My Ranking of the 87 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Winners (Vol. 1 - #87 - 66)

 

It is time for yet another ranking!

Due to the surge in readership as I finished up my Best Actress ranking series, I felt compelled to tackle the other remaining acting categories as well. 

I decided to do Best Supporting Actress next, followed by Supporting Actor, and ending with Best Actor. I have also already done a ranking for Best Picture as well.

Here is the first volume of the Best Picture series, which will also contain links to the additional volumes:

Best Picture Ranking: #94 - 80

Best Picture Ranking: #79 - 60

Best Picture Ranking: #59 - 40

Best Picture Ranking: #39 - 21

Best Picture Ranking: #20 - 1

And to go with that, here is the same for Best Actress:

Best Actress Ranking: #94 - 80

Best Actress Ranking: #79 - 60

Best Actress Ranking: #59 - 40

Best Actress Ranking: #39 - 21

Best Actress Ranking: #20 - 1

Unlike Best Actress (and Best Actor), the two Supporting categories were not created until the 9th Academy Awards but they often yielded a wide array of fascinating performances which should make these rankings a little more exciting...but check back with me at the end to see if that still feels true to me.

The true downside in the last two decades is that the Supporting categories have frequently become the place where the "co-leads" are demoted. If one co-star has slightly lesser screen time, you can almost tell which one will get the boot from Lead.

However, this does lead to some rather weird examples. Even though Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are both clearly lead in Carol, the latter got bumped to Supporting presumably because she was not as big a star as two-time winner Blanchett...and despite the fact she technically had more screen time than Blanchett.

So yes, I will be dealing with some category fraud when discussing some of these winners...but I am not really going to factor that into my selections in any negative way.

Just like with my Actress and Best Picture rankings, these will simply be based on the performance itself when compared against the other winners.

I will be doing this ranking split up into 4 volumes. The first three will be a lot larger and then the final volume will be the top 20.

It will be:

87-66

65-45

44-21

20-1

So let us begin...

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#87 - Gloria Grahame, The Bad & The Beautiful (1952)

Does it help a performer when they are in multiple films in a single year? 

They do say that variety is the spice of life and when you show your range in multiple films in a year, it could mean that you'll end up getting singled out for one if it stands out considerably more than the others.

Some actors, like Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, won multiple critics awards for multiple films...though major voting bodies force voters to narrow it down to one performance only. I could be here a lot longer if I try to think about other examples in every category so I will just stop myself.

In the case of Gloria Grahame, she had a role in three films in 1952 which included Sudden Fear, a film that netted a Best Actress nod for Joan Crawford; The Greatest Show on Earth, which was that year's (awful) Best Picture winner; and The Bad & The Beautiful, for which she won.

If I am being honest, I think she was the best thing about The Greatest Show on Earth and if she were to get a nomination, it should've been for that film.

Before I go any further, I want to get the massive white circus elephant out of the way...

I always say I am going to try to refrain from venting my frustration over performances that I feel were robbed of the win or even robbed of a nomination.

But...considering this is the winner I am ranking dead last, I figure I should shine a light on a performance that has managed to become iconic and pretty much universally agreed upon to be the rightful choice.

Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain. A truly fantastic comic villain performance that is even more amazing when you realize that she ended up dubbing the voice of Debbie Reynolds which ironically meant that Jean Hagen was dubbing herself.

I rank Gloria Grahame simply for the fact that there is nothing to her performance. The Bad & The Beautiful is a film that tells the story of three different people: a producer, a director, and a writer.

Gloria Grahame plays Rosemary Bartlow, the wife of the writer. Considering the writer portion doesn't into play until an hour or so into the film, Grahame comes in with only about 10-12 minutes of screen time and then leaves.

This isn't to say the brevity is the reason I rank her so low (because, spoiler alert, Beatrice Straight will not be on this first volume), but it is simply the fact that she is not given much to do and instead of making the character charming to watch (she is supposed to be sort of a annoying-cutesy-kid like character), she comes off as sort of mildly annoying and doesn't really give the character that much depth. She just feels so hollow and it was one of those performances where I watched it and truly wondered how they even got considered for the nod...and then they gave her the win to boot!

I do think the popularity of her film (which won 5 Oscars that night despite getting snubbed for a Best Picture nomination) certainly helped, but this is just one of those wins where I simply do not understand it even though Grahame has been much better in other films...including THAT SAME YEAR...and she beat freaking Jean Hagen!

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#86 - Laura Dern, Marriage Story (2019)

This one hurts me to rank.

As a David Lynch fan, I have always been drawn to Laura Dern. For the longest time, I used to say that I would absolutely love to be able to add the title of "Academy Award Winner" in front of Laura Dern's name...and yeah, I now get to do that. I also try to imagine it was a win for Inland Empire and not Marriage Story, but that is a whole other issue.

By the time Marriage Story had come out, we were in the midst of a "Dernaissance". She had made a splash on Big Little Lies, was featured in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and became the face of a well-known faceless character on the Twin Peaks reboot: Diane. 

Buzz began early that Dern was going to be a strong contender for the film and that she would be the one to beat. I also want to add that a lot of this buzz was centered around a particular monologue which was going to be considered her "Oscar clip".

When I finally saw the film, I was kind of amazed by what I saw...both in a good and bad way.

As a film, I really liked Marriage Story and think Adam Driver did a truly great job plus Scarlett Johannsen gave one of her best performances.

What I was really amazed by was how much I was not impressed with Laura Dern. Sure, she did add little touches to her role her in there that were very much of the "Dern aesthetic" but I feel like everything she did just made her feel like a watered down version of her Big Little Lies character Renata Klein. She also wasn't a character you could connect to in any way; she was just a vain divorce lawyer and while I think Dern did almost as much as she could with such a weak role, it just feels like it was a case of the actress winning because people wanted to honor Laura Dern.

A career Oscar in its purest form. 

Also, that monologue that was supposed to be the scene that cinches her an Oscar? I actually didn't like it at all. I feel she comes off as too mannered and performative here in what should've been a scene where we really see passion within Nora.

While I would've voted for Florence Pugh in Little Women, the category was mostly a joke because of the simple fact that none of the actresses from Parasite gained serious traction for awards.

Cho Yeo-jeong (my favorite), Park So-dam, and Lee Jung-eun in particular were all far more worthy than any of the nominees...and that isn't even factoring another actress from Parasite: Jang Hye-jin or the lovely Zhao Shuzhen who played Nai Nai in The Farewell. 

Even when a foreign film like Parasite breaks that high a glass ceiling, it STILL got zero attention for its actors (aside from that SAG Ensemble win and the occasional critics award).

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#85 - Ingrid Bergman, Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

"Thank you. It's always nice to get an Oscar" - Ingrid Bergman upon winning her THIRD Oscar for Murder on the Orient Express

At that moment, Bergman became only the third performer to win 3 Acting Oscars following Walter Brennan and Katharine Hepburn. 

I guess you could say that Bergman benefitted from weak competition in a sense. It seemed unlikely they would give the Oscar to a comedic performance (Madeline Kahn) plus I still say that the nomination of Talia Shire from The Godfather Part II is baffling...especially when Diane Keaton gets one of the best acted scenes in the film...and then you have a foreign-language performance by Valentina Cortese.

You could say that the fact it was a foreign language performance hurt her, but they ended up giving Supporting Actor to Robert DeNiro that night who only spoke Italian in the film. 

But he was also in Godfather Part II, that year's Best Picture winner and a film that was mostly in English. Cortese was in the French film Day for Night.

Bergman even stated when she won that she was shocked she beat Cortese...and it was pure class...especially because she was right.

I think Bergman does a fine job with what she was given to play with the character of Greta, but there just isn't much there. It feels like some kind of veteran win that wasn't necessarily needed.

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#84 - Margaret Rutherford, The V.I.P.s (1962)

 Ingrid Bergman won for playing an Agatha Christie character, and while this particular performance isn't from an Agatha Christie adaptation, Margaret Rutherford is mostly remembered for portraying one of Agatha Christie's most famous detectives: Miss Marple.

However, in this film, her character is mostly there to provide a few laughs and then tug at your heartstrings by the end...with not much depth otherwise.

The V.I.P.s is not the greatest movie and while Rutherford's brief interjections are enjoyable, they are mostly inconsequential.

The film takes place at London's Heathrow Airport during an intense fog that has grounded every single flight. Rutherford's character, The Duchess of Brighton, is actually flying to America to obtain a job in Florida in order to keep her castle. 

Like I mentioned before, she does manage to give the film a bit of a sentimental edge towards the end, but the role just feels too slight. Rutherford did all she really could, but that doesn't mean an Oscar should've been sent her way. At the very least, it is nice to see an actress like her have an Oscar.

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#83 - Helen Hayes, Airport (1970)

Ah, yes...the movie that began the disaster genre craze of the 1970s.

Airport is pure melodrama and I can't even say it is melodrama at its finest. While her nominated co-star Maureen Stapleton gave what would arguably be the film's standout dramatic performance, Hayes was the film's much needed comic relief.

A lot is said about how the Oscars don't tend to honor comedies, and yet I feel like a lot of the winners that tend to be comedic are ones that get the most vitriol.

I think a lot of that just has to do with certain comedic elements and styles not aging well or maybe the simple fact that comedy tastes do wildly vary.

This isn't even necessarily the best performance to even talk about that topic with as it isn't exactly a broadly comedic role. Hayes' Ada is actually caught as a stowaway on a flight and while she gets to play up the "sneaky cute little old lady" vibe, I guess the scene that really helped her look good was when she helped stage a scene to try to combat a bomber on the flight.

Still though, it felt like a very slight performance and a chance to give an acting legend a second Oscar.

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#82 - Melissa Leo, The Fighter (2011)

Loud, crass, and crude.

That is Melissa Leo as Alice from The Fighter.

And there isn't much else to say.

When Melissa Leo managed to slip into the Lead Actress race with Frozen River in 2009, it felt like a great moment for an actress who had been struggling on the fringes for years. It was also a very lovely and quiet performance.

Here though, I think Leo just got sucked into the overbearing and melodramatic sledgehammer world of David O. Russell. I had made a comment in my Best Actress ranking at one point about actresses throwing plates and how that seems to be prime for awards attention.

Actresses for nominated performances like Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom fit that bill, but Leo totally has a scene where she goes all out on some plates... and it is the definition of an over-the-top caricature. 

It is nice to see a character actress like Leo have an Oscar, but dear lord, why can't people actually win for worthy work?!

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#81 - Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Another loud and "in your face" performance that seemed so prime to be an awards magnet, but I feel like it is yet another example of a performance that also seemed very one-note. Sure, Jolie gets to play a gamut of emotions but none of it ever felt like it was coming from any kind of natural place. 

Jolie is not a bad actress, and you can clearly tell that in her performance...and prior to this, Jolie had made a splash in two TV movies where she stole the show: George Wallace and Gia. 

I just think it is a performance where everything is simply surface level and that Jolie doesn't truly grasp the character in any deep way. A lot of that can be blamed on director James Mangold as well in this case, but he has also grown as a director in recent years. 

As for Jolie's competition, I have to say this is a case where I tend to like so many of the other contenders more like Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense, Chloe Sevigny in Boys Don't Cry, Catherine Keener in Being John Malkovich, or the snubbed Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich.

All of them were far more worthy performances.

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#80 - Mary Astor, The Great Lie (1941)

When I picture Mary Astor, I think of her as Marmee opposite June Allyson in the 1949 adaptation of Little Women. She was an actress that tended to exude great warmth and compassion.

This could be why I feel like she was somewhat miscast in The Great Lie, one of those overbearing 40s melodramas that has aged like a fine glass of Egg Nog.

Astor is supposed to be playing a rich diva and while she gets the chance to play opposite Bette Davis, the results of this are surprisingly...odd.

Astor comes off as brash and shrill and like she is trying so hard to play this demanding diva while Davis, who normally excels in a role like Astor's, is so bland and dull as the wife of a woman who lost her husband in a plane crash only to discover that Astor's character is his mistress and she is carrying his child. 

It is a juicy plot straight out of a soap opera but as was often the case with many Hollywood films in the 40s, it isn't exactly handled with a lot of grace.

Astor does have her good moments...mainly when she goes for the subtlety...but she just does not do too well at finding a great balance here.

She does far better in Maltese Falcon that same year and was worthy for multiple nominations for other performances, but once again, an actress manages to win for some of her weakest work. Tale as old as time...

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#79 - Alice Brady, In Old Chicago (1937)

Alice Brady was the second winner of this category but she should've been the first. 

The year before, she was up for My Man Godfrey and she would've made a delightful winner but here, I feel like this was an early example of someone winning an Oscar very quickly after losing for a superior performance.

Think Judi Dench losing for Mrs. Brown and then winning the next year for her 8 minute cameo in Shakespeare in Love.

Brady plays Mrs. O'Leary, the woman whose cow manages to set off the Great Chicago Fire.

Despite such a silly topic, the film manages to be rather droll and not overly compelling.

Brady does fine with what she is given, but it isn't overly remarkable. However, what really ends up making me rank her so low is her rather unfortunate final scene.

After the fire, O'Leary gives a big speech about how she and her family will persevere despite the fact they are responsible for the city burning down. As a monologue, it is written extremely poorly. As a staged scene, it was like Brady received no direction and she was trying so hard to remember the monologue from memory. 

It has to be one of the worst scenes ever in an Oscar nominated film and especially for an Oscar winning performance.

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#78 - Shelley Winters, A Patch of Blue (1965)

This is one of those performances that tends to divide people, but I feel like I have heard more people be positive about her as of late compared to negative.

Much like Mo'Nique would do decades later in Precious, Winters gets to play a vicious and vindictive mother who puts her daughter through hell.

In this case, the daughter Selina (Elizabeth Hartman) is blind and she ends up attracting a suitor who just so happens to be a black man (Sidney Poitier). Considering this is the 60s and before the Loving Supreme Court case, the pairing of a white woman and a black man would certainly be considered...well...abominable in the eyes probably half the country at that point.

Winters' character Rose Ann is obviously not too pleased with a black man trying to get with her daughter, but that isn't a surprise to us.

Winters had said that this was the hardest role in her career because she simply could not fathom how this woman was the way that she was...and perhaps that is where the disconnect is a little bit.

She is certainly brash and intimidating but this is where I think writer/director Guy Green struggled too because we have another case of a role being written as being nothing more than the villain. Winters does what she can, but at its worst, it becomes unintentionally funny and borderline camp.

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#77 - Renee Zellweger, Cold Mountain (2003)

This win stands out to me so much for one big reason.

It felt like Hollywood was just DYING to give it to Zellweger...and the buzz and passion was so strong that the moment she lost Best Actress for Chicago the year prior, people said she was the frontrunner to win for Cold Mountain. 

And that remained the case all through award season where she just kept sweeping through each award to the point that after that season was over, her descent into obscurity occurred until she had her big comeback with Judy. 

As a film, Cold Mountain was a bloated epic that thankfully got snubbed for a Best Picture nomination...and it was a chore to sit through aside for some nice images and a solid performance by Jude Law...and a small supporting turn by Natalie Portman that was perhaps the most memorable scene in the film.

Zellweger gets to be the film's comic relief and she launches into the role with abandon...which only made me want to abandon watching the film within a matter of minutes.

I actually do really like Zellweger as an actress. I think she has given us some great performances and despite how much I think her work in Judy was too polished and refined to be Judy Garland at THAT stage of her life, she still managed to find some great moments within the role.

I just think this is just a case of another broad performance that seemed like a great choice to reward considering they snubbed Zellweger for two better performances the prior years. 

Meanwhile, say hi to Shohreh Aghdashloo from House of Sand & Fog because she was royally robbed for her work in that underrated film.

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#76 - Geena Davis, The Accidental Tourist (1988)

Considered something of an upset, the win of Geena Davis in The Accidental Tourist doesn't seem too bizarre on paper. She is a quirky and irreverent character who manages to help bring joy to the movie's leading man AND she is a co-lead on top of that.

The only issue is that the performance as it reads on paper is not the one that is onscreen.

The Accidental Tourist is a movie that I find to have one of the most bizarre energies I have seen in a film. Sure, it is a bleak film about a man who is mourning the end of his marriage after the death of his young son but it is also supposed to be a film where he finds light and love in his life again.

And yet, the film just feels so lethargic. 

They make Davis' Muriel Pritchett out to be a total kook with how she dresses and how she has her hair done, but it feels like the idea was to let the aesthetic do all the work and Davis would just supply the bare minimum.

I say this as someone who does like Geena Davis and I also say this as someone who wasn't even necessarily pushing for Sigourney Weaver to take the win for Working Girl. This is just a performance where I feel like so much potential was there and yet nothing seemed to be done to truly make it pop...and they STILL gave it an Oscar!

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#75 - Lee Grant, Shampoo (1975)

Yet another comedic winner and as much as I love Lee Grant, I just don't think this was a performance that warranted an Oscar.

After having been blacklisted and making a comeback in the 1970 film The Landlord, which would've been a better film for her to win for, Grant finally got the Oscar and the gratification that all of the blacklisting turmoil she went through was now a blight on the past.

*Sidenote, The Landlord is about a guy who obtains a property in a Brooklyn neighborhood and is an early example of the concept of gentrification. Even more hilarious, the neighborhood is Park Slope.

PARK. SLOPE.

This is the neighborhood just north to where I live now, and let me tell you...it has a lot of white there.*

Anyway, Grant plays Felicia Carr, a wife of a politician who is mostly unhappy and bored with her life so she starts sleeping with her hairdresser, played by Warren Beatty.

She manages to make the most of her role, ringing out the juice of every line and stealing every moment she is in...but it still just doesn't feel like there is much to the role. 

She gets some nice moments and is, perhaps, the best thing about the movie but it still just doesn't feel like there is much to really connect with.

I am kind of amazed how many of the performances so far just feel like surface-level pieces that don't offer much depth in any way. 

At any rate, I am glad Lee Grant nabbed an Oscar...but let us take a moment to acknowledge Ronee Blakley in Nashville. Although, if I am being honest, they should've put Louise Fletcher here for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and given her the win.

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#74 - Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential (1997)

One of the first Oscar ceremonies I ever watched was the 70th Annual Academy Awards, which was the year Titanic swept. 

However, that film managed to build up its haul thanks to the tech categories. The acting and screenplay categories belonged to the other BP nominees such as As Good as It Gets, Good Will Hunting, and L.A. Confidential.

Going into the ceremony, I feel like there was a lot of buzz around honoring Gloria Stuart for Titanic for sentimental reasons. However, all people had to do was look at the year prior when supposed "lock for the ages" Lauren Bacall lost the Oscar to Juliette Binoche.

In this case, they gave it to Kim Basinger...even though Julianne Moore and Joan Cusack were right there.

Come on, THEY WERE RIGHT THERE!!

Basinger's win does seem a little strange in hindsight, but I suppose it was a way to honor the movie. I do think Basinger gives off an alluring screen presence, but at the same time, it just feels like something is missing.

I have never exactly considered Basinger to be a great actress, and I have to wonder what this role would've been with a different actress?

Then again, apparently my desires are not valid since it was enough to net her an Oscar meanwhile Julianne Moore is killing at as Amber Waves and Joan Cusack is outside a bar wearing a wedding dress screaming "Is everybody gay?!?!"

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#73 - Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver (1942)

As a film, Mrs. Miniver feels like such a product for its time. A lot of people still do love the film, but I have always considered it to be just on the brink of being another soapy 40s melodrama but a lot of it is held together by the wonderful leading performance of Greer Garson.

I think Teresa Wright, who became the first performer to receive a Lead and Supporting nomination in the same year and winning for this role, is a good actress but she is yet another performer who I feel can come across as very surface level. 

A lot of her heightened emotions feel incredibly forced and it only becomes more apparent when acting opposite Greer Garson.

I don't know if I add much to add regarding her though. I find myself lacking a certain passion or interest in discussing them compared to others...which I suppose sort of makes sense. I guess it does come down to varying factors.

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#72 - Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara (1957)

I feel bad ranking this performance so low because of its historical importance, but it is just yet another case where I don't think the role really had enough to it to make for a great showcase.

Having said that, what Umeki does have going for her is the emotional impact. Due to the tragic ending of her character, she certainly does linger with you. Plus, she does have two small moments that stand out, like when she is crying to her husband (played by Red Buttons) over wanting to get surgery on her eyes or while she watches a play with him and she gets taken in by the story. 

It is just a very brief performance, but somehow, she manages to stand out and become the best aspect of the film. It just isn't necessarily enough for me to consider it an Oscar worthy performance. 

I still love that the win happened because it was such a huge push towards rewarding performers of color...granted no other Asian actress would win until Youn Yuh-jung 63 years later...and spoiler alert...her win won't be discussed on here for a little while.

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#71 - Ethel Barrymore, None but the Lonely Heart (1944)

Nowadays, when you hear the surname "Barrymore", your mind immediately goes to Drew.

There was a time when the name "Barrymore" was attached to a family of actors who were highly renowned in the world of theater.

Ethel Barrymore is the one who seems to have the biggest legacy today, if not for her small filmography but she does at least have some name recognition in the theater community as the namesake of her own Broadway theater.

So much has been said about the legend of Ethel Barrymore. Many historians have referred to her as "The First Lady of the American Theatre" (which is also a title that has been given to Helen Hayes), and even if you watch the clip of her as the Mystery Guest on the old game show What's My Line?, you can clearly see the reverence held for her. Host John Daly even says she might have "the most recognizable voice in America". 

When it comes to her film work, I always got the impression that she was always on auto pilot. Keep in mind, it was a very consistent and sturdy and well-oiled auto pilot, but it just always felt the same in how she would approach every role. 

You could say it is an early example of a performer relying a lot on her name and larger than life charisma and personality...which does feel a little cheap, but I wish that Barrymore had the chance to really show us what she was capable of in films because it truly does seem as if us in the modern day are missing out on what "they" of the 40s knew about her caliber of work in the theatre.

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#70 - Shelley Winters, The Diary of Anne Frank, (1959)

Sorry to rank you so low again, Ms. Winters...but alas, here we are.

This is just an example of another performance where I am little surprised that it got singled out for this kind of recognition.

It isn't that Winters was bad, but I just feel there wasn't as much for her to do. She did have a couple of key moments, like when she lashes out at Anne calling her a "clumsy fool" for ruining her coat and also her response to when the Frank family discovers Hans has been stealing food and she has to defend him.

Petronella is a character who is also kind of unsympathetic at times and seems to be far more willing to take advantage of the Franks despite the truly dangerous and risky arrangement they are currently in. I think Winters DOES excel well at playing these types of characters, but unlike her work in A Patch of Blue, I think Petronella is a more of a fleshed-out character...and yes, she did actually exist but as written in film form, she does work and I think Winters does all she can with her.

It is just simply another case where I can't say the work is particularly Oscar worthy.

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#69 - Gale Sondegaard, Anthony Adverse (1936)

Two little facts: Gale Sondegaard is perhaps best known these days as being the original actress they approached to play The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. The first approach with that role was they wanted to model the character after the Queen in Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, but then after decision was made to make her ugly, Sondegaard did not want to do "ugly" onscreen and that led us to get the legendary Margaret Hamilton.

The second fact: Sondegaard was the first person to win this award...and much like the many actresses around her on this ranking, I think she falls into a lot of the same traps.

In many ways, this performance is truly a supporting one. This isn't some co-lead poser who got demoted to this category for an easy win; it was exactly the kind of performance that the category was meant to honor.

However, the problem with the role all falls back onto the whole "underwritten" aspect that I have gone into time and time again.

Anthony Adverse is a bloated epic of a film and within its 2 and a half hours of screen time, Sondegaard may appear for about 15-20 minutes. Her character of Faith is another one of those bitchy divas and she is gold-digger to the nth degree...and it is only made all the more catty when you realize she is the MAID. 

When Sondegaard is onscreen, she is deliciously evil and can be very fun to watch but it just feels like that is all we get. Pure evil bitchiness with no layers yet again. 

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#68 - Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

In order to win an Oscar, sometimes you just have to play the game...and it is the game of schmoozing and campaigning. 

When Everything Everywhere All at Once came out in the spring of 2022, there was a lot of debate at the time as to whether or not this truly zany and bombastic film would actually get the attention of Oscar.

Spoiler alert: Oscar noticed...he REALLY noticed.

While my reaction to the film was more muted compared to seemingly 90% of the rest of the world, I did recall enjoying Jamie Lee Curtis' work in the film. 

Curtis is known for being a very beloved and popular figure in Hollywood, but she never often starred in Oscar-bait films. She often came close for roles in genre films like Trading Places and True Lies or, like in the start of her career, she was known for being a "scream queen" in slasher films of the late 70s/early 80s. 

Curtis basically put herself out there talking about how much she loves the recognition and acknowledgment to the point that a lot of pundits viewed it simply as Curtis as blatantly saying "I want an Oscar nomination" and Hollywood decided to give it to her.

Once she did get the nomination, her social media exploded in a fury of campaigning although it wasn't just for herself, she was a big champion for her film and her co-stars and the crew.

This win has already been declared the worst by many online (FilmTwitter, other film forums), but I wouldn't go THAT far.

I still think Curtis is enjoyable, but I can't really deny that it seems a bit strange that this ended up being an Oscar winning performance...especially when many felt her co-star Stephanie Hsu was far superior.

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#67 - Octavia Spencer, The Help (2011)

I think what made this win by Octavia Spencer so exhilarating at the time was that it was that it was a character actress who had been working and struggling for so long FINALLY getting her due.

What does sort of dampen it is that she plays a maid and the movie just so happens to be The Help...sigh...

Spencer's co-star Viola Davis got bumped to the Lead Actress race even though she herself was borderline supporting...and that path cleared up a victory for Spencer even though her great co-star Jessica Chastain was also in the mix (and had a huge splash in a few films that year).

Davis had the performance, but I am not so sure that I really even remember much about Spencer in the film aside from the infamous pie scene. 

If there is anything I do love about this win, it is that it has allowed her career to blossom and she has since received multiple Oscar nominations...though shockingly not for a performance that was better than all of her nominated performances: Luce.

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#66 - Anne Revere, National Velvet (1945)

Someone like Anne Revere was very adept at playing the warm and supportive wife and mother...and I feel like no better role captured that warmth better than in National Velvet.

The only reason I am ranking her so low is that it is yet another example of the role not really having enough meat on the bone...but she does do well with what she is given. 

I think my biggest issue is that her character of Mrs. Brown is presented in such a saintly way that she seems like she is almost the poster-child of the perfect mother. She plays it very well, but it leaves the role feeling lack it is...once again...lacking a lot of depth.

In the end though, Revere was an underrated character actress of that era and it was nice to see her get this kind of attention.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

I really was not expecting to have the kind of reaction I did to ranking this first batch of performances. The majority of these women are wonderful actresses who either took a hammy role and gave it no layers OR they didn't do enough to make a slight role very effective...even if they might've won an Oscar for it. 

You do get those cases where the role is simply the problem and the actress does about as great as one could do with the material...which I think Anne Revere really fits that description.

However, now I am curious to see how easily I can rank the rest of the performances. With the Best Actress ranking, I struggled a lot once I got towards the 40s-60s because I found myself not really knowing what to say about many of those performances.

I sort of feel like the Supporting performances often provide a lot more variety, which do make them seem a little more fun to discuss.

As of this exact moment, I sort of feel like I know who I am going to choose as #1 but I am battling out several others for the rest of the top 10. It is going to be a very delicate selection process!

Hopefully you will see the next volume by this weekend!

My Ranking of the 95 Best Actress Oscar Winners: Vol. 5 (20-1)

We have reached the "creme de la creme" of the winners...as a certain actress in this volume famously said in her Best Actress-winning performance.

Making it to the top 20 feels like a long time coming as I originally posted my first two volumes last summer...and it took me until December to finally finish up on volumes 3 and 4.

The following 19 actresses (because one of them won twice) give truly remarkable performances. In fact, the quality of these works are so high that I actually struggled as to how to rank them...and even before posting, I shifted a few performances around and even dropped one by 5 slots.

I guess you can say it has been an unnecessary bloodbath over here.

I will save any further thoughts for the end of the post where I will also be making a special announcement about a new series of posts I hope to do.

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#20 - Helen Mirren, The Queen (2006)

When discussing Oscar winners, people do often like to joke that those performances are probably very loud and dramatic. Did the actress scream and wail and break some plates? Then perhaps an Oscar was sent her way!

Leave it to an actress like Dame Helen Mirren to steamroll her way through award season by playing the stoic and sterling Queen Elizabeth II.

Let's just say I have my thoughts about the Monarchy...and I will leave it at that. I will state that I do find them fascinating and as a kid, I was obsessed with Princess Diana. 

Her funeral is still so vividly in my mind that when I revisited clips of it online when the 25th anniversary occurred in 2022, I was at how much I still actually recalled despite having not seen it for over two decades.

Considering this movie took place during that time period and focused on the backlash that the royals got for their lack of emotional outreach, it was very much up my alley.

I still think The Queen is a very good movie and I think Mirren does a splendid job playing who was arguably the most famous woman in the world.

Mirren had been one of those actresses who had been worshipped in the UK (much like Judi Dench and now a lot like Olivia Colman) but had not made a true mark on US audiences until she reached middle age. Go back and watch her as Jane Tennyson on the Prime Suspect anthology series and you will see some truly wonderful work there...or her work opposite Nigel Hawthorne in The Madness of King George.

She did face very stiff competition from Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal and Penelope Cruz in Volver, but I do feel like this was a great example of how much quiet dignity can be powerful onscreen. The stillness she often portrayed was just as strong as any actress who might've screamed and thrown a plate to the floor.

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 #19 - Emma Thompson, Howards End (1992)

Much like Helen Mirren, you also have another great bawdy dame playing at a level of stillness.

This would be Emma Thompson in Howards End, a performance of such restraint and quiet nobility that still managed to win the hearts of nearly every major voting body that year even though she wasn't throwing around any plates and screaming to anyone who would listen.

Subtle performances often do lead to debate, because for every person who may love it, another will say they did absolutely nothing. I think in the case of Emma Thompson, however, many often consider her win to be richly deserved. 

1992 was also a bizarre year for women at the Oscars because both of Lead and Supporting were taken up by non-American actresses except one in each: Susan Sarandon in Lead and, infamously, Marisa Tomei in Supporting. 

Some claimed that part of the reason Tomei won in Supporting was because she was the only American...which doesn't explain why Sarandon didn't win...even though Roger Ebert predicted that would be the reason. 

As a sidebar, Tomei's race was far more divided as the Globes went for Joan Plowright and the critics were more inclined to vote for Judy Davis...and then you have Miranda Richardson who was up for Damage as opposed to her more high profile work in The Crying Game.

Thompson was basically winning every Best Actress award under the sun for Howards End and she deserved to...so yes, subtlety wins the day and the great love affair that we Americans have had for Emma Thompson began here.

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#18 - Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Just three years after her first win for The Accused, Jodie Foster came back with what might be the defining role of her career: Clarice Starling.

Just as Emma Thompson would achieve the following year, Foster's Starling is a very subdued performance with a lot of internal anguish. 

 A lot of what has made The Silence of the Lambs an iconic film are the scenes between Foster and Anthony Hopkins, often filmed in the traditional Jonathan Demme extreme close-up form.

Hopkins was only onscreen for roughly 20 minutes and made such a strong impression that I honestly didn't realize for years how brief his screen time was...but a big reason that those scenes work so well are due to Foster. Hopkins is obviously creating an iconic character here, but the pained turmoil that Foster gives in return manages to make the most chilling of scenes have a strong emotional core.

Despite her very well deserved win, I do want to mention some of her fellow nominees which included a very iconic duo: Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon as Thelma & Louise and also the very sensual turn by Laura Dern in Rambling Rose. I think had it not been for Foster, this would've been an easy win for Sarandon.

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#17 - Kathy Bates, Misery (1990)

It just dawned on me that in the span of just 3 slots, I put the three women who won the Oscar between 1990-1992. It was a damn good stretch!

Of the three women, it seemed like Kathy Bates was the only one that didn't seem like a lock on Oscar night. She had some stiff competition and they were for performances in more typical Oscar caliber films.

Bates, at the time, was not a super well-known actress. She was primarily known in the NY Theatre scene having starred in the original productions of Marsha Norman's 'night Mother and Terrence McNally's Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune. 

When it came time for director Rob Reiner and screenwriter William Goldman to discuss casting, both seemed in agreement that despite not being a big star, Kathy Bates would be the right choice to play the freakish and psychotic Annie Wilkes, one of the more memorable human villains from the Stephen King canon.

As I stated above, it didn't seem like Bates was a sure thing on Oscar night. Her competition was quite fierce as critical favorites Anjelica Huston and Joanne Woodward were up for The Grifters and Mr. & Mrs. Bridge respectively...and to further add to that, Julia Roberts was up for her star making vehicle Pretty Woman....and while she didn't have a shot, it doesn't hurt that Meryl Streep was the fifth nominee for Postcards from the Edge.

I think on paper, Huston seemed like the logical choice because her film came the closest to a Best Picture nomination and due to her pedigree at the time, lots of publications felt she deserved to have a Lead Oscar.

Bates being in a horror film seemed like a detriment, but...she pulled it off...and DESERVEDLY SO!

What a wonderful win this was! Bates truly nailed this part and it is simply one of those roles where I can't imagine what other actresses would've done with it. In lesser hands, I think it easily would have been a train wreck of epic proportions.

This was a great way for Bates to start off her career (in terms of being a household name), and almost instantly, she seemed to develop widespread acclaim and admiration.

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#16 - Diane Keaton, Annie Hall (1977)

Despite everything that seems to go on with Woody Allen, Diane Keaton always stands by him. Even after their relationship failed, she would be there for him.

There is no denying that Keaton's presence in many of Allen's films was a truly wonderful and welcoming feature. It also helped provide a great dichotomy between her comedic work with Allen and the more dramatic fare in The Godfather films or the truly bleak Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

When watching Annie Hall, you get the sense that Allen knew exactly what it would take to make the world fall in love even more with Diane Keaton than it already had.

As the titular character, Keaton is simply sublime.

It is a cliche to say, but there is a reason why Annie Hall is often considered to be the quintessential film Woody Allen movie: he is arguably at his best playing (essentially) himself, but he goes toe-to-toe with Keaton, who can be right at his level and he gives her nothing but gold to work with.

Upon a recent rewatch while on COVID quarantine in 2020, I marveled at how well the movie held up and how truly wonderful those two were together. 

But I could ramble on about Keaton forever so I will just leave it at that...oh well..."la dee da, la dee da, la, la, yeah..."

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#15 - Sally Field, Norma Rae (1979)

When most people think about Sally Field these days, they do think of her as a serious actress who is also very adept at comedy, as well.

However, growing up, I would frequently hear references to the early days of her career in which she was the star of two cheesy 60s sitcoms called Gidget and The Flying Nun.

Performers often worry about being pigeonholed, but an early template for overcoming this stigma was Sally Field.

Norma Rae was one of those films, and roles, in which it seemed like every major actress in Hollywood turned it down for one reason or another, which allowed its director Martin Ritt to be creative.

However, Ritt had seen Field in the infamous 1976 miniseries Sybil, in which she played a woman who suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder (then known as Multiple Personality Disorder) after suffering severe abuse by her mother as a child. That has been something of a dramatic breakthrough for Field, but immediately following, she got sucked back into fluffier film work like Stay Hungry or Smokey & The Bandit. 

Ritt knew she was capable of greatness, and we end up getting a truly stunning performance.

The final result was that Sally Field became the first actress to sweep every major precursor, even down to winning the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

I do want to give a quick shout-out to one amazing contender who got snubbed, but it didn't seem like her film truly gained much traction at the time...and being foreign didn't help her sadly: Hanna Schygulla in The Marriage of Maria Braun.

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#14 - Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo (1955)

Earthy. Volcanic. Passionate. Intense.

These words are just a few of the kind of adjectives that were used to describe Italian actress Anna Magnani, who had risen to prominence on a worldwide scale after her work in Roberto Rossellini's Rome: Open City in 1945. 

In the decade following, she managed to make more of a name for herself in the United States and began to learn English. Around that same time, playwright Tennessee Williams hoped that Magnani would star in his new play The Rose Tattoo on Broadway but she simply did not trust herself with the English language yet.

When a film adaptation came into fruition later on, Magnani was now up to the challenge...and we received a truly wonderful gift.

I think it is fair to say that The Rose Tattoo isn't as known or performed as frequently as some of Williams' other efforts like A Streetcar Named Desire or The Glass Menagerie, but I do think a lot of what makes the material work is how good of a Serafina you have.

Magnani was definitive...and she never failed to give a character her all. 

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#13 - Faye Dunaway, Network (1976)

Men are supposed to be power-hungry and too focused on their work.

Well, move over, because here comes Faye Dunaway and she is so ready to exploit a man's mental breakdown all for the sake of some high television ratings.

Dunaway's Diana Christensen is a fascinating, cold, ruthless, and volatile character.

Key emphasis on "fascinating" and also very compelling. 

When watching Network these days, I feel like some of its satirical elements feel quaint by today's standards...which is also kind of depressing when you realize a lot of the bombastic nature of the tone within Paddy Chayefsky's script became somewhat of a reality.

The whole ensemble is superb, even down to the brief 5-minute winning turn of Beatrice Straight, but I think Dunaway's icy but vibrant Diana helps give the film its brisk and invigorating soul.

When Diana begins to have an affair with Max (William Holden) and she begins to climax during sex while discussing the excitement of TV ratings, I think you can't help but just find her to be hilarious and sad and diabolical all at once.

As much as I did love Dunaway in this role, I might also have been easily swayed to vote for Liv Ullman in one of the more forgotten Bergman efforts, Face to Face.    

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#12 - Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Every year as of late, I feel like it is the same thing:

Which legendary musical icon is getting a biopic?

In the last few years, we have gotten Freddie Mercury/Queen, Elton John, Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, and Elvis...and it has been a bit tiring.

If you want a real blueprint on a truly epic musical biopic performance, look no further than that of Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter.

The legend goes that Loretta Lynn had zero knowledge of Spacek when she insisted she play her. All she saw was Spacek's headshot and said "That is who I want".

Spacek was considered something of a quirky and offbeat "It" girl of the 1970s having acted in many weird low-budget indie films like Badlands or more surreal projects like 3 Women or a horror drama like Carrie. 

She may have broken tradition by getting an Oscar nom for Carrie, but she still didn't seem like the kind of actress who would dive into a more traditional kind of film.

The results were glorious, to put it mildly. Not only does she manage to play Lynn convincingly from AGE THIRTEEN up into her 30s, but she does her own singing and nails all of Lynn's mannerisms.

Even though she had truly intense competition from the likes of Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People, I think this was one of the best selections ever made in this category and certainly would've gotten my vote.

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#11 - Olivia Colman, The Favourite (2018)

At the 2019 Oscars, it was expected that it would be the long overdue coronation for Glenn Close, who had still yet to win an Oscar despite now having 7 nominations. 

The narrative was so strong that many seemed to ignore that Olivia Colman did pick up some solid precursors that did show some strong support...not to mention the fact she was leading the anonymous Oscar Ballot Polls that come out before every ceremony (though that is not always the best barometer as that same year, Richard E. Grant led those same polls for Supporting Actor).

Plus, Glenn Close was the sole nominee for The Wife while Colman was in The Favourite, a movie with 10 nominations (tied for the most of the evening). While not always the case, it certainly showed that more people were prone to watch The Favourite and, perhaps, skip The Wife.

I will state right now that if Close had won, it wouldn't have been a horrible win...but Close should already have 2-3 Oscars on her mantle for significantly better work. As we all know with the Oscars, it just doesn't tend to happen that way.

Olivia Colman was the right choice here. While you could debate she was certainly borderline supporting, I am perfectly fine with her being in Lead. It certainly makes more sense than her co-star Emma Stone being in Supporting as she is CLEARLY the real lead of the film.

Colman having this moment was glorious and after having wowed me on shows like Broadchurch or her heartbreaking performance in the film Tyrannosaur, I was ready to see this Colman surge happen.

I feel like as of this writing, there does seem to be a bit of Colman fatigue in the air, but I do think she will rebound and come back to win another potential Oscar.

Her Queen Anne is such a diabolical character, and she truly redefined how remarkable a tragicomic acting style can be.

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#10 - Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine (2013)

I often debate to myself who gave the best performance in a Woody Allen movie. After a while, you can only take so much of the "Woody Allen character" persona that he puts on and aside from Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, I feel like a lot of the best performances by females came in the supporting arena, like Judy Davis in Husbands & Wives or Dianne Wiest in Bullets over Broadway.

Despite the film essentially being A Streetcar Named Desire meets the Bernie Madoff scandal, I think Blue Jasmine was a very solid film that provided a truly magnificent role for Cate Blanchett to play...and I will state the claim now that I think this is the best performance in a Woody Allen movie and, not surprisingly, I think it is one of the best performances to ever win an Oscar.

The anxious, cold, neurotic energy she gives Jasmine is simply so compelling and it feels, at times, very reminiscent to Geraldine Page's Eve from Interiors. Both actresses are simply fantastic at making these somewhat frustrating people truly compelling. 

I often state that Cate Blanchett is the greatest actress working today, at least in the English language...and this year, she may very well win a 3rd Oscar, which will put her in the same league as other three-time winners like Ingrid Bergman and Meryl Streep.

If Blanchett does win for Tar, I would be inclined to place her in my top 20 for that performance as well. 

She's just THAT good.

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#9 - Sophia Loren, Two Women (1961)

This is another one of those examples where the movie surrounding the actress is not quite meeting her level, so the movie becomes a showcase for the actress and the main reason to see the movie.

Two Women is a short film and sometimes even an emotionally difficult movie to watch, nor does it have the most impressive screenplay nor is the direction up to the usual caliber of Vittorio De Sica.

The film works mainly because of Sophia Loren, who became the first performer to win for a performance in a foreign language.

You do have to wonder how much her beauty influenced some of the sexist male voters, but in the end, her performance is pretty close to perfect and she gets to showcase a wide range of emotions.

To this day, she is only one of two female actors (the other one will be coming up shortly) to win the Best Actress Oscar for a foreign language performance...and only one of 5 in any category.

I don't mean to sound like a snob, but if the Academy actually gave the attention to foreign films and performances in the way they should have, this list would look A LOT different right now.

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#8 - Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind (1939)

I wouldn't be surprised if some find this ranking to be too low...but I would say that being #8 is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

It is considered "in vogue" these days to kind of bash Gone with the Wind, but I have never been that big of a fan of the film. I admired it for its scope and for some of its performances, but it is a truly bloated and problematic movie.

Like a beacon, Vivien Leigh makes it worth seeing.

Scarlett O'Hara is not exactly a heroine you necessarily root for...but I think Leigh was truly the right person for this role because she had the skills to truly make a problematic character like O'Hara compelling to watch...similar to how Dunaway was able to make us enjoy watching Diana in Network...although Diana was truly more of a villain.

I do think Leigh suffers a little from the material, but her work does speak for itself...and it is so often discussed that I feel like I can't add much to the praise...or the discourse.

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#7 - Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

While other dames like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench would become more celebrated in the US as they got older, Maggie Smith made her mark while she was in her 30s. 

While known mostly these as the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey and Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series, I first discovered Smith as the Mother Superior in Sister Act...and I can recall my mom saying that Smith was such a good actress and that growing up, she was considered one of the greatest.

When you look at her work in a movie like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, you can clearly see why. 

As the titular Brodie, Smith is truly remarkable at playing such a truly chaotic free spirit who seems to challenge her students and any kind of authority.

She is a woman on a mission, and we hear it often: "Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life".

Even typing it out, I could CLEARLY hear it in my head. 

Her voice and how she uses it is simply like some sort of unique and priceless instrument.

 If you want to see a great example, check out the final scene she shares with Pamela Franklin. Both are splendid in the scene, but just watch how Smith handles everything being thrown in her face as to how her actions led to some truly horrendous consequences...AND how well she modulates her voice.

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#6 - Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose (2007)

If I were to pick an Oscar win by a performer that truly caused such immense joy for me when their name was called, I think the top of that list would be Marion Cotillard.

Going into the Oscars, there was certainly an expectation that Cotillard could overtake Julie Christie as the winner after her win at BAFTA (Julie Christie's home turf) showed a surge of last-minute surge of support for her.

The biggest hurdle for Cotillard was that her movie was not widely seen in terms of box office, and it was a foreign film.

While a movie like Parasite finally winning Best Picture and the win by Youn Yuh-jung for Minari show that the tides could change some for the better, it still seems like performances in a foreign language have a significant hurdle to overcome.

Even in the case of Parasite, none of the performers from it gained major traction for an Oscar nomination, which is truly a disgrace when you see who actually WON Oscars in most of the acting categories that year. 

Cotillard's win makes sense on paper for its transformative nature and its volcanic emotional toll, but it does feel like a random outlier still due to the fact it was a performance in French...and only one of 6 performers to win an Oscar for a predominantly non-English role.

As I discussed with Sophia Loren, I think the glamour angle did help a lot with Cotillard too...because it does seem like this category in recent years does lean towards ingenues more often than to actresses of a certain age. 

That isn't to discount Cotillard, of course, because the performance is more than worthy to be praised from now and until the cows come home.

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#5 - Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

One of the most British women to have ever...well...be British....managed to entrench herself into legendary status by playing not just one southern belle, but also another southern belle.

12 years after her star-making turn in Gone with the Wind, which we did just discuss and I doubt you forgot already, Leigh got a chance to play Blanche DuBois in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Leigh joining the project was a bit of hurdle in the sense that of the 4 main leads of the Broadway production, 3 of them got the reprise their roles.

Leigh replaced Jessica Tandy and in the process, a classically trained actor was now running toe-to-toe-to-toe with 3 performers who were straight from the world of Lee Strasberg and the Method.

What ended up working so well with this dynamic was how the other-worldly and presentational style of Leigh clashed with the realistic and brutalist nature of Brando. Considering how Blanche is living in something of a fantasy world, her heightened nature ends up being exactly what the film and role needed.

This is simply just a truly iconic role and I sort of wish that we could've seen her do the role at a time when they weren't so worried about the censorship of the material.  

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#4 - Charlize Theron, Monster (2003)

Tale as old as time. Gorgeous actress "de-glams" and gets an Oscar. 

Well, yes...that is true. 

However, the performance IS there. This isn't just a case of an actress of great beauty relying strictly on make-up to get her character across; this was Charlize Theron simply giving herself over to a truly complicated real-life serial killer and proving to the world she could simply act with the best of them.

Going into that Oscar season, I remember the talk just being rabid about Theron. Keep in mind, this was a woman who started off her career in movies that were either syrupy schlock (The Cider House Rules) or entertaining fluff (The Italian Job). 

It just goes to show you that sometimes you cannot know what any performer is truly capable of...and in the 20 years since, I feel like Theron has managed to straddle the field between populist films and indies rather well. 

Her work in movies like Tully or Young Adult show great dark comedy chops, and she managed to play a convincing Megyn Kelly in Bombshell.

Here though, this was a true marvel. It's an uncomfortable film and an uncomfortable performance...and despite the great makeup, she more than earns this on her own. Also, shout-out to her co-star Christina Ricci, with whom her chemistry is superb!

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#3 - Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice (1982)

Yeah, this performance is a legend for a reason.

Her accent work, her mastery of the Polish and German languages, her emotional depth, the brimming inner life she is able to convey with she connects with Peter MacNichol, her despair when dealing with the abusive behavior of Kevin Kline, and of course, the scene in which she has to make "the choice".

Streep is simply radiant in this role. Any time she appears onscreen, at least during the Brooklyn portions, she is like a pure burst of light.

When we watch her in the flashbacks leading up to the Holocaust and from when she first arrives in America, she seems like such a fragile, hollow shell.

Many have said that Streep is an actress that seems to be very calculating in how she performs her scenes. In some ways, I can understand that critique but I don't know if I see that in this performance.

This was also the year that Jessica Lange was up for Frances, a performance that not only truly announced the intense vitality of her as an actress (in a similar scenario to that of Charlize Theron), but one that some feel was the rightful winner.

Honestly, I think Streep deserved this one. It is a cliche to say but I do truly consider it to be one of the greatest performances ever captured on film. She gets big splashy moments (though they don't dominate the film) and all of her monologues are truly a master class.

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#2 - Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter (1968)

Katharine Hepburn may have won 4 Oscars, but much like her legendary quote about the right actors winning but for the wrong roles, she is a prime example.

THIS was the only one of her wins I supported...but if I am ranking her #2 that should go without saying.

The remarkable thing about Hepburn in this role is that she isn't British like her character is supposed to be or like her co-stars actually are...but she still somehow works so well in this world.

This is the perfect role to showcase not just the great acting chops that Hepburn had, but it was a great star turn to show off her immense charisma.

Despite the very distinct persona that Hepburn often conveyed as an actress, she did have a lot more depth than met the eye...and for the lady to win FOUR Oscars, it is obvious I don't need to convince anybody that she was truly beloved. 

As many already know, Hepburn was the one of the halves of the infamous Best Actress tie along with Streisand for Funny Girl. Not surprisingly, I do think Hepburn deserved this win alone...but I do want to acknowledge some of the other contenders as they gave some lovely performances like Vanessa Redgrave in Isadora and also a snubbed performance that didn't manage to overcome the stiff competition: Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.

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#1 - Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Considering I ranked her first Oscar win as being the third worst selection in Oscar history, I would say that performance wise and film wise and ranking wise, Taylor gets the biggest reprieve.

First of all, choosing my #1 selection was a little harder than expected.

To lay it all out, my top 5 choices were all strongly considered for my #1 slot and of the top 5, I actually had 4 of them in my top slot at one point or another...so you can truly guess how much of a close call this is.

The reason I am choosing to pick Taylor...which is actually not who I have often chose in the past, comes down to a few reasons that I want to talk about.

Simply put, this was a performance that really shouldn't have worked.

On one hand, Taylor follows the ever popular "de-glam" process that voters seem to love which included gaining weight and wearing makeup to appear older.

A lot of the reason that Taylor and her real-life husband Richard Burton were cast was because of their intense and highly followed life in the tabloids. It seemed like their star power would bring the fame a lot of attention at the Box Office.

Elizabeth Taylor, who was 33 going on 34 at the time, was smart enough to know that playing the role of Martha would be a huge undertaking and, in her own words, "a stretch". Another great decision on her part was pushing for a director whom she felt would help get her to the place she needed to achieve excellence...and she recruited stage director/writer/former comedian Mike Nichols to make his feature film debut as director.

I have often called Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may all-time favorite play and at one time I even called it my favorite movie. I don't know if I would consider it the latter anymore, but as a film adaptation, it is second-to-none. Even though the script is credited to Ernest Lehman, a lot of the dialogue is pulled directly from Edward Albee's text...which is smart considering Albee's dialogue in this show is superb.

I also think Taylor deserves a lot of praise for how well she handles the final scene, which I actually think is a lot more difficult even than others might feel.

The final line of the show is Martha responding to the joking reference of "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" to which a dejected and emotionally exhausted Martha says "I am, George. I am." 

As a final moment, I was always thought it bordered on a certain pretentious cringe factor despite my intense love for the piece, but Taylor sells it so well that I still think of it as the definitive delivery of the line...and Burton is right there with her giving a performance that should've netted him his elusive Oscar too.

Shout out to the other two members of the ensemble: George Segal and especially Sandy Dennis who managed to steal moments despite the intense brilliance happening around her.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

For those who have followed me on this journey, thank you for reading!

Having completed this ranking along with a Best Picture ranking, I have found myself enjoying the process despite how tedious it got in the middle where I found myself struggling trying to compare a lot of the performances and choosing their placements.

I found out how much I actually liked some of these performances on their own terms without focusing on the idea of who they beat...and of course, I STILL often brought that up so I guess I cannot escape that mentality. 

I did decide that due to how the last two volumes have managed to gain more readership compared to the first couple of posts, I am going to attempt to rank the other remaining acting categories. 

I will be tackling the Best Supporting Actress category next and I have already begun the process of ranking them. Usually, I try to do a full ranking first and then go through to start writing about them...and that is when I often realize I want to shift people around.

I also have to admit that when I do the Acting categories, those might be a little more of a challenge because I do tend to have more passionate opinions on the Actress categories rather than the men. Plus, some of the older winners in both Actor categories have admittedly slipped my mind.

I will probably need to revisit some of those films first before I can feel confident enough to actually tackle those rankings.

I am hoping to have the first volume of the Supporting Actress ranking up before the end of the week. We will see how quickly I get to it...but the first volume does tend to come together fairly quickly because I do tend to find a certain glee and ease at being able to choose who I liked the least.

Take care all!