Amy Adams has landed roles in film and television that have garnered multiple award nominations. Despite receiving 6 Academy Award nominations, she has yet to receive an Oscar. She played candy striper nurse Brenda in the 2002 chase comedy Catch Me If You Can. Director Steven Spielberg praised her in a 2008 interview and said, "That was the part that should have launched her career."
For her role as Ashley Johnsten in Junebug, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. While she didn't win the award, she took home the Special Jury Prize for Acting from the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. She also won an Independent Spirit Award for her role.
Adams then starred as the highly enthusiastic Disney princess, Giselle in the musical romantic comedy Enchanted. She was among 250 actresses who auditioned for the part. But the director Kevin Lima insisted on Adams because of her commitment and ability to stay objective in regard to Giselle's personality. She sang three songs for the film's soundtrack, True Love's Kiss, Happy Working Song and That's How You Know. Film critic Roger Ebert praised Adams for her role, he said, "You should have seen Junebug by now, which means you will not be surprised by how fresh and winning Amy Adams is in Enchanted, where her role absolutely depends on effortless lovability. She's so lovable, in fact, she starts life as an animated princess in a Disney-style world. The birds, flowers, chipmunks and cockroaches even love her and do her bidding."Adams was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.
She received a second Oscar nomination for Doubt, for her 2008 role as the nun Sister James, opposite Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The film tells the story of a Catholic school principal who accuses a priest of pedophilia. She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. Director John Patrick Shanley raved about her, he said, "She's wonderful to watch but also full of wonder. She has an extremely demonstrative face, and when you look into her eyes, there's a wonder that's there and a receptivity to what's going on around her. She's a door into another world, and it's a sort of magical world." Adams talked about what it was like working with Streep and Hoffman, she said, "It's like going to a master class for three weeks. I just often think, How amazing it is that I just get to be here and watch these guys work? But they are lovely and in no way intentionally intimidating. Any intimidation I felt was purely in my own head."
In 2010, she starred in the David O. Russell film, The Fighter. The film tells the story of boxer half-brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund, Adams portrayed Ward's aggressive girlfriend, Charlene Fleming. The role was a departure from her usual girl next door typecast roles. She enrolled in an exotic dance class to find her character's eroticism. She received the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "She is tough, tender, smart, and funny as she was ethereal and delightful in Enchanted. What an actress, and what range!"
In 2012, Adams played Peggy Dodd, a ruthless and manipulative wife of the leader of a cult in Paul Thomas Anderson's psychological drama The Master. Adams was nominated for the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award for Supporting Actress for the role. In 2013, Adams starred in Spike Jonze's Her, which follows a lonely man played by Joaquin Phoenix who falls in love with an operating system.
She reunited with O'Russell in the crime film, American Hustle, and co-starred with Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. The film was inspired by the 1970s Abscam scandal, she stars as a seductive con artist. Adams revealed the work she did on the film was grueling and O'Russell would often make her cry. She said, "He was hard on me, that's for sure. It was a lot. I was really just devastated on set." She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical and received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
In 2018, she was the executive producer and star in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects, which is based on Gillian Flynn's thriller novel of the same title. She plays Camille Preaker, a self-harming reporter who returns to her hometown to cover a murder. She received critical acclaim for the role and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series. Daniel D'Addario from Variety wrote, "Adams, her voice dropped an octave, slowed to a drawl, and sharpened with distrust, is simply superb; her character’s trajectory, an eddy around the drain as she drowns, needs an actress with the resourcefulness to surprise us."
Bale and Adams teamed up for the third time in Adam McKay's political satire Vice. She portrayed Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne. Adams read Lynne's books to prepare for her role. She found herself developing empathy for Lynne despite their political differences, she said, "I still feel the need to defend Lynne when people talk about her. For me, it was my relationship with my grandmother. My grandmother who grew up in Provo, Utah, working-class. She reminded me so much of Lynne. I would just think of her and her offering me money to rub her bunions. 'Amy, I'll give you a quarter." She was nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award for Supporting Actress for playing Lynne Cheney.
She has launched her own production company, Bond Group Entertainment — has a first look deal with HBO. Adams will now develop adaptations for Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Poisonwood Bible and Claire Lombardo's novel The Most Fun We Ever Had, and her next project is Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window, she will star as an agoraphobic murder witness. The film is based on the mystery novel of the same title. She is set to reprise her role of Giselle in Disenchanted, a sequel to Enchanted.