Quinlan has made a career of outshining her material, as in the maudlin "The Promise" (1979), the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor vehicle "Hanky Panky" (1982) and Blake Edwards' "Sunset" (1988). She delivered a compelling performance as the outsider drawn into a child's cartoon world in the Joe Dante-directed segment of "The Twilight Zone - The Movie" (1983). Her commanding portrayal of the demonic Patricia Kennealy, witch lover of Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer), was one of the best things in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" (1991) as was her tattooed hooker in "Trial By Jury" (1994).

Quinlan blended perfectly into the strong ensemble of Ron Howard's "Apollo 13", earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the patient wife of stranded astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks). She revealed considerable emotional range displaying Mary Lovell's feelings as she awaited the uncertain resolution of the crisis in space. Quinlan had a movie in every genre with four features opening in 1997. The tightly-constructed thriller "Breakdown" offered suspense with a razor sharp edge (although she was off-screen for much of the time), whereas her children's vehicle "Zeus and Roxanne" matched her marine biologist with dog-owner Steve Guttenberg. She also took her turn in science fiction alongside Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill as a futuristic emergency technician investigating a mysterious spaceship in "Event Horizon" and moved to the indies with John Duigan's small British drama "Lawn Dogs" (1997). Roles in the comedic misfire "My Giant" (1998) as Billy Crystal's wife, and in writer-director Steven Zallian's by-the-numbers court drama "A Civil Action" (1998) followed. After a lengthy absence from the big screen, Quinlan returned as Shia LaBeouf's mother in the second "Project Greenlight" feature "The Battle of Shaker Heights" (2003).

Quinlan has made frequent appearances on TV, debuting in "Where Have All the People Gone?" (NBC, 1974), a telefilm about radiation poisoning. Other memorable roles include a teenager with miraculous abilities in "The Abduction of Saint Anne" (ABC, 1975), a rape victim in "When She Says No" (ABC, 1984) and an adoptive mother in "Stolen Babies" (Lifetime, 1993). She also played the wife of a senator (Peter Strauss) who finds his career in ruins in "In the Lake of the Woods" (Fox, 1996). She later signed on as a regular on the CBS domestic legal drama "Family Law" (1999-2002) playing attorney Lynn Holt. That same year she appeared opposite Lauren Bacall in the telepic "Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke" (1999) based on the life and mysterious death of the well-known Los Angeles heiress and socialite.

In 1979, Quinlan made her New York stage debut in Thomas Babe's "Taken in Marriage" at the Public Theater for which she earned a Theatre World Award. Among her other stage credits are "Accent on Youth" (1983) at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven and "Les Liaisons dangereuses" at the Ahmanson Theater in L.A.