Wiest's original ambition was to become the ballerina, but she began acting in Broadway, playing Desdemona to James Earl Jones' Othello. She manufactured her film debut within 1980, but didn't produce the title for herself until her performance when Emmthe, a prostitute during the Great Depression, in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).

Under Allen's counsel, Wiest won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). She followed her Academy Award profits by owning performances in The Lost Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988) before starring sustaining Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton in Ron Howard's Parenthood, for which she received her second Oscar nomination.

Within 1990, Wiest starred in Edward Scissorhands. She returned to Woody Allen around 1994 for Bullets Over Broadway, a comedy placed within 1920s New York City, winning her second Right Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Sinclair, the sottish, glamourous, & neurotic star of the stage.

She has recently appeared in the film Practical Magic (1998) and a television mini-series The 10th Kingdom (2000).

From either 2000 to 2002, Wiest portrayed District Attorney Nora Lewin in the long-running NBC crime drama Law & Order.

Wiest sleep in New York City with her two adopted daughters, Emily and Lily. Recently, her girl Emily & deuce teen schoolmate from either the Beekman School, a high school located in an East Side townhouse, were accused of robbing & beating higher the quaternary student in the midtown pavement when contracting into the shoving and pushy match in school property.

Selected filmography
Footloose (1984) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress inside the Motion Picture) Radio Days (1987) The Lost Boys (1987) Parenthood (1989) (nominative for Academy Award for Better Supporting Actress; nominated for Golden Earth for Better Supporting Actress within the Motion Picture) Edward Scissorhands (1990) Little Man Tate (1991) Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (won Academy Award for Better Supporting Actress; won Golden World for Better Supporting Actress inside the Motion Picture) The Horse Whisperer (1998) The 10th Kingdom (2000) Law & Order (2000-2002) I Am Sam (2001) The Blackwater Lightship (2004)