LOS ANGELES

In “The Iron Lady,” which opened in limited release last week, Meryl Streep plays an aging Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister.

The film from Phyllida Lloyd is set as a series of flashbacks. We meet the once formidable world leader in her old age, attended to by her staff, slightly senile, lost at times in memories of her past — both the glory and the pain.

For those who remember or study history, the life of the conservative Thatcher is likely to engender differing reactions, depending where your politics lie.

But if there were a film about the 62-year-old Streep’s own career, we doubt there would be much division.

It’s hard to know why she was destined for greatness, although she is obviously smart. The New Jersey native went to Vassar for her undergraduate degree and then Yale for her masters of fine arts, which led to the New York City stage, where she made her mark playing a variety of roles in the mid- 1970s.

Since then, cheers are the norm for performances by the actress. Streep has won two Oscars and has a record 16 nominations as an actress; and there’s 25 Golden Globe nominations, with seven wins. You can throw in a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute and plaudits too numerous to count.

But since a Streep biopic isn’t likely soon, we wondered what one might be like — at least career-wise.

We’re not going to speculate about her private life, which seems exceedingly normal/ dull for a Hollywood star. The actress has been married for 33 years to sculptor Don Gummer. The couple have four children, including her oldest, the musician Henry Wolfe, and three daughters, two of whom have followed their mother into the acting profession.

While “The Iron Lady” is based on facts, it is, of course, something of a phantasmagoria. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Thatcher’s biographers are unhappy with the portrayal of the British leader touched with dementia even if she is played by the acclaimed Streep.

While people have made fun of the many accents she’s used in films and some of her movies have been ho- hum, Streep has rarely — if ever — been dull. You can analyze her performances forever and never know what makes them special, but whatever it is, she’s got it.

So in our own phantasmagoria of the actress’ film and television career, here’s what Streep might flash to in her old age:

Holocaust

The 1978 miniseries, in which she played a Catholic woman who marries into a Jewish family, was the first time that most people got to see Streep’s talent. She had previously been in a TV movie called “The Deadliest Season,” about hockey violence, and in a supporting role in “Julia,” a drama set in prewar Nazi Germany, opposite heavyweights Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. The actress picked up an Emmy for her performance in “Holocaust.”

The Deer Hunter

The 1978 Oscar-wining film from Michael Cimino starred Robert De Niro, and Streep received her first Oscar nomination as best supporting actress, playing the girlfriend of a soldier ( Christopher Walken) who is sent to fight in the Vietnam War.

Manhattan and Kramer Vs. Kramer

In the two 1979 films she plays a former wife of the movies’ male stars. In “Manhattan,” she is Woody Allen’s ex, who has become a lesbian and is writing a confessional book about her marriage.

“Kramer” finds her opposite Dustin Hoffman as a woman who leaves her husband to raise their child. The role won Streep her first Oscar as best supporting actress.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman

The 1981 adaptation of John Fowles’ literary romance finds Streep playing two roles — that of a woman having an affair in Victorian England and the actress who plays her in a movie who is having an affair with her costar (Jeremy Irons). Another Oscar nod.

Sophie’s Choice

In a role set around World War II, Streep plays a Polish immigrant living with her lover in postwar Brooklyn. A young writer living nearby learns her secret that she was once married but her husband and her father were killed in a German work camp and that she was interned in Auschwitz, where she had to make a decision that haunted her life. Streep won the Oscar as best actress for the role in the 1982 Alan J. Pakula film.

Silkwood

Another year, another Oscar nomination, this one in Mike Nichols’ 1983 film for playing Karen Silkwood, the whistleblower who worked at a plutonium processing plant and died in a mysterious accident.

1984-1994

We imagine this as a montage. Though the decade would bring four more nominations and some good films, it also brought some misses.

Streep was paired twice with another perennial Oscar nominee, Jack Nicholson, in very different films — the 1986 comedy “ Heartburn” and the gritty 1987 drama “Ironweed.”

She starred opposite De Niro again in “ Falling in Love” (1984), Robert Redford in “Out of Africa” (1985) and Albert Brooks in “Defending Your Life” (1991).

There were a couple of black comedies — “ She- Devil” ( 1989) and “ Death Becomes Her” (1992).

In 1994, she showed she could play an action figure in “The River Wild” — saying she did the film because she wanted to have an adventure like Harrison Ford — and in the 1990 comedy “Postcards From the Edge,” she showed us what a lovely voice she has.

The Bridges of Madison County

Streep returned to the romantic realm as an ordinary farmer’s wife who finds love in an affair with a photographer (Clint Eastwood) in this 1995 drama, which was also directed by Eastwood.

Marvin’s Room

She plays Leonardo DiCaprio’s mother in this 1996 ensemble drama that also starred Diane Keaton and De Niro.

The Hours and Adaptation

The year 2002 brought two more acclaimed performances from Streep. In “Adaptation,” she’s the fantasy version of a deranged screenwriter, and in “ The Hours” she’s a woman whose life is affected by Virginia Woolf ’s novel “ Mrs. Dalloway.”

Angels in America

In the 2003 HBO miniseries based on the play by Tony Kushner, Streep takes on four roles, including that of convicted Cold War spy Ethel Rosenberg. It brought her Emmy No. 2.

A Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada

In “Prairie,” the last film from the late Robert Altman, considered an actors’ director, Streep got to sing again, this time as a member of a country music family in this 2006 fictional account of behind-the-scenes activities of the public radio show of the same name.

That year also brought her delicious turn as nasty fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Mamma Mia! and Doubt

Both films are from 2008. The first is about as fluffy as Streep ever gets. In the ABBA- song- filled musical comedy, she plays a woman running an inn on a Greek island preparing for the marriage of her daughter, when the three possible fathers of the girl show up.

In “ Doubt,” she plays a stern nun — Sister Aloysius Beauvier — concerned with possible child-molestation by a priest.

Julie & Julia and It’s Complicate

For the 2009 role, the 5-foot- 6- inch actress had to look much taller and take on the sing-song speech of the famed TV chef Julia Child.

The same year, Streep proved even at 60 she could be charming in a romantic comedy with “It’s Complicated,” opposite Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

With “ The Iron Lady,” Streep is likely to get a 17th Oscar nomination, and slated for a December release is “Great Hope Springs,” a story of a 30-year marriage unraveling.

Is she the greatest film actress ever? It’s hard to argue against it. Some years you think Academy voters’ reasoning comes down to: Well, she got two and she’ll be back next year.

But, as they say, the stats speak for themselves. So the answer is simple: Yes.

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