Hurt was married to actor William Hurt from 1971 to 1981. After that marriage ended in divorce she remarried, to writer/film director Paul Schrader in 1983; they have a daughter and a son.
Hurt made her film debut in Woody Allen's dramatic film Interiors as Joey, the middle of three sisters dealing with the emotional fallout of a family's disintegration and their mother's descent into mental illness. Other film roles include Laura in Chilly Scenes of Winter; Helen Holm Garp in The World According to Garp; and as Regina Beaufort in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. Hurt also played Jean Seberg, in voice-over, in Mark Rappaport's 1995 documentary From the Journals of Jean Seberg.