Spacek was born on December 25, 1949, in Quitman, Texas, the daughter of Virginia Frances (nee Spilman; December 18, 1917 - November 10, 1981) and Edwin Arnold Spacek Sr. (July 3, 1910 - January 7, 2001), a county agricultural agent. Her mother, who was of Polish, English and Irish descent, was from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. At age 6, she performed on stage for the first time, appearing in a local talent show.

Spacek began the 1980s with an Oscar award for her role in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), in which she played country music star Loretta Lynn, who selected her for the role. In the film, both she and Beverly D'Angelo, who played Patsy Cline, performed their own singing. Film critic Roger Ebert has credited the movie's success "to the performance by Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. With the same sort of magical chemistry she's shown before, when she played the high school kid in Carrie, Spacek at 29 has the ability to appear to be almost any age on screen. Here, she ages from about 14 to somewhere in her 30s, always looks the age, and never seems to be wearing makeup." Spacek also was nominated for a Grammy Award for her singing on the film's soundtrack album. She followed this with her own country album, Hangin' Up My Heart (1983); the album spawned one hit single, "Lonely But Only For You", a song written by K. T. Oslin, which reached No. 15 on the Billboard Country chart.  In the film Heart Beat (1980), Spacek played Carolyn Cassady, who slipped (under the influence of John Heard's Jack Kerouac and Nick Nolte's Neal Cassady) into a combination of drudgery and debauchery. Spacek was so adamant about getting the role, that she pored through over 4,000 pages of research to prepare for her character. Producer Ed Pressman and director John Byrum took her to dinner to advise her that she did not have the role. Spacek was so distraught at the news that she shattered a glass of wine in her hand. After that, Pressman walked up to Spacek with a piece of shattered glass and told her she had the role. He said that Spacek breaking the glass clinched the deal, and they believed she would ultimately best suit the part. The film was released on April 25, 1980 to mixed critical reviews.  Also in the 1980s, Spacek starred alongside Jack Lemmon in Constantin Costa-Gavras's political thriller Missing (1982, based on the book The Execution of Charles Horman) and appeared with Mel Gibson in the rural drama The River (1984), and with Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange in 1986's Crimes of the Heart (1986). She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for all of these roles. Other performances of the decade included star turns in husband Jack Fisk's directorial debut Raggedy Man (1981) and alongside Anne Bancroft in the suicide-themed drama 'night, Mother (1986). Spacek also showed her lighter side by voicing the brain in the Steve Martin comedy The Man with Two Brains (1983).

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