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 "The Hitcher" (1986) (both films pitting her opposite Rutger Hauer), and a young woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown in "Heart of Midnight" (1989). In 1990, Leigh made a significant career breakthrough when she was awarded New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayals of two very different prostitutes: the tough streetwalker Tralala who is brutally gang-raped in "Last Exit to Brooklyn", and Susie, a teenage prostitute who falls in love with ex-con Alec Baldwin in "Miami Blues". Roger Ebert included