I am very behind on this.
I posted the two previous volumes earlier this year (with the most recent being way back in June), and have had trouble finding the drive to pick it back up.
In the past few months, I have sort of been gradually preparing this list and shifted around some of the names but this is where a lot of my problems were coming from.
As fun as making lists are, there just comes a point where it becomes hard to necessarily compare something like performances...especially so many of them are pretty good and on what I would consider to be an equal level.
Also, it becomes a matter of sorting out performances of varying styles whether they be bigger or subtler, from the 30s or from the 2010s.
We are entering a portion of the ranking where I find myself having varying opinions and not necessarily immense passion for the performances as a whole, but they are good performances. Some made for solid Oscar wins, some were what I would consider a slight waste...but on their own, they represent solid or even very good work.
So, maybe this list would look different if I revisited some of these films back to back again...but for now, here come my selections for #59-40.
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#59 - Marie Dressler, Min & Bill (1931)
In one of the earliest performances to win an Oscar, you can easily say that Marie Dressler was something of an anomaly.
The ageist attitudes of Hollywood have always been present and the fact that an actress of Dressler's age/stature won this award...and for pretty much a comedy no less...is quite the accomplishment.
Very few actresses had the kind of command and presence of Dressler...who could make Beatrice Arthur look relatively demure by comparison.
Min & Bill is a very brief film and not overly remarkable, but it would be worth seeing for Dressler. These days, Dressler is better remembered for being a part of the famous Ma & Pa Kettle film series.
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#58 - Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond (1981)
Going into the Oscars that evening, many pundits felt that Best Actress was between Diane Keaton for Reds and Meryl Streep for The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Katharine Hepburn's win was considered a major shock. It was also historic as this was her 4th win, something no other performer has duplicated.
There is no denying the memorable nature of her performance or her chemistry with Henry Fonda. Her most famous scene where she refers to Fonda as her "knight in shining armor" is easily the highlight of the film.
I don't think too much of the film, but Hepburn and Fonda were both lovely and I appreciate that their wins along with Supporting winners Maureen Stapleton and Sir John Gielgud gave us the oldest average age of winners to date.
Who would I have given it to, though? I actually think Susan Sarandon was truly luminous in Atlantic City and would've loved to see her and Burt Lancaster win for that film. I also would've gladly supported a win for Diane Keaton in Reds.
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#57 - Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce (1945)
Very few performers of any gender are as iconic and infamous as Joan Crawford...which might have a lot to do with her hatred for wire hangers.
Crawford also seems to polarize a lot of people, famous or not, that question if she truly was as psychotic as her adopted daughter Christina claimed.
Beyond that, I am going to refrain from going further into that discussion and instead focus on Crawford as an actress.
Her co-star from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bette Davis, was not a fan of Crawford...and the feeling was mutual, but Davis could also admit the truth.
Davis was once quoted in an interview as saying Crawford was "a consummate professional" in that she was always punctual and knew her lines and was pretty much no-nonsense.
There is no denying Crawford's meticulous nature helped her achieve great success as an actress, but I have also never taken to her much in that arena.
I do think Mildred Pierce was essentially "lightning in a bottle" for Crawford...and this Oscar served not just as deserving acknowledgment for her work in the film, but as a career award as she had yet to receive even a nomination despite a pretty successful 20-year career dating back to silent films.
*Side note: Had supporting categories existed in 1933, I would have to assume she would've been an easy winner as Flaemmchen, the stenographer in Grand Hotel*
I am inclined to say that this win was perfectly acceptable as it seemed very attuned to the exact skills that Crawford was able to excel at.
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#56 - Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking (1995)
Following 4 nominations, with 3 happening over the span of 4 year, Susan Sarandon won on her 5th nomination for her performance as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking, a film based on the true story of a nun who ends up becoming a staunch protester of the death penalty when she encounters an innocent man who is on Death Row.
Directed by her then-partner Tim Robbins, Dead Man Walking is one of those rare examples of a Hollywood film that leans rather heavily into more leftist politics...and it was certainly far better than most of the actual Best Picture nominees that year.
I don't consider this to be Sarandon's best work (I am more of a fan of Atlantic City which I discussed under Hepburn's On Golden Pond win), but it is a very solid win for a performance that could've been a lot worse since it was practically an overdue selection at that point.
Of the nominees, I actually sort of preferred Elisabeth Shue from Leaving Las Vegas but a lot of my favorite performances that year were snubbed.
Nicole Kidman proved she was capable of brilliance in To Die For and should have won her first Oscar here. Another major snub (which was considered a longshot) was Kathy Bates in Delores Claiborne, a performance in a truly underrated film from one of the more underrated titles in the Stephen King canon.
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#55 - Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
I was very young when Jessica Tandy passed away in 1994, but she left something of an indelible impression on me as a kid because she is one of the few performers that I can vividly recall being among the first I acknowledged.
This had primarily been due to her performance in Fried Green Tomatoes, which was a big favorite to both my mother and grandmother. I do recall not long after seeing Driving Miss Daisy at my grandmother's house and the honest truth was that I actually liked the film.
It wasn't until I got older that I understood that the film was a rather mawkish and treacly affair about the concept of race...but despite that, Tandy did a nice job.
She also has wonderful chemistry with Morgan Freeman, who steals the film despite his caricature of an accent.
Tandy was certainly a sentimental favorite going into Oscar night, but she did manage to get the win over her biggest competition: Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, who managed to win several critics wins plus the Drama Globe.
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#54 - Helen Hayes, The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932)
The title of "First Lady of the American Theatre" has been given to a couple of different women, but the first person I ever heard referred to as such was Helen Hayes.
Much like other women who got the title (like Ethel Barrymore), Hayes never strayed far from the stage and only acted in films sporadically.
While The Sin of Madelon Claudet benefits from being a pre-Code film, it also gets docked for its rather stuffy and offensive treatment of a woman who just made some bad choices in her life. In that regard, you could also see the glimmers of the Hays Code within it.
Hayes does come off as a little theatrical at times, but there is a humanity to her that feels very potent and alive which isn't always apparent in some of these films from the 30s.
Considering a lot of the performances that were getting honored at the time, I think Hayes' stands out as being rather solid.
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#53 - Frances McDormand, Nomadland (2020)
I was admittedly a little bummed when McDormand won this Oscar...mainly because I didn't feel like it was a performance that felt undeniable or that warranted a third Academy Award for Lead Actress...something that only Katharine Hepburn has duplicated.
I also felt like Carey Mulligan had more than earned a win and she was truly dynamic in Promising Young Woman.
I was not as in love with Nomadland as critics were and I did question its take on a company like Amazon, but I do admire the film and what Chloe Zhao achieved with it.
Considering most of the cast were non-actors who actually were living as nomads in real life, there is an authenticity to the film that feels so rich, but it doesn't feel forced. I think what is truly remarkable about an actress like McDormand is that she truly fits into this world. I honestly think no other actress (of her stature or fame) could ever have come close to capturing this kind of performance with these group of people. Having a scene partner like David Strathairn also helped greatly because he, too, blended very well into the environment.
As it stands, I am still not sure she would've made my lineup.
My personal vote for Best Actress that year was the snubbed Jasna Duricic from Quo Vadis, Aida?, a film about the 1995 Bosnian genocide.
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#52 - Olivia de Havilland, To Each His Own (1946)
To Each His Own is not a great film and it tends to sort of fall into some of the more melodramatic tropes of 40s Hollywood cinema...and it also isn't de Havilland's best work by any stretch.
However...this win was a great example of perseverance as de Havilland had fought the studio system over both the true structures of acting contracts and the quality of roles for women.
This didn't adhere to some of the major studio heads, but in her favor, the studio system hierarchy was approaching the last stretch of its heyday.
Olivia de Havilland won two Oscars (her 2nd win will be coming up later on), but I feel like perhaps she should've won her first Oscar for a different film.
In this particular year, I would've voted for Celia Johnson, whose truly delicate performance in Brief Encounter is a prime example of the true power of subtlety.
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#51 - Cher, Moonstruck (1987)
I like Cher very much...and I think her performance here is delightful.
Moonstruck is probably one of my favorite romantic comedies ever made; I also think John Patrick Shanley also helped make it fresh by adding a great subplot for Olympia Dukakis, who played Cher's mother, as she has to navigate the infidelity of her husband and ends up having a quick dinner with a younger man with a seemingly similar roving eye.
This is an Oscar win I admire greatly on its own merits and I think there is no denying that Cher has natural acting talents...and any training she may have received from Lee Strasberg in the early 80s only solidified that.
I do want to recommend the movie Mask from 1985 (no relation to the Jim Carrey film), as it probably contains Cher's greatest performance, though Moonstruck is a close second.
However, 1987 truly belonged to two women:
Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction
Holly Hunter, Broadcast News
These performances are two polar opposites and while Close's borderlines a very problematic area in how it presents a scorned woman, there is no denying it is an iconic performance and a SUPERB performance.
Hunter's Jane Craig is a marvel, too. She is a strong but also vulnerable and flawed woman...I would go as far to say it may be the greatest character that James L. Brooks ever wrote, and it is easily the best film of his career.
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#50 - Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night (1934)
I think Claudette Colbert truly lucked out in a lot of ways.
On one hand, it was obvious that the Academy loved her film as it became the first to win the top 5 big Oscars of the evening: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay.
Colbert was a highlight and gave a truly lovely performance, but this was the infamous year that Bette Davis got snubbed for her rather visceral performance in Of Human Bondage, the film that sort of set up the expectation that this young actress would be a different kind of performer than any of her peers...and one who would not shy away from vile characters.
I think on her own merits, Colbert is a worthy winner. Perhaps she doesn't match the same level of screwball comedy prowess that her peers of the era cultivated like Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, or Jean Arthur...but she works well with Gable and brings great sophistication and wit to one of the last films to come out before the dreaded Hays Code ruined pretty much everything.
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#49 - Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday (1950)
This is an Oscar win that is often considered one of the most infamous because a major comedic performance managed to best Bette Davis in All About Eve and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.
I can't say for certain what the consensus is, but while I supported the Best Picture win for All About Eve, I do think I would've voted for Swanson.
This isn't to say that Holliday is an undeserving winner. I do think maybe she appears a little green at times onscreen, but considering this role made her a Broadway sensation, she still manages to create a compelling onscreen persona.
I have expressed this before, but it seems like a very frustrating Catch-22 where a lot of people bemoan that not enough comedic performances (or any genre performances for that matter) are rewarded Oscars...and yet, whenever it seems to happen, they are often some of the most hated wins.
I don't even have the same passionate response to Davis and Swanson as other film historians do...but either way, I think Holliday doesn't deserve the intense hate she does often get.
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#48 - Susan Hayward. I Want to Live! (1958)
This is a performance that I actually struggled to rank, because I find myself both marveling at Hayward and cringing at the same time.
Hayward was an actress who loved to...well...emote.
If I would compare her to any actress that is pretty well known to audiences of today, it would be Jessica Lange.
However, my problem with Hayward is that she often borders a campy melodramatic line that she never truly masters without falling into the pool.
I think I Want to Live! represents her finest performance if only for the fact that she didn't entirely fall into that overbearing melodrama like she did in films like I'll Cry Tomorrow (although that film does play differently when you realize how much it personally related to her) and by the end, she makes some truly subtle choices in moments of silence that show she might've been able to achieve balanced excellence if directors were more willing to reign her in.
So I am okay with the win, but I wouldn't have been opposed to Rosalind Russell taking it for Auntie Mame or Elizabeth Taylor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
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#47 - Janet Gaynor, Sunrise/Seventh Heaven/Street Angel (1928)
So, yes, Janet Gaynor has the distinction of being not just the first Actress to win this award, but also being the only one to win it for multiple films.
In addition to this, Gaynor is the only actress to win this for Silent films.
I have to admit that I have never seen Street Angel but I have seen Seventh Heaven and Sunrise. I think both of these films are actually quite good, especially Sunrise which I consider one of the best films to come out of the Silent era.
I think Gaynor does her best work in Seventh Heaven but is buoyed up more by the content of Sunrise.
Gaynor would later prove to be an equally strong actress once the talkies came along as she was the original actress to portray the Esther role in the now seemingly ongoing A Star is Born franchise...but she also worked so strongly in Silent films because she had that undeniable quality where she could express so much just with her eyes.
Not everyone succeeded when talkies came along (coughMaryPickfordcough), but Gaynor did...and she deserves more praise and discussion by today's film historians.
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#46 -Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday (1953)
Very few women are as truly iconic as Audrey Hepburn.
In an era where feminine beauty was epitomized by the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner, Hepburn stood out as a different kind of beauty: svelte and sweet.
Considering Roman Holiday was her first real film role, Hepburn came out of the gate with guns blazing...and with a role that was truly suited to her sweet and genteel charms.
Hepburn would eventually prove herself to be a great dramatic actress in films like A Nun's Story and Wait Until Dark or Two for the Road...but there is no denying the true indelible charm and grace she exudes in this film and how well she works with Gregory Peck, an actor who wasn't always the most consistent scene partner a performer could have back then.
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#45 - Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight (1944)
As the first of her 3 Oscar wins, I would say that Gaslight is easily the most deserved of Ingrid Bergman's wins and probably one of the best performances of her entire career.
Many bemoan the fact that she beat out Barbara Stanwyck's legendary Femme Fatale in Double Indemnity, especially considering Stanwyck never ended up winning a competitive Oscar. I think that Bergman's win is pretty deserving in the grand scheme.
Gaslight may not be quite as strong as Double Indemnity, but it is pretty close. It works very well as a thriller, especially considering that it came out in 1944.
Bergman is so indelibly linked to Casablanca that it may be hard to forget that she had a pretty extensive career otherwise, but I think when looking at a film like Gaslight, you can tell she was able to bring a lot to the table.
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#44 - Simone Signoret, Room at the Top (1959)
Often considered a win that is questionable, I think Simone Signoret suffers mostly from the debate over how much one might like the art of subtlety.
Room at the Top is a pretty prototypical 50s melodrama, but Signoret manages to anchor the film down quite beautifully. It is also a performance that I could easily see getting pushed down to Supporting by today's standards since "Supporting" tends to be the place where borderline performances are placed if they feel they may not have as best a shot in lead.
Signoret, the first French actress to win an Oscar, also comes off as quite naturalistic in the film. Despite some of its pulpy nature, it holds up a lot better than most films of its kind from that era and I think her work is a true testament to that.
I do think that if they had honored Audrey Hepburn for A Nun's Story that I would've also gladly accepted that, too.
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#43 - Nicole Kidman, The Hours (2002)
I am no devotee to The Hours as a film, but I do acknowledge that the three female leads are simply fantastic. I do have to state that despite the fact that the film is split into 3 parts and the women have mostly equal screentime, I sort of feel like Kidman is the one who should've been in Supporting and not Julianne Moore.
Although, the only reason that push occurred was because Moore had Far from Heaven that year in which she was the true lead of the film so for the sake of campaigning tactics, she got bumped to Supporting.
Kidman winning the Oscar almost felt like a coronation that Hollywood was dying to perform. Hot off the heels of her infamous divorce from Tom Cruise, sympathies seemed to fall in her favor and then she gave us the one-two punch of Moulin Rouge and The Others shortly thereafter.
The Hours, in which she also infamously donned a fake nose which seemed to get just as much press as the impending War in Iraq at the time, was the seemingly perfect role to give the new IT girl her due...even though, as I mentioned, she should've won for To Die For 7 years prior.
As for her work as Virginia Woolf, I do have to commend her overall, but the only reason I placed her even this high was for what most film fanatics refer to as "The Train Station Scene", in which she fights with her husband Leonard. I still think one of the more emotionally powerful line deliveries I have heard in a film in the last 25 years was Kidman screaming "I am dying in this town!"
This scene alone is one of the best acted scenes by an actress ever.
Though I still probably would've given Moore the Oscar for Far from Heaven...and since she was technically eligible that year, my favorite performance might've been Isabelle Huppert for The Piano Teacher.
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#42 - Julie Christie, Darling (1965)
Julie Christie doesn't get a lot of discussion these days. Even when she came THISCLOSE to winning another Oscar for Away from Her back in 2008, I feel like there wasn't as much passion surrounding her despite her relative legend.
Many of her contemporaries are highly regarded and beloved by younger generations today like Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren...though Christie never seemed to seek that kind of stardom.
Looking back her earlier films like Billy Budd and Darling, you can see how much she embodied the quirky persona that seemed to be linked with the swinging scene of London in the 60s.
If you check out the great YouTube channel, BeKindRewind, she talks a lot about this particular race in particular and how Christie represented something of a new movement.
Here's a link to that video and check out the rest of her content...she is FANTASTIC!
I agree with her that Christie's performance in Darling plays more like something you'd see a male actor play in a 1970s film. She is essentially an anti-hero before that became the norm...and even though her character of Diana Scott does seem truly questionable thing, Christie somehow makes her compelling and the furthest thing from "one-note".
A great example of an anti-hero in film before it took off as a beloved trend.
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#41 - Bette Davis, Jezebel (1938)
When looking at the two Best Actress awards that Bette Davis has won, and we already covered her win for Dangerous, it may be a bit shocking to see that neither of her winning performances are that well known compared to her work in All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Now Voyager, or The Little Foxes.
I would say Jezebel does rank as a performance of hers that was on the top tier rather than the lower, but it really does feel like it is a step above being an imitation of Scarlett O'Hara before that iconic film came out a year later.
Much has been said about Bette Davis being passed over for Scarlett O'Hara, even though I still think she was not the right fit for that role. However, Davis does do well here and I think it is a way to toss her an easy win over a relatively meek lineup.
I think I would've been prone to give her an Oscar for Of Human Bondage and Jezebel, but I would strongly consider it for her in 1941 (The Little Foxes), 1942 (Now Voyager), and 1962 (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?)
The woman should've had 3 or 4 Oscars on her mantle.
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#40 - Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
The 1950s for American cinema were pretty pulpy. When we struck gold, we truly struck it but otherwise, a lot of the big films that the Academy honored in that era have not stood the test of time.
I think The Three Faces of Eve is a prime example of a film that is just simply too much of a cheesy and greasy affair, BUT...I do think Joanne Woodward makes the film watchable.
As a woman who suffers from what is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder, Woodward imbues her part with a lot of passion and verve...and it is a shame that everyone around her doesn't seem to want to match that sense of vitality.
She also benefitted greatly from relatively weaker competition that year, too...so this is a case of a rather good performance that looked towards the future in terms of acting styles (i.e. The Actor's Studio/Strasberg) that mostly suffered due to the quality of the film. I think Woodward made for a good choice nevertheless.
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
As I mentioned before, this post was a LONG time coming. I found myself struggling with writing out this volume and swapped out multiple performances and moved many of these up and down through the ranking.
It goes without saying that comparing many different styles of performances and acting methods can be rather difficult because one minute, I might be singing the praises of a beautifully subtle performance and then the next, I might find that another actress did very little with her role.
It can be a fascinating process to see how certain performances work for ourselves and how others perceive them as well.
I think my last two volumes should ignite a little more passion within me as we inch closer to some truly remarkable performances.
I feel confident that the next volume will come a lot sooner than this one did.
CHECK OUT THE OTHER VOLUMES:
Upcoming: 39-21
Upcoming: 20-1
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