Lily Gladstone

Lily Gladstone is an American actress of Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage who made history with her groundbreaking performances in independent and prestige cinema. Born on August 2, 1986, in Kalispell, Montana, she grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and developed a love for storytelling from an early age. She studied acting at the University of Montana and began her career in independent films and regional theater.

Gladstone first gained critical attention with her subtle, powerful performance in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (2016), in which she played a lonely ranch worker who develops feelings for a night school teacher played by Kristen Stewart. Though the film was a quiet independent release, Gladstone’s performance was singled out by critics as revelatory, earning her a devoted following in the indie film community and signaling the arrival of a major new talent.

Her career reached an entirely new level with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), in which she starred as Mollie Burkhart opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The epic crime drama, based on David Grann’s nonfiction book about the Osage murders in 1920s Oklahoma, earned Gladstone a historic Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, making her the first Native American woman ever nominated in the category. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for the role.

Gladstone’s success has made her one of the most important figures in the movement for greater Indigenous representation in Hollywood. She has used her platform to advocate for Native stories and filmmakers, and she continues to choose projects that center Indigenous experiences. With her star still rising rapidly, Gladstone has an estimated net worth of $2 million in 2026, a figure expected to grow substantially as she takes on more high-profile projects.