Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), who died in the previous movie. Critics gave the film a 76% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes with praise going to Washington still commanding the screen with his performance.

Steven Spielberg helped Dakota Fanning raise her stock when he cast her in his televised sci-fi miniseries Taken. However, he helped her rise to a new level when he cast her in his blockbuster sci-fi film, War of the Worlds. In this remake of the H.G. Wells novel, Tom Cruise takes the lead as Ray Ferrier, a father who sets out to save his kids after the aliens attack the Earth.

Fanning was only 11 when War of the Worlds was released in theaters, but she gained a lot of critical acclaim for her performance as the young co-star of the film. The movie made $603.9 million at the box office and ended up nominated for three Academy Awards, all for technical achievements. Iy also received positive reviews from critics, and Fanning won the Best Performance by a Younger Actor Award at the Saturn Awards that year.

Dakota Fanning has lent her voice to several animated projects over her career, but the best of these came in 2009 with Coraline. Directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Coraline tells the story of a little girl who moves into a new town with her parents, both of whom are always busy and don't always pay attention to her. She finds a hole in the wall of their new house that leads to another world where her "Other-Mother" is willing to give her all the love she wants at the expense of her eyes.

. Critics loved the animated horror film, awarding it a 91% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score. It was also nominated for one Oscar for Best Animated Feature and for eight Annie Awards, winning three of them. The movie was also re-released several times and has become incredibly successful at the box office despite not being a major hit when it was first released.

Denzel Washington teamed up with Tony Scott in 2004 for the vigilante action thriller Man on Fire. In this film, Washington is former CIA officer John W. Creasy, who now works as a bodyguard to the daughter of a wealthy automaker. When she ends up abducted and kidnapped, he becomes the top suspect, which makes him realize that there might be something more dire at hand. . Fanning was only 10 when the movie came out.

When Creasy learns what has happened, he sets out to kill everyone involved, with the primary goal of rescuing and saving Pita. The movie was a huge box office success, and while it received negative reviews when released, it has experienced a reappraisal. It has since become more of a cult classic, with many critics coming around in later years. Dakota Fanning earned a Best Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film nomination at the Young Artist Awards.

In 2019, Quentin Tarantino released Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, a movie that starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as a movie star and his stuntman. The film took place in 1969 and had DiCaprio starring as Rick Dalton, a former Western TV star who is trying to revive his fading career. Pitt is his stuntman Cliff Booth, a man who is a World War II veteran who has struggled to find work since his wife's mysterious death. However, Booth is also someone who crossed paths with the Manson family.

That is where Dakota Fanning comes into the story. Booth becomes associated with a young woman named Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), who takes him to meet her friends, which includes Damon Herriman's Charles Manson. Meanwhile, Rick has become friends with actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). This all leads to the infamous Manson Family murders, with a twist. The film earned 10 Oscar nominations, winning two.

Dakota Fanning enjoyed her breakout role in 2001 when she was seven. The movie I Am Sam stars Sean Penn as Sam Dawson, a barista with an intellectual disability. He becomes a single father to Lucy (Fanning) after the little girl's mother (a homeless woman) abandons her. Sam can live on his own, and he has a circle of friends who help him with Lucy, but when he learns the courts might take her out of his custody, he hires an attorney (Michelle Pfeiffer) to fight to keep her.

The film received overall mixed reviews from critics, most of them dismissing the film because Sean Penn played a mentally challenged man and because of the simplicity of the script. However, that didn't stop its success. It was a small box office success and then went on to find awards recognition. Sean Penn earned an Oscar nomination, while won Best Young Performer at the Critics' Choice Awards and Best Performance in a Feature Film at the Young Artist Awards.