Barbra Streisand may be a singular musical talent, but “all I ever wanted to be was an actress,” she writes in her 2023 memoir, My Name Is Barbra. Goal achieved: Streisand became an Oscar winner for her star-making screen debut in 1968’s Funny Girl, and she was nominated a second time for her role in 1973’s timeless weeper The Way We Were.

These movies will surely be among the Streisand classics referenced at Cannes Film Festival’s closing ceremony on May 23, when she is honored—remotely—with an honorary Palme d’Or. But there are quite a few lesser-known Streisand performances from her lesser-known films—five are spotlighted below—that, while unlikely to be singled out on the Croisette, deserve a look.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), dir. Vincente Minnelli

In this lavish production based on a Broadway musical Streisand didn’t appear in (that was Barbara Harris), she plays two starring roles: Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, an English courtesan living in the early 19th century, and Daisy Gamble, a modern-day New Yorker who, while hypnotized by a psychiatrist (Yves Montand), reveals that she is the reincarnation of Lady Tentrees. (In her memoir, Streisand says it was her idea to hire two designers for On a Clear Day, one for each time period: Arnold Scaasi dressed Daisy and Cecil Beaton dressed Lady Tentrees.) The revelations here are Streisand’s range—while Daisy has a mouth full of Barbra’s native Brooklyn, the low-born Lady Tentrees switches between RP and Eliza Doolittle—and Streisand’s gift as a physical comedian, especially when she’s frantically dancing on her apartment’s roof in an effort to ward off a hypnotic episode.

Up the Sandbox (1972), dir. Irvin Kershner

Released when the women’s liberation movement was in full flower, Up the Sandbox finds Streisand playing Manhattan housewife and mother Margaret Reynolds, whose disillusionment with her life leads her to fantasize about being someone of consequence—in one scene, she hobnobs with Fidel Castro. But the film’s best moments find Margaret quietly wrestling with how to be a good mother who is also personally fulfilled. This was, Streisand readily admits in My Name is Barbra, something she found relatable, which surely fed the shattering authenticity of her performance. In her memoir, Streisand recounts her disappointment when audiences didn’t show up for this movie, of which she remains fiercely proud: “Would they only accept me in musicals or comedies?” The reception to her next film, The Way We Were, which is neither a musical nor a comedy, would answer that question.

The Main Event (1979), dir. Howard Zieff

You know how adorable Streisand and Ryan O’Neal were in 1972’s What’s Up, Doc? Well, they reteamed equally adorably in The Main Event. Streisand plays Beverly Hills executive Hillary Kramer, the owner of a perfume company, who learns that her business manager has embezzled all her money; left with nothing but a contract for a prizefighter (O’Neal), Hillary becomes his manager. Throughout the film, Streisand has a short, curly, red hairstyle that put me in mind of Little Orphan Annie until I realized I was thinking of the wrong iconic redhead: Hillary could be the West Coast niece of I Love Lucy’s Lucy Ricardo, especially when she’s standing ringside and sorely testing O’Neal’s character’s patience as she tries (and fails) to be helpful. Streisand has said that the movie was going for a screwball-comedy vibe, but underneath the will-they-or-won’t-they gags and the disco-era short shorts, she was pointedly presenting a woman holding her own in a man’s world.

All Night Long (1981), dir. Jean-Claude Tramont

Streisand writes in her memoir that she agreed to do All Night Long reluctantly: she had “no particular urge to play a ditzy blond suburban housewife.” But she also realized that she had never played anyone like Cheryl Gibbons before. Cheryl is a browbeaten wife with two ambitions: to hook a married, midlife-crisis-stricken man played by Gene Hackman, and to make it as a singer-songwriter, unaware that she’s short on talent. In one achingly funny scene, Cheryl plays her piano while bloodlessly singing one of her hokey country compositions.

Okay, that makes this movie sound like broad comedy—and Streisand does deliver her lines in a slightly breathy Marilyn Monroe voice—but the performance is exquisitely underplayed. Streisand completely disappears into the role of Cheryl, and not just because she spends much of the film in what looks like a late-period Debbie Reynolds wig and wearing things like a lilac jumpsuit with matching eye shadow.

The Guilt Trip (2012), dir. Anne Fletcher

“There was a director, Anne Fletcher, who had been pursuing me for a year to play a Jewish mother,” Streisand writes in My Name Is Barbra. “And she wouldn’t take no for an answer…Plus it was a leading role, which I hadn’t done for a long time.” In The Guilt Trip, Streisand is New Jersey widow Joyce Brewster, who drives cross-country with her son, played by Seth Rogen, who for all intents and purposes is Streisand’s straight man. Streisand had done dithery chatterboxes before, but Joyce is prying, oversharing, and a little provincial; a collector of frog gewgaws who becomes besotted with Las Vegas slot machines. The movie didn’t set the box office on fire, but Streisand’s chemistry with Rogen should have: they’re hilarious together, especially when she’s being a pain in his tuchus.

As of this writing, The Guilt Trip is the last movie Streisand has made. In 2023, when Howard Stern asked her if she would be doing more films, she said that while she wanted to direct again, “I wouldn’t star in another movie. Too much of a pain in the ass, you know? To get your hair done, your makeup…” In her memoir, however, Streisand is wistful about her screen career: “I haven’t been in that many movies…only nineteen…while other actresses who came up at the same time have done fifty or more…Looking back, I feel as if I didn’t fulfill my potential.” Now there’s a Palme d’Or that says otherwise.