Her worldwide breakthrough was with Stay as You Are (1978).
She then came to global prominence with her Golden Globe Award-winning performance as the title character in the Roman Polanski-directed film Tess (1979).
Other notable films in which she acted include the erotic horror film Cat People (1982), the Wim Wenders dramas Paris, Texas (1984) and Faraway, So Close! (1993), and the biographical drama film, An American Rhapsody (2001).
Kinski is fluent in four languages: German, English, French and Italian.