Her star shot up with Mulholland Dr. (and deservedly so; she was incredible). She delivered an Oscar nod with 21 Grams and The Ring remakes were hits. She worked with Michael Haneke, David Cronenberg, and David O. Russell (before he really got big). On paper, signing onto Peter Jackson's followup to LOTR looked like a huge get, but really didn't do that much for her career in the end. And that was her big chance to gain more of a wider audience.

She also had Birdman (I remember she had a funny line-reading during a scene on stage with a gun) and she was also good as a cold bitch in Mother and Child. Since the early 2010s, it has mostly been bad luck coupled with bad choices. But sometimes it was a bad performance.

She worked with Eastwood, but after his prime, as it turns out. She worked with Gus Van Sant whose record is quite hit and (mostly) miss. Looks like she's working with him again with Feud. She worked with Noah Baumbach, but it was a forgettable comedy. She did a Woody Allen movie, but one of his lesser ones. She signed onto Colin Trevorrow's followup to Jurassic World and it was a flop. Everything Jean-Marc Vallée touched seemed to turn to gold, except the one project Watts signed onto. She has made some interesting choices, but they haven't done much for her, like Fair Game, Luce, Gypsy, Ophelia, Adore, and Return to Twin Peaks.

Diana was a turd as well. I don't know why she went forward with that. Signing onto the Divergent series sounded like a dumb choice after The Hunger Games was already going to get there first with similar material. The Glass Castle sounded like a bad idea as a movie, but Watts signed on. She does a lot of bad thrillers and horrors (Dream House, Shut In, The Wolf Hour, Boss Level, Infinite Storm [the other title no one here could recall], Desperate Hour, the upcoming The Watcher and Goodnight Mommy), as well as films about loving animals (Penguin Bloom, The Friend). Anyone who signed onto Movie 43 should be shamed.

St. Vincent was a small hit, but she delivered a cliche of a Russian accent.

Considering that she was the first and only star announced with Feud Season 2, her name helped get this to go forward. It sounds like more of an ensemble and it seems quite possible they'll hire lesser names who will be brought on because they'll nail the role and possibly outshine her.

I think R1 nailed it. And I'm not sure she'll have a chance to break the cycle unless she gets more discriminate with her choices. But, at age 54 (or so), it'll be quite challenging to change the course of her career atp, as there are more prestige actors in her age bracket to attract the great roles and directors. And I can't foresee David Lynch ever being really relevant again.