The Devil Wears Prada

20th Century Fox bought Lauren Weisberger's novel in 2003 before it was finished, but the film was not greenlit until Meryl Streep agreed to play Miranda Priestly, the editor of Runway. Weisberger had been an assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue, and Wintour's shadow hung over everything: fashion figures stayed away for fear of displeasing her, Valentino was the only designer who appeared as himself, and Streep recalled that "the industry was afraid of Anna, so we couldn't find any clothes" until Prada agreed to help. Four writers worked on the script; Aline Brosh McKenna's draft refocused it on the fight between Miranda and her new assistant Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), with Stanley Tucci as Nigel and Emily Blunt as the senior assistant. McKenna toned down Miranda's cruelty at the producers' request, then restored it for Streep.

Streep made it the only film of her career where she stayed in character between takes. She said she borrowed the soft voice from Clint Eastwood, insisted on white hair over the producers' fears that it would age her, and told Hathaway she was perfect for the role before warning that it was the last nice thing she would say. The "that's all," the coat tossed on Andy's desk and the discarded steak lunch all came from the novel; "florals, for spring" was written as two flat sentences that Streep turned into questions. Costume designer Patricia Field had a $100,000 budget and put an estimated million dollars of borrowed clothing on screen, the single priciest item being a $100,000 Fred Leighton necklace on Streep. Blunt and Streep wore Uggs whenever their feet were out of frame.

Fox opened it on June 30, 2006, against Superman Returns, and it took $27 million in second place, never topped a weekend and stayed in the top ten all July on its way to $125 million domestic and $327 million worldwide, a career high at the time for Streep, Hathaway and Blunt alike. Streep won the Golden Globe and earned her fourteenth Oscar nomination; Field was nominated for costume design. Wintour attended the New York premiere in Prada, was reported to have predicted it would go straight to DVD, and later called it "really entertaining"; in 2025 she said it was a fair shot.

The New York Times wrote in 2008 that the film had defined the public image of the personal assistant. The Simpsons did "The Devil Wears Nada," Michael Scott opened an episode of The Office doing Miranda, and Ugly Betty arrived months later. The one reassessment fans forced was of Andy's boyfriend Nate, now widely called the real villain; Adrian Grenier conceded in 2021 that the character "was a fragile, wounded boy." A sequel arrived in May 2026, with Streep and Wintour sharing a Vogue cover to promote it.