With her daring new erotic thriller “Babygirl” hitting theaters Dec. 25, Nicole Kidman turns in yet another unconventional (and sexy) Christmas movie, making for a perfect pairing with “Eyes Wide Shut,” Stanley Kubrick’s Christmas in New York tale of sexual obsession, starring the married (at the time) couple of Kidman and Tom Cruise.

In “Babygirl,” Kidman works with a female writer/director, Halina Reijn, who drastically rewires the erotic thriller formula to orient the high-stakes sexuality around female pleasure, in a bracing and honest depiction of the heart’s innermost desires. After your Christmas Day viewing of “Babygirl” in theaters, stream “Eyes Wide Shut” on Paramount+ or rent it on iTunes.

While Kidman works prodigiously, “Babygirl” is a reminder of how great she is working with a daring auteur such as Reijn or Kubrick, and among her prestige television projects, biopics, comic book films and other mainstream fare, she makes the time to work with forward-thinking filmmakers, helping to get their projects financed with her star power, and keeping her acting muscles limber. So stream some of Kidman’s best auteur projects — she’s one of our finest actors and never rests on her many, many laurels.

One of her breakout roles was one such daring project, 1995’s “To Die For,” directed by Gus Van Sant. Kidman played Suzanne Stone in a story based on the true-life Pamela Smart story, portraying a narcissistic, ambitious broadcast journalist, who seduces a teenager and manipulates him and his friends into murdering her husband. This campy, satirical black comedy hinges around Kidman’s note perfect performance. Rent it on iTunes or Amazon.

Kidman had already won an Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in “The Hours,” but she quickly moved on to working with visionary director Jonathan Glazer in his 2004 film, “Birth,” in which Kidman plays a woman convinced that her dead husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy. The film was not well-received at the time, but has since been critically reclaimed. Rent it on iTunes.

She made two fascinating films in 2017 that have remained somewhat under the radar. John Cameron Mitchell’s out there teen space fantasy “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” truly came and went, but it’s a fun, kooky film with Nicole playing an alien queen. Stream it on Kanopy, Prime Video, or rent it on iTunes. In a much darker direction, Kidman tackled the mysterious word of Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, in one of his most disturbing films, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” opposite Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan in one of his breakout roles. Stream it on Max, Kanopy or rent it on iTunes.

She followed that up in a nearly unrecognizable turn in the gritty L.A. noir “Destroyer,” directed by Karyn Kusama, as a downbeat detective reckoning with her past. Stream it on Prime Video, Roku, Tubi or rent it on iTunes. Finally, don’t forget her wild turn in Robert Eggers’ Viking epic “The Northman,” streaming on Peacock, Starz or available for rent on iTunes. When it comes to her career, Kidman is fearless, and she has the resume to back it up.

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