| Movie | 2009 | Doubt: Stage to Screen | Self | |
| Movie | 2002 | The Hours | Clarissa Vaughan | |
| Movie | 1985 | Out of Africa | Karen Christence Dinesen Blixen | |
| Movie | 2001 | A.I. Artificial Intelligence | Blue Mecha (voice) | |
| Movie | 1995 | The Bridges of Madison County | Francesca Johnson | |
| Movie | 1979 | Manhattan | Jill | |
| Movie | 1993 | The House of the Spirits | Clara del Valle Trueba | |
| Movie | 2005 | Prime | Lisa Metzger | |
| Movie | 2009 | Fantastic Mr. Fox | Felicity Fox (voice) | |
| Movie | 2002 | Adaptation. | Susan Orlean | |
| Movie | 2007 | Lions for Lambs | Janine Roth | |
| Movie | 1998 | Dancing at Lughnasa | Kate Mundy | |
| Movie | 1989 | She-Devil | Mary Fisher | |
| Movie | 2002 | There's Only One Paul McCartney | Self | |
| Movie | 2007 | Rendition | Corrine Whitman | |
| Movie | 2009 | It's Complicated | Jane Adler | |
| Movie | 2007 | Evening | Lila Ross | |
| Movie | 1990 | Postcards from the Edge | Suzanne Vale | |
| Movie | 2004 | Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events | Josephine Anwhistle | |
| Movie | 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Linda | |
| Movie | 2008 | Mamma Mia! | Donna Sheridan | |
| Movie | 2009 | Julie & Julia | Julia Child | |
| Movie | 1979 | Kramer vs. Kramer | Joanna Kramer | |
| Movie | 1982 | Still of the Night | Brooke Reynolds | |
| Movie | 1991 | Defending Your Life | Julia | |
| Movie | 1994 | The River Wild | Gail Hartman | |
| Movie | 1981 | The French Lieutenant's Woman | Sarah / Anna | |
| Movie | 2006 | A Prairie Home Companion | Yolanda Johnson | |
| Movie | 1983 | Silkwood | Karen Silkwood | |
| Movie | 1992 | Death Becomes Her | Madeline Ashton Menville | |
| Movie | 1999 | Music of the Heart | Roberta | |
| Movie | 1996 | Marvin's Room | Lee Wakefield Lacker | |
| Movie | 1997 | ...First Do No Harm | Lori Reimuller | |
| Movie | 2006 | The Ant Bully | Queen (voice) | |
| Movie | 1986 | Heartburn | Rachel | |
| Movie | 1988 | Evil Angels | Lindy Chamberlain | |
| Movie | 1987 | Ironweed | Helen Archer | |
| Movie | 1985 | Plenty | Susan Traherne | |
| Movie | 1977 | Julia | Anne Marie | |
| Movie | 2004 | The Manchurian Candidate | Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (D-VA) | |
| Movie | 2008 | Doubt | Sister Aloysius Beauvier | |
| Movie | 1996 | Before and After | Carolyn Ryan | |
| Movie | 2021 | Stanislavski: Lust for Life | Self | |
| Movie | 1994 | An Introduction to the Ketogenic Diet | Self - Host | |
| Movie | 2006 | Hurricane on the Bayou | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 1982 | Sophie's Choice | Zofia "Sophie" Zawistowski | |
| Movie | 2010 | Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life | Jennie | |
| Movie | 1991 | Voices That Care | Self - Choir Member | |
| Movie | 2009 | I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale | Self | |
| Movie | 2012 | Close Up | Self (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 1979 | The Seduction of Joe Tynan | Karen Traynor | |
| Movie | 2005 | Stolen Childhoods | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 1995 | The Living Sea | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2008 | Dark Matter | Joanna Silver | |
| Movie | 1984 | Falling in Love | Molly Gilmore | |
| Movie | 2011 | The Iron Lady | Margaret Thatcher | |
| Movie | 1998 | One True Thing | Kate Gulden | |
| Movie | 2012 | Hope Springs | Kay | |
| Movie | 2011 | Wings of Life | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2013 | A Fierce Green Fire | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2012 | To the Arctic 3D | Narrator | |
| Movie | 2012 | Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen | (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 2008 | Ribbon of Sand | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2008 | Theater of War | Self | |
| Movie | 2013 | August: Osage County | Violet Weston | |
| Movie | 1982 | Alice at the Palace | Alice | |
| Movie | 2012 | Joe Papp in Five Acts | Self | |
| Movie | 2013 | Girl Rising | Narrator - Ethiopia (voice) | |
| Movie | 2002 | New York at the Movies | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2012 | Radioman | Self | |
| Movie | 1979 | Uncommon Women and Others | Leilah | |
| Movie | 2013 | Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story | Self | |
| Movie | 2014 | Into the Woods | Witch | |
| Movie | 2014 | The Giver | Chief Elder | |
| Movie | 2006 | The Devil Wears Prada | Miranda Priestly | |
| Movie | 2015 | Suffragette | Emmeline Pankhurst | |
| Movie | 2014 | The Homesman | Altha Carter | |
| Movie | 2015 | Ricki and the Flash | Ricki Rendazzo | |
| Movie | 2008 | Birthing Mamma Mia! | Self | |
| Movie | 1975 | Everybody Rides the Carousel | Stage 6 (voice) | |
| Movie | 2006 | Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner | Self | |
| Movie | 2014 | The Concert for Valor | Self | |
| Movie | 2016 | Florence Foster Jenkins | Florence Foster Jenkins | |
| Movie | 1984 | Little Ears: The Velveteen Rabbit | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2015 | Auschwitz | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 1981 | Kiss Me, Petruchio | Katherine | |
| Movie | 1999 | Solving the Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci's First Known Portrait | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2001 | Vermeer Master of Light | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 1977 | Secret Service | Edith Varney | |
| Movie | 2016 | Mike Nichols: An American Master | Self | |
| Movie | 2015 | Shout Gladi Gladi | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2015 | Everything Is Copy | Self | |
| Movie | 1990 | The Earth Day Special | Concerned Citizen | |
| Movie | 2003 | Stuck on You | Meryl Streep (uncredited) | |
| Movie | 2024 | Escape from Extinction: Rewilding | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2019 | Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage | Self (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 2017 | 100 Years | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2018 | Mary Poppins Returns | Cousin Topsy | |
| Movie | 2006 | The Music of Regret | The Woman | |
| Movie | 2017 | The Post | Kay Graham | |
| Movie | 2017 | The Female Lead - A Selection of Portraits | Self | |
| Movie | 2017 | Five Came Back | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2018 | Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again | Donna Sheridan-Carmichael | |
| Movie | 2017 | The Words That Built America | Self - Reader: Declaration of Independence | |
| Movie | 1977 | The Deadliest Season | Sharon Miller | |
| Movie | 2019 | The Laundromat | Ellen Martin / Elena | |
| Movie | 2019 | Little Women | Aunt March | |
| Movie | 2016 | Starring Austin Pendleton | Self | |
| Movie | 2019 | This Changes Everything | Self | |
| Movie | 2018 | Every Act of Life | Maurine McElroy (voice) | |
| Movie | 1991 | Age 7 in America | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2008 | An Old Fashioned Love Story: Making 'The Bridges of Madison County' | Self | |
| Movie | 2019 | Museum Town | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2020 | The Prom | Dee Dee Allen | |
| Movie | 2010 | Sky Island | (voice) | |
| Movie | 2018 | Keeping the Promise: AHF 30 Years Documentary | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2020 | Let Them All Talk | Alice Hughes | |
| Movie | 2014 | And the Oscar Goes To... | Self (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 2000 | A Song of Africa | Self | |
| Movie | 2018 | Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal | Self (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 2020 | Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2004 | Stuck Together: Bringing Stuck on You to the Screen | Self | |
| Movie | 2015 | Emotional Uncertainties | Self | |
| Movie | 2001 | Finding the Truth: The Making of 'Kramer vs. Kramer' | Self | |
| Movie | 2016 | Everybody Knows... Elizabeth Murray | Elizabeth Murray (voice) | |
| Movie | 2020 | Meryl Streep: Mystery and Metamorphosis | Self - Actress (archive footage) | |
| Movie | 2021 | Don't Look Up | President Orlean | |
| Movie | 2019 | Alan Pakula: Going for Truth | Self | |
| Movie | 2020 | In Search of the Sanderson Sisters: A Hocus Pocus Hulaween Takeover | Meryl Streep | |
| Movie | 1999 | Chrysanthemum | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2021 | Dear Elizabeth | Elizabeth Bishop | |
| Movie | 2005 | Karen Blixen: Out of This World | Self - Host | |
| Movie | N/A | Mamma Mia! 3 | Donna Sheridan | |
| Movie | N/A | Rufus Wainwright: Dream Requiem Featuring Meryl Streep | | |
| Movie | 2025 | Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music | Self | |
| Movie | 2025 | SNL50: The Homecoming Concert | Self | |
| Movie | 2024 | Schindler Space Architect | Narrator (voice) | |
| Movie | 2026 | Narnia | Aslan (voice) | |
| Movie | 2026 | The Devil Wears Prada 2 | Miranda Priestly | |
| TV Show | 1988 | This Morning | Self - Guest | 1 |
| TV Show | 1994 | Inside the Actors Studio | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 1989 | The Simpsons | Jessica Lovejoy (voice) | 1 |
| TV Show | 2003 | The Ellen DeGeneres Show | Self | 2 |
| TV Show | 1996 | The Daily Show | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 1997 | King of the Hill | Aunt Esme Dauterive (voice) | 1 |
| TV Show | 1988 | LIVE with Kelly and Mark | Self - Guest | 2 |
| TV Show | 1997 | The View | Self | 3 |
| TV Show | 2005 | The Colbert Report | | 1 |
| TV Show | 1968 | 60 Minutes | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2003 | Angels in America | Hannah Pitt / Ethel Rosenberg / The Rabbi / The Angel Australia | 6 |
| TV Show | 1978 | Holocaust | Inga Helms Weiss | 4 |
| TV Show | 1953 | The Oscars | Self | 6 |
| TV Show | 2010 | America: The Story of Us | Self | 2 |
| TV Show | 2023 | Extrapolations | Eve | 1 |
| TV Show | 1993 | GMTV | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2022 | The U.S. and the Holocaust | Eleanor Roosevelt | 3 |
| TV Show | 2021 | Hemingway | Martha Gellhorn (voice) | 1 |
| TV Show | 1971 | Great Performances | | 1 |
| TV Show | 2014 | The Roosevelts: An Intimate History | Eleanor Roosevelt (voice) | 7 |
| TV Show | 2015 | The Late Late Show with James Corden | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2021 | Only Murders in the Building | Loretta Durkin | 9 |
| TV Show | 2017 | Five Came Back | Self - Narrator (voice) | 3 |
| TV Show | 2001 | School: The Story of American Public Education | Narrator (voice) | 4 |
| TV Show | 2013 | Makers: Women Who Make America | Narrator (voice) | 3 |
| TV Show | 1997 | Leute heute | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2017 | Big Little Lies | Mary Louise Wright | 7 |
| TV Show | 2011 | Web Therapy | Camilla Bowner | 2 |
| TV Show | 1974 | Spécial cinéma | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 1959 | The Grammys | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 1984 | Goldene Kamera Verleihung | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2019 | The Kelly Clarkson Show | Self (archive footage) | 1 |
| TV Show | 1967 | Titel, Thesen, Temperamente | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2007 | The Graham Norton Show | Self | 3 |
| TV Show | 2021 | Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy | Self | 9 |
| TV Show | 2009 | Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen | Self - Guest | 1 |
| TV Show | 2024 | Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? | Narrator (voice) | 8 |
| TV Show | 1998 | Vivement dimanche | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 2005 | Unscripted | Self | 3 |
| TV Show | 1971 | Great Performances | Leilah | 1 |
| TV Show | 1971 | Great Performances | Self - Host | 1 |
| TV Show | N/A | The Corrections | | 1 |
| TV Show | 1975 | Saturday Night Live | Self | 1 |
| TV Show | 1997 | The View | | 1 |
| TV Show | 2013 | 奥斯维辛集中营 | 讲述 | 6 |
| TV Show | 1999 | The Directors | Self | 1 |
