Before she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, Julia Roberts was a wide-eyed newcomer from Georgia trying to break into a brutally competitive industry. Her first real notice came with 1988's Mystic Pizza, but it was 1989's Steel Magnolias that changed everything — earning her an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win for Best Supporting Actress.

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A year later, Pretty Woman turned her into an overnight global star, and the young actress captured in these photos suddenly found herself one of the most photographed women on the planet.

It's 1990, and 22-year-old Roberts is fresh off her first Oscar nomination for Steel Magnolias — flashing a peace sign in a men's Armani suit she picked out herself, utterly unbothered by convention.
Off-duty, the look softens completely: an oversized cream knit dress and thigh-high socks, proof she was always more at home in comfort than glamour.
The tabloids couldn't get enough of her by the early '90s — dodging as many questions about her personal life as she answered.
That same era gave the world Steel Magnolias itself — the ensemble film, seen here with her co-stars, that first told Hollywood to watch this girl.
Her romance with Kiefer Sutherland’s was one of the most highly publicized tabloid scandals of the 1990s. They met on the set of the sci-fi thriller Flatliners in late 1989 and quickly became Hollywood's "It Couple".
Even at her most photographed, Roberts kept her real friendships close — caught here with fellow actress and close friend Laura Dern.
Off the red carpet, her style turned downtown-cool: cropped stripes and drawstring trousers, a decade before "off-duty model" was even a phrase.
Stardom never dulled the smile. Caught mid-laugh at a premiere, she's every inch the actress who turned "America's Sweetheart" into a job description.
She mastered dressing down in plain sight too — dark sunglasses, a plain black sweater, unmistakably herself without even trying.
In a floral slip dress and olive cardigan, Roberts looks exactly like what she'd become — a star who never stopped feeling like the girl next door.
The night that changed everything 2001: Roberts finally holds her own Oscar, for Erin Brockovich, in a Valentino gown still ranked among the greatest Academy Awards looks of all time.
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It's 1990, and 22-year-old Roberts is fresh off her first Oscar nomination for Steel Magnolias — flashing a peace sign in a men's Armani suit she picked out herself, utterly unbothered by convention.

Roberts has barely slowed down since. She was most recently seen in After the Hunt, Luca Guadagnino's psychological drama alongside Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield, a performance that landed her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Female Actor in a Motion Picture Drama this year.

Her upcoming slate is just as packed. She's set to reunite with Homecoming director Sam Esmail for the thriller Panic Carefully, due out in February 2027, and she's also attached to star in and produce a film adaptation of the novel Home Economics for Sony — a project announced earlier this year. More than three decades on, Roberts remains one of the most enduring names in Hollywood.