Like most of the people in her town, Karen Silkwood works at the local nuclear plant producing highly radioactive plutonium. Exposed one day to a lethal dose of radiation, Karen faces the blank walls of corporate indifference and denial. As her illness increases, her protest grows louder and she becomes an obvious danger to the powers that be.
Acting
Streep's Oklahoma twang and Cher's scene-stealing swagger.
Direction
Nichols makes bureaucracy feel like creeping dread.
Writing
Alice Arlen and Nora Ephron's only Oscar-nominated script.
Director
Mike Nichols
Meryl Streep
Karen Silkwood
Kurt Russell
Drew Stephens
Cher
Dolly Pelliker
Craig T. Nelson
Winston
Fred Ward
Morgan
Diana Scarwid
Angela
Ron Silver
Paul Stone
Charles Hallahan
Earl Lapin
Josef Sommer
Max Richter
Sudie Bond
Thelma Rice
Henderson Forsythe
Quincy Bissell
E. Katherine Kerr
Gilda Schultz
Bruce McGill
Mace Hurley
David Strathairn
Wesley
J.C. Quinn
Curtis Schultz
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Silkwood's father sued Kerr-McGee and won $1.38 million in 1979; the company settled during appeal and the records were sealed.
Released months after The China Syndrome, it helped fuel 1980s anti-nuclear activism—and Cher's dramatic turn shocked critics who'd dismissed her as variety-show camp.
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