In a statement on Friday, her family said Plowright died on Thursday at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in southern England, surrounded by her loved ones.
"She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire," the family said.
"We are so proud of all Joan did and who she was as a loving and deeply inclusive human being."
Joan Plowright and husband Laurence Olivier starred in John Osborne's The Entertainer on Broadway. (AP PHOTO)
Part of an astonishing generation of British actors - including Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins and Maggie Smith - Plowright won a Tony Award and nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy.
She was awarded the title of dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Plowright racked up dozens of stage roles in everything from Chekhov's The Seagull to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
She stunned in Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs, and George Bernard Shaw's totemic two female roles Major Barbara and Saint Joan.
Plowright appeared in plays by John Osborne, Shelagh Delaney and Arnold Wesker.
The new, rough-hewn, working-class actors such as Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Anthony Hopkins were her peers.
"I've been very privileged to have such a life," Plowright said in a 2010 interview with The Actor's Work.
"I mean it's magic and I still feel, when a curtain goes up or the lights come on if there's no curtain, the magic of a beginning of what is going to unfold in front of me."
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