Jennifer Jason Leigh becomes a junkie and falls in love with her partner, played by Jason Patric. Her next film, "Single White Female" (1992), was a surprise box-office success, bringing Leigh to her largest mainstream audience yet, portraying a mentally ill woman who terrorizes roommate Bridget Fonda. Leigh was awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and nominated for Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Leigh co-starred with Kathy Bates as a tormented, pill-popping woman hiding a history of childhood sexual abuse in the adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Dolores Claiborne" (1995). Leigh achieved her greatest acclaim in the role
Jennifer Jason Leigh from the Montreal World Film Festival, as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Some expressed surprise that she was not nominated for an Academy Award, while Winningham was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Throughout the 1990s, Leigh worked with many independent film directors. She worked with Robert Altman in "Short Cuts" (1993), playing a phone-sex operator, and "Kansas City" (1996), as a streetwise kidnapper. Leigh has expressed admiration for Altman and called him her mentor. In a change of pace from her "bad girl" roles, Leigh played the fast-talking reporter Amy Archer in the Coen