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!